Horizons and Linguistics Changes in the Prehistory of the Central Andes

Abstract

In this article the author compares from an archaeological perspective two models used in paleo-linguistic studies. The first is inspired by the discussion on the formation of the Indo-European family and is diffusionist and evolutionary in nature. The second emerges from debates on the history of the Semitic language family in which the emphasis is on mechanisms of interaction: between core and periphery, and, lingua franca with local languages and dialects. The author concludes that it is the second model that might allow us to describe properly the environmental characteristics and particular causes which determined the transformations of the linguistic map of the prehistoric Central Andes. To judge from the impressive stability of cultural boundaries which overlap with hypothetical language frontier, the distribution of pre-Hispanic languages in Colonial times reconstructed by linguists ought to coincide with a map of the proto-languages in the mid-first millennium BC (cal.). New relationships at different levels — and also certain distances — seem to have been established during two periods of instability, after the decline of Chavín, and, after the collapse of Huari and Tiahuanaco. It is likely that both proto-Quechua and proto-Aimara, began to assume the role of general languages for Huari and Tiahuanaco, respectively, starting in the Middle Horizon. The exceptional spread of these languages is likely due to their role as general languages.