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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 33–62

Chapter 2
The changing rhythm of Yucatan Spanish

| North Carolina State University
| North Carolina State University

This is a real time sociolinguistic analysis of the changing rhythm of Yucatan Spanish (YS), measured by four rhythm metrics: %V, ΔC, Vnpvi and Crpvi. We compare apparent time data, previously collected in 2005, with real time data collected 11 years later, in 2016, analyzing the prosodic rhythm of YS across three age groups (2005 older vs. younger; 2016 younger) and two language groups (Maya-Spanish bilinguals vs. Spanish monolinguals). Results indicate that younger speakers are moving away from the Maya-influenced rhythm of traditional YS, and are instead adopting a rhythm similar to Mexico City Spanish. These changes are explained as a process of new dialect formation/koineization, as the dialect stabilizes after a period of intense dialect and language contact.

Keywords: prosodic rhythm, Yucatan Spanish, language contact, real time sociolinguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Yucatan Spanish accent
  • 3.Prosodic rhythm and timing metrics in studies of Spanish
    • 3.1Rhythm and metrics
    • 3.2Rhythmic timing in Spanish
    • 3.3Rhythmic timing in Yucatec Maya
    • 3.4Contact effects in rhythmic timing
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Real and apparent time in sociolinguistics
    • 4.2Data and participants
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Age group mean values
    • 5.2Speaker patterns
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.02mic
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