Media Lengua

Media Lengua
Quichuañol
Chaupi-shimi/ Media Lengua
Native toEcuador
RegionImbabura
Cotopaxi
EthnicityCayambe (Imbabura Media Lengua)
Native speakers
~2,600 (2005, 2011)[1][2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mue (Salcedo Media Lengua)
Glottologmedi1245
This audio clip is a brief sample of the Media Lengua language spoken in Pijal, Imbabura, Ecuador. The recording was produced during an elicitation session where the speaker was asked for an oral translation of Spanish sentences. The audio clip contains subtitles in English, Kichwa, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. Media Lengua is also available, but Wiki subtitles currently has no language code for this language.

Media Lengua, also known as Chaupi-shimi Chaupi-lengua, Chaupi-Quichua, Quichuañol, Chapu-shimi or llanga-shimi,[nb 1][3] (roughly translated to "half language" or "in-between language") is a mixed language with Spanish vocabulary and Kichwa grammar, most conspicuously in its morphology. In terms of vocabulary, almost all lexemes (89%[1][4]), including core vocabulary, are of Spanish origin and appear to conform to Kichwa phonotactics. Media Lengua is one of the few widely acknowledged examples of a "bilingual mixed language" in both the conventional and narrow linguistic sense because of its split between roots and suffixes.[5][6] Such extreme and systematic borrowing is only rarely attested, and Media Lengua is not typically described as a variety of either Kichwa or Spanish. Arends et al., list two languages subsumed under the name Media Lengua: Salcedo Media Lengua and Media Lengua of Saraguro.[7] The northern variety of Media Lengua, found in the province of Imbabura, is commonly referred to as Imbabura Media Lengua[2][8] and more specifically, the dialect varieties within the province are known as Pijal Media Lengua and Angla Media Lengua.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Stewart was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Gómez-Rendón2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Pallares, A. (2002). From peasant struggles to Indian resistance: the Ecuadorian Andes in the late twentieth century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
  4. ^ Muysken, Pieter (1997). "Media Lengua", in Thomason, Sarah G. Contact languages: a wider perspective Amsterdam: John Benjamins (pp. 365-426)
  5. ^ Backus Ad. 2003. Can a mixed language be conventionalised alternational codeswitching? in Matras & Bakker (eds.) The Mixed Language Debate: theoretical and empirical advances Mouton de Gruyter Berlin: 237-/270.
  6. ^ McConvell, Patrick, and Felicity Meakins. 2005. Gurindji Kriol: A Mixed Language Emerges from Code-switching. Quatro Fonologias Quechuas, 25(1), 9-30.
  7. ^ Arends, Muysken, & Smith (1995), Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gómez-Rendón was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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