THE USE OF MIXTEC AND SPANISH BY MIXTECS MIGRANTS IN A NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE CITY OF ENSENADA, BAJA CALIFORNIA

Abstract

In the Baja California peninsula, sociolinguistic studies are meager, particularly towards indigenous languages. Mixtec, the predominant indigenous language in the region, presents little description that allows us to know the sociolinguistic dynamics in which it is immersed. Due to this situation, the present work aims to characterize the use of the Mixtec and Spanish language in a group of migrants in the Las Flores neighborhood of the city of Ensenada, Baja California.

Based on the theoretical and methodological proposal of Terborg and García (2011a, 2011b), we analyze the use of Mixtec and Spanish, through the application of a questionnaire to a subset of the population of the Las Flores neighborhood (n = 117) together with the analysis proposed by these authors. One of the relevant results is that children and adolescents present a high degree of vitality, but it is notable that adults are no longer fully transmitting their native language to new generations.