In recent decades Mexico has moved to recognize the linguistic rights of its many indigenous languages and cultures. For the first time in the history of Mexico, this was enshrined in a 2001 amendment in the country's Constitution recognizing the rights of the indigenous communities 'to preserve and enrich their languages, knowledge, and every…

This dissertation project examines the language contact situation of Chipilo, a Veneto-Spanish bilingual community of immigrant origin in central Mexico, focusing both on the social motivations for the sustained bilingualism observed and the linguistic outcomes in the Spanish of the community. Chipilo is a unique community in that Veneto, a…

Language shift is the process by which a speech community in a contact situation (i.e. consisting of bilingual speakers) gradually stops using one of its two languages in favor of the other. The causal factors of language shift are generally considered to be social, and researchers have focused on speakers' attitudes (both explicit and unstated)…