Documentation of vocabulary acquisition in bilingual Qom-Spanish children in Argentina

Abstract

This study documents vocabulary acquisition in bilingual Qom - Spanish indigenous children. The Qom ethnic group is one of the largest in Argentina (INDEC, 2010). Qom l’aqtaqa (a Guaycuruan language) is characterized by the morphological complexity of nouns and verbs, tending towards polysynthesis and agglutination. Only 44.3% of the Qom population over 5 years of age speak Qom l’aqtaqa at home (ECPI, 2004-2005). In rural communities language attrition has increased, due to the spread of social media and schooling in traditional Spanish monolingual contexts (Hetch, 2017). High quality bilingual education in the early years of schooling is crucial to fostering bilingual acquisition, intergenerational transmission, and cultural identity. We assessed Qom and Spanish vocabulary from preschool through the early school years to inform educational interventions and extend the literature on bilingual development. We developed adaptations of the Computerized Comprehension Task (Author, 2012) in Qom and Chaco Spanish. Item selection was based on word frequency in recordings of household interactions (corpus: Author, 2011- 2019) and interviews with native speakers. 70 bilingual children (x= 5.5 years; range=3.0 to 7.0) were assessed by monolingual Spanish and bilingual Qom teachers. Regression analyses revealed a positive trajectory in Spanish: the association between age and accuracy was positive (from 3 to 5 ⏀= .751, p= .00 and from 5 to 7: ⏀= .289, p= .048) and between age and latency was negative (from 3 to 5: ⏀= -.661, p= .00 and from 5 to 7: ⏀= -.222, p=.057). Qom showed a positive association with vocabulary from 3 to 5 (accuracy ⏀= .506, p= .037 and latency ⏀= -.780 p= .00), but the association with accuracy was negative from 5 to 7 years (⏀=.-.58 p=.00). This points to potential Indigenous language attrition relative to the majority language in the early school years.