Dos caminos del mestizaje lingüístico

The chapu shimi and the jopará are two mixed verieties. These are a product of a centennial contact of Spanish and an indigenous language, the Ecuadorian kichwa and the Paraguayan guaraní. The two mixed varieties, however, exhibit diametrically opposed configurations, where lexical and structural borrowing are common to the first variety, while code alternations are a trait of the second. This leads to the classification of the chapu shimi within the group of bilingual mixed languages, and the jopará as a relatively unstable mixed sociolect of a wide variation.

Key words: linguistic contact, mixed languages, mestizaje, lexical borrowing, code alternation.