| Summary: | Long-term contact of Santiagueño Quechua speakers with the majority Spanish-speaking population has modified their linguistic repertoire. Language mixing on all linguistic levels, variable loss of competence in Quechua and language shift to Spanish were assessed by means of sociolinguistic interviews, linguistic elicitation techniques and ethnographic work. Language shift can be interpreted within a long-term sociohistorical pattern of social inequality and subordination of one group (Quechua-speaking, traditional American Indian culture} to another (Spanish-speaking, modem Euro-American culture}.This study attempts to insert Santiagueño Quechua within current research on other syncretic or mixed American Indian-European languages such as Media Lengua, Mexicano and Michif Cree, all the result of intense cultural contact between American Indian and European languages.
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