Between alpi and etlen: linguistic atlases and the study of linguistic change

Linguistic atlases are often described as snapshots of the linguistic reality of a territory, since they offer information on the linguistic diversity of speakers with similar profiles at the same time. As documentary treasures, these works constitute a corpus of great value not only for understanding the linguistic diversity determined by space but also as a point of comparison for diachronic studies. In this exploratory work, I investigate the performance of two linguistic atlases of rural speech to analyze linguistic change in real-time in a border area between western Asturias and eastern Lugo. The information examined is taken from the variants documented for 47 variables investigated in eight municipalities that were the focus of research in the two projects. The comparison of phonetic and morphosyntactic materials from the Atlas Lingüístico de la Península Ibérica and the Estudiu de la Transición Llingüística na Zona Eo-Navia allows us to identify some of the patterns of the temporal evolution of changes in this border area.