El español afroperuano en los tiempos de la etnización: de la descripción de sus rasgos estructurales a su localización en el dominio variacional hispánico y en el “debate criollo”

Abstract

This paper describes the linguistic features of Afro-Peruvian Spanish as spoken in the municipality of El Carmen, in the immediate vicinity of Chincha. These are linguistic variants that can mostly be found in other parts of Peru, being always stigmatized as ‘peasant’, ‘vulgar’, etc. Some features, however, are rather unusual within their national context and may even be related to Caribbean Spanish or to other afrovernacular varieties spoken in Latin America. Against this background, some comments about the place of Afro-Peruvian Spanish in the Peruvian variational context and in the so-called Afro-Hispanic Linguistics turn out to be mandatory. Finally, this paper highlights the actual need of an accurate variational description of Afro-Peruvian Spanish, even more as the Afro-Peruvian community is demanding and, fortunately, gaining visibility in today’s Peru (although much work remains to be done).

Keywords

• restructuración parcial
• Varietätenlinguistik
• estructura informativa
• etnización