Chapter 7

Spanish loanwords in Amerindian languages and their implications for the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Spanish in Mesoamerica

This paper shows that the phonetic shape of the Spanish loanwords in the Amerindian languages of Mesoamerica is precious evidence that proves that different variants of Spanish were spoken in the Americas at the beginning of the conquest. Such variants are Andalusian Spanish, Old Castilian Spanish and the Latin American koines that resulted from the leveling of the different 16th century migrant Spanish dialects. The Spanish loanwords in the Amerindian languages show as well that a later development such as the opposition between the apico-alveolar concave retracted sibilant /s̺/ and the interdental sibilant /θ/ was not adopted in the 17th century Spanish variants in the Americas. This was so, because the apico-alveolar concave retracted sibilant /s̺/ was lost in the Latin American koines by the end of the 16th century. Instead, the aspirated /s̪/ in coda position was part of the popular koines that were formed in the coastal lands (or “tierras bajas”) in the Americas, as reflected in the loanwords to the Mesoamerican Indian languages. The merger of the palatal lateral /λ/ with the palatal non-lateral /ʝ/ (“yeísmo”) slowly became widespread in the Americas and in the southern region of Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. In the modern period this change continues to spread in Madrid and the Northern part of Spain.