Meso-America as a Linguistic Area

Abstract

That Meso-America constitutes a legitimate linguistic area has been questioned. To address this question, concepts of ‘areal linguistics’ are here surveyed and refined. Proposed Meso-American areal traits are reconsidered against these findings, and are compared with those of other established linguistic areas. Meso-America proves to be a particularly strong linguistic area. These results contribute both to the study of Meso-American languages and to an understanding of areal linguistics generally.