The Use of Portuguese in Border Uruguayan Spanish, Lecture by Mark Waltermire

For those interested in (Spanish) linguistics and bilingualism.

This event is a lecture/presentation of research given by Mark Waltermire, professor of Spanish linguistics at New Mexico State University. He will talk about loan words and codeswitching in Rivera, Uruguay, a city on the border with Brazil and as a consequence a city with a fair amount of Spanish-Portuguese bilingualism.

Until recently, the Uruguayan government actively sought to prohibit the use of Portuguese along the country’s border with Brazil, yet the use of this language in border communities continues to this day. As a result, the Spanish spoken in these communities includes Portuguese loan words and code-switching. This presentation focuses on the social conditioning of Portuguese use in the Spanish of Rivera, the largest city on the border.