Celtic influence

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>The middle and upper classes speak Spanish and the lower classes generally
>speak Runa [AKA Quechua/Qheshwa]>

-- it's geographical, actually.  There aren't many Quechua speakers on the
coast, except recent migrants from the highlands.  In the 1930's, when my
mother was growing up there, nearly everyone locally born spoke Spanish.  My
mother tells me that apart from more slang and a less educated vocabulary, the
people she met in the streets spoke pretty much the same variety of Spanish as
she acquired in her convent school and among upper-class Peruvians.

Things were different in the highlands, of course.