Bilingual Vocabulary Development in Mexican Indigenous Infants: The Effects of Language Exposure from Home and Mothers’ Language Dominance

Abstract

This study evaluates how language exposure and mothers’ language dominance relate to infants’ early bilingual vocabulary development in a low-socioeconomic status (SES) sample from an understudied population: Mexican Indigenous bilinguals. Thirty-two mother–child dyads participated. All mothers were bilingual speakers of Spanish and one of Mexican Indigenous languages, including Zapotec, Mixtec, and Otomi. Infants’ (between 16 and 37 months) vocabulary size was estimated in both languages using the Mexican Spanish version of the MacArthur-Bates CDI II. Infants’ language exposure, mothers’ bilingual profile, and their SES were estimated on numerical scales. The results of Spearman correlations showed infants’ vocabulary size in Spanish grows with age, while their vocabulary in the Indigenous language depends on relative language exposure. Mothers’ language dominance correlated with Indigenous language exposure and infants’ vocabulary size in the Indigenous language. These findings are discussed in the context of early bilingual vocabulary acquisition in speakers of minority languages.