by Katja Hannß & Matthias Urban
Up to a 1000 years
Probably since the Aymara reached the Bolivian high plateau, i.e. (roughly) around 1100 or 1200 AD Interaction probably increased during (early) colonial times when the Chipaya were forced to settle down in one village (a so-called reduction; this is actually the way the still existing village of Santa Ana de Chipaya was founded) and encouraged (or forced) to assimilate to the Aymara lifestyle. The Chipaya constitute a small and rather secluded community in the western Bolivian highlands. The number of inhabitants of the only Chipaya village - Santa Ana de Chipaya - amounts to 1,000 to 2,000 people. The Chipaya language is acquired and spoken only in this one village, which otherwise is surrounded by an Aymara-speaking population. The overall relationship between Chipaya and Aymara people can be described as rather negative to hostile: the Aymara despise the Chipaya people for their largely non-pastoralist, non-agriculturalist lifestyle, while the Chipaya claim that the Aymara stole their land. This mutual dislike continues until today.
500 years
This is a rough estimation and refers to the time frame since the European colonisation of the Altiplano, which increased contact situations between Chipaya and Aymara people.
Since they came into contact.
Obviously, we do not have any sources on pre-Spanish times but since early colonial times (i.e. since the late 16th and early 17th century) the Spanish established 'reducciones', i.e. places where people from several groups were forced to live together. This also applies to the Chipaya and, actually, the community of Santa Ana de Chipaya was founded this way. Moreover, the Chipaya (as well as the Uru) people were aymaricised, i.e. forced or encouraged to give up their traditional aquatic lifestyle and adopt a lifestyle similar to their Aymara neighbours (pastoralists). Thus, intermarriage between these two groups probably occurs for at least several centuries.
Roughly 400 years.
see above
Up to a 1000 years
There are many conflicting views on the prehistoric distribution and spread of Central Andean languages, including Aymaran. Nevertheless, according to a majority view, the Aymaran language family is, for a number of reasons, thought to originate somewhere on the coast or adjacent highlands of Central Peru, significantly farther to the north of the site of Chipaya-Aymara contact in the Bolivian altiplano. From there, what would become the Aymara language proper would expand further south, and reach the altiplano of Bolivia in the Late Intermediate Period of the cultural chronology of the central Andes that began around 1000 AD (1000 years BP). This date thus forms the terminus post quem for the onset contact with Uru and Chipaya, which is usually tacitly assumed to have been established in situ at the point of Aymara expansion. A recent alternative view shifts the consolidation of Aymara on the altiplano back in time by several hundred years, up to the times of the Inca empire in the 14th and 15th centuries AD. Still, our specified date of 1000 AD as a terminus post quem would remain valid.
1800-2020 AD.
This is difficult to say. However, we consider it likely that the current prestige asymmetry between Aymara and Chipaya (from the point of view of Aymara speakers, at least) can be extrapolated to the prehistoric situation, as the Aymara expansion was likely driven by powerful socioeconomic dynamics and has, in the form of loanwords, even reached lowland languages. The contemporary situation thus likely represents to some extent a continuation of contact in the past. However, given that it might have time after first contact for the Aymara contact to penetrate into language use inside the local community, and that an alternative emerging view postdates the arrival of Aymara in the region by several hundred years, we believe that the greatest opportunities are to be sought some time after the Aymara expansion, plausibly in historic times and even in the very recent past, which we will use in the following as the basis for filling the questionnaire.
Possibly from 600 AD onward
This is, for a number of reasons, a difficult question for the Central Andes. For one, there are certain theories that deny that institutions like markets even existed in the ancient Central Andes with commodities exchanged within communities/societies rather than "traded". Long-distance trade relations usually were important mostly to get exotic valuables for local elites. But even if we accept that the notion of "trade" is relevant for prehistory, the answer strongly depends on whose point of view one adopts. Alfredo Torero has maintained that Aymara served as a trade language during the Middle Horizon, when the Wari and Tiwanaku cultures flourished (the latter being altiplano-based), though the implied association of Aymara is more with Wari than with Tiwanaku. This is not a commonly accepted theory however. If there is some truth to it, then we could say that commercial interactions involving Aymara speech might have started as early as 600 AD already. At least this would give a broad terminus post quem for such contacts. Commercial interactions might have started only significantly later, after the arrival of Aymara on the altiplano and only 1000 AD reached signficant intensities still later
the present and recent past (ca. 1800-2000)
For reasons of conservativeness and given how little we know about them for prehistory, we are again inclined to assume that it is the recent past and the present in which such activities are most intense.
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