Paper short abstract:

This paper will look at the different ways that linguistic difference has become an ideologized sign of inter-indigenous social difference between Quechua and Aymara speakers in the Peruvian Altiplano, influencing speaker identities and perceptions of the boundaries between languages and speakers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will demonstrate how changing ideologies of "language" correspond to evolving stances and ideologies of inter-indigenous difference in Puno, Peru. Located in the Peruvian Altiplano, Puno is home to two major indigenous languages, Quechua and Aymara. Today, speakers of both these languages participate in a dominant discourse of ethnolinguistic difference that highlights the differences between the languages and emphasizes an essentialized view of ethnic differences between their corresponding speakers. However, a closer ethnographic view of this region shows that linguistic differences were not the main index of difference in the past, and may not continue to be so in the future. Through a combination of ethnographic and linguistic analysis, I will show how inter-indigenous difference in the region has been influenced to varying degrees by a fluid and changing set of ideological stances towards "language" and linguistic difference. In these examples, I will argue that while linguistic differences occupy an important social role in defining inter-indigenous relations in the region, the degree to which it has in the past and will continue to do so in the future is not as fixed as everyday practices and interactions involving these linguistic mediums are continuing to change in relation to competing discourses on contact, linguistic purity, and indigeneity. These shifts not only have altered how these languages are spoken today, but may also change the future of these speech communities and how the history of Quechua-Aymara relations may be remembered and recruited into other discursive practices.