En los márgenes del contacto náhuatl–español. Los últimos estertores del náhuatl

Abstract

The present contribution analyses various nahuatl–spanish contact varieties that represent the last throats of the language in different regions where nahuatl is on the verge of extinction or is already a dead language. The analysis of the contact phenomena on which this work is based includes all levels of linguistic analysis, exploring questions such as the viability of concurrent explanations in understanding the processes of language change and shift, the close relationship between the extreme processes of simplification and obsolescence and the situation of linguistic death that prevails in similar communities, concluding not only that there is a direct relationship between the processes of language shift and the social situation, but very interesting parallelisms between the processes of linguistic birth and death, resembling what in the literature has been termed a pidgin or the characteristics of the so–called baby or foreign talk.