Margarita Jara (World Languages and Cultures) gave her Presidential Address at the annual meeting at Cleveland State University on September 24. Her paper was titled, "Northwestern Amazonian Spanish as a macro-region: The roles of the (socio)-linguist."
Spanish has coexisted with many indigenous languages in the western Amazonian area since colonial times. As a result of the long-term language contact, new varieties of Amazonian Spanish emerged. Studies on these varieties are still scarce, although they have increased in the last decade. Recent research shows that Spanish linguistic features are shared across political borders and point to a macro-region. The conference paper discussed the socio-historical and linguistic contexts of the expansion of the Northwestern Amazonian Spanish in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, emphasizing the contextual relationship between the Andes and Western Amazon. The presentation highlighted the roles (and responsibilities) that (socio)linguists have in linguistic documentation, increasing the visibility of Amazonian languages and their linguistic varieties, and areas in need of future research.
