Acknowledgments

This book stems from my PhD dissertation submitted to Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and exists because of the support of many people. I will never stop thanking my lucky stars for the outstanding mentorship of Stephanie Hackert, who made my dreams come true. I also thank Hans-Jörg Schmid for his longstanding contributions to my linguistic education at LMU.

The work I present is the result of the expertise, time and friendship generously afforded to me by Melva Lowe de Goodin, Carmela Lowe de Gobern, Marva Christie, Belsis Bishop, Manuel Fálquez, Rafael Newell, Verónica Forte, Glenroy James, Gerardo Maloney and Tanya Tomlinson, as well as everyone who agreed to be recorded for this project. Thank you with all my heart for opening your homes and workplaces to me, for feeding me and guiding me. I am grateful for the board of directors of SAMAAP in 2018–2019 for their essential support. I thank fellow researchers Caroline Lieffers and Katie Zien for their help and reassurance during my time in the field and beyond.

Fieldwork was funded by the Bayerische Amerika-Akademie (BAA) in 2018 and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in 2019. I am grateful to both institutions for seeing the potential of this project.

I thank my friends and coworkers Melanie Keller and Diana Wengler for their loyalty and assistance every step of the way. I am indebted to Diana for her patient statistical teachings.

My husband, Yann, embarked on this strange project by my side, trusted the process and fell in love with Panama too – thank you for coming on this adventure with me.