15

extent or degree of native fluency is unknown. There is
some evidence that the Urus constituted a servant class
(Hardman, personal communication).

Differences among Aymara dialects have always
been considered minor from colonial times to the present.
The priests who went to the mines in Potosi to preach
and hear confessions had no trouble understanding Aymara
speakers from different provinces, according to the Jesuit
missionary Ludovico Bertonio (1612, A 2). Bertonio
(1603b and 1612) occasionally identified certain forms
as preferred by the Lupaca but not until recent times
have compilers of Aymara word-lists or grammars some-
times indicated the geographical origins of the forms
cited. The published literature gives no indication
whatever of social differentiation of dialects as dis-

tinguished from regional variation.
1-2.3 Summary description of La Paz Aymara

The most complete and accurate ethnographic
and grammatical description of Aymara to date, based
on that spoken in Compi and Tiahuanaco, two communities
near La Paz, Bolivia, is contained in Outline of Aymara
phonological and grammatical structure by Hardman et al.
(1975:3). The Outline describes Aymara as a polysynthetic
language in which suffixes and retention or loss of

vowels perform almost all grammatical functions.