Acceso usuarios
The linguistic consequences of socioeconomic regression are explored with respect to the south Andean area (southern Peruvian sierra and highland Peru, presently Bolivia), where considerable wealth was generated early in the colonial period. The region in question was a central area of considerable political signi®cance due to the successful exploitation of silver between the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-seventeenth century.
Economic prosperity resulted in an auent lifestyle relished by the Spanishspeaking elite, who used a prestigious Peninsular dialect. A change in the opposite direction transpired as of the second half of the seventeenth century due mainly to the depletion of silver production. As a result, the region was relegated to a marginal, isolated, and increasingly ruralized area where archaisms can be found (both lexical and morphosyntactic). There is, in addition, transfer from the local indigenous language to Spanish. The process of standardization initiated in the opulence of the early colonial period has been reversed and has given rise to a process of destandardization that has persisted until the present.
