New dynamics in bilingual Ayacucho

Abstract

In the first part of this contribution we present the Quechua Spanish Bilingualism Project (BQC) in Huamanga, capital of the department of Ayacucho, cradle of the Quechua-Chanca bilingualism. The project was started in 1968 by the San Marcos University of Lima in collaboration with the Institute of Peruvian Studies (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, IEP), under the coordination of Wolfgang Wölck from New York State University at Buffalo with the objective to analyze the sociolinguistic conditions for the implementation of bilingual education. The second part shows the sub-sample of the research on bilingualism in San Juan Bautista which was developed on the basis of two additional cross-section interviews in 1978 and 1996 into a longitudinal study that allowed us to relate socio-political changes to changes in the appreciation and perception of the languages in contact. In the final cross-section research in 2014 we again analyzed the language legislation in favor of the indigenous languages as well as the recent economic development and strategies to reduce the poverty and migration from rural to urban areas. In addition we focused our attention on young students who came recently from the countryside to the Huamanga University (Universidad Nacional de San Cristobal de Huamanga, UNSCH). This new academic scenario showed us that linguistic traumas from past violence are ceding to new dynamics in urban bilingualism but also raising news conflicts. We include Hatun Ñan, the project of affirmative action, initiated by the Catholic University in Lima together with the unsch and supported financially by the Ford Foundation which has the objective to integrate efficiently those rural students and to promote intercultural tolerance in the university as well as the revalorization of the indigenous languages (Quechua y Ashaninka).