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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. 83–102

Chapter 4
Social contact and linguistic convergence

The reduction of intervocalic /d/ in Bilwi, Nicaragua

| The University of Texas at San Antonio

The Spanish spoken along Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast has been described as a dialect divergent from Western Nicaraguan Spanish, and one commonly cited difference is the realization of intervocalic /b, d, ɡ/. The present study uses intervocalic /d/ as a litmus test to determine whether young Miskitu-Spanish bilinguals in Bilwi are maintaining a distinct coastal dialect of Spanish or converging on national norms as contact increases with monolingual speakers from the West. The results of a mixed-effects linear regression model using relative intensity to measure /d/ constriction show no significant differences between the young bilinguals in Bilwi and the monolinguals from Managua, suggesting that the unique coastal dialect is receding among younger speakers, whose Spanish phonological system is increasingly monolingual-like.

Keywords: Miskitu, Nicaraguan Spanish, spirantization, intervocalic /d/, bilingualism, languages in contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A brief history of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
  • 3.Voiced stop spirantization in the Spanish-speaking world
  • 4.Methods
  • 5.Results and discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.04cha
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