Afro-Bolivian Spanish. Lengua y Sociedad en el Mundo Hispánico (John Lipski) Iberoamericana Vervuert 20

Based on extensive fieldwork in the Afro-Bolivian communities, this book provides a detailed description of this unique and fascinating Afro-Bolivian dialect.

Highland Bolivia, known in colonial times as Alto Perú, was the site of the earliest massive importation of African slaves in Spanish America. Despite the hardships of colonial slavery and demographic assimilation, a small but identifiable Afro-Bolivian population known as Yungas remain in that area today. In a few isolated Yungas communities, a restructured Afro-Hispanic language survives alongside contemporary Spanish, evidently representing a survival of the pidginized Spanish once spoken by African-born slaves (bozales) in colonial Spanish America. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Afro-Bolivian communities, this book provides a detailed description of this unique and fascinating Afro-Bolivian dialect. In so doing, it highlights the importance of Yungas speech to Spanish dialect as well as creole studies.

John M. Lipski is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University (U. S. A.). His research focuses on language contact, variation, creolization, and contributions of the African diaspora to the diversification of Spanish and Portuguese. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in Latin America, Africa, the Pacific, and the United States. His numerous books and articles include Latin American Spanish (translated into Spanish and Japanese), The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea (1985), Fonetica y fonologia del espanol de Honduras (1987), The speech of the NEGROS CONGOS of Panama (1990), The Language of the Islenos of Louisiana (1990), El espanol de Malabo (1990), A History of Afro-Hispanic Language (2005), and Spanish in the United States (forthcoming).