166 Jahre tirolische Sprachgeschichte in Peru.

The German-speaking Europeans who migrated to Peru in 1857 consisted of approximately 300 individuals. Two-thirds of this population came from various Tyrolean dialect areas, while the remaining third originated from different provinces of the Rhineland. Thus, the German dialects spoken by both groups were inhomogeneous. The extreme conditions on the trek to the settlement destination altered their language makeup. Families with many children, being less mobile, were forced to align with the Tyrolean priest Josef Egg and reached the colony under his guidance. Meanwhile, almost half of the other settlers left the group. This migration pattern resulted in two distinct settler groups in Pozuzo: firstly, the Tyroleans, who came mainly from Tyrol’s Upper Inn Valley, whose dialects were fairly homogeneous and who had a stronger personal bond with the project’s spiritual leader. Secondly, the smaller group of Rhinelanders. They faced increasing pressure to assimilate, a development which favoured the emergence of the Tyrolean settlers’ Tirolés, as it is called today in Spanish. Tirolés is a new German settler dialect that evolved on the linguistic basis of Pozuzo’s specific contact situation. Currently, the district of Pozuzo (province of Oxapampa, department Pasco, Peru) is home to about 9.000 residents, less than 20 percent of them being of European decent. Among young people fluent Tirolés speakers are exceedingly rare. However, many enroll in German language courses at local schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]