Don Manuel Álvarez Nazario y la lingüística de Puerto Rico.

Abstract

This paper presents the contribution by Puerto Rican linguist Manuel Álvarez Nazario of some one hundred twenty papers on Puerto Rican Spanish published during fifty years of research. Starting with the two components (indigenous and African) that combined with the varieties of Spanish brought to the Antilles in the sixteenth century giving it its own personality, Álvarez Nazario‘s work constitutes a great and integrating macro project that investigates and documents all aspects of Puerto Rico‘s language through time. The paper‘s approach to this linguist‘s work allows for tracing his linguistic thinking regarding important issues, such as those concerning the base of Caribbean Spanish, the importance of indigenous and African languages, or current problems in education. Álvarez Nazario‘s great macro project, based on documented research, portrays the path of the Spanish language in Puerto Rico as a complex succession of continuities and adaptations throughout five centuries of sociocultural history.