The Spanish of the northern Peruvian Andes is part of the dialectal complex labelled Andean Spanish, and it is spoken throughout the northern regions of the Peruvian highlands, approximately in the former zone of dissemination of the extinct Culle language. This linguistic variety has been systematically disregarded in the available descriptions of Andean Spanish. Its distinctive traits -described in Andrade (2016)- include, in the phonetic-phonological, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic levels, some transferences from the ancient indigenous language, but also retentions of canonical Spanish features that are currently not attested in the majority of Spanish varieties, as well as some probable innovations. The purpose of this article is to picture the external situation of language contact that could likely have produced this specific cluster of features, following the model of sociolinguistic typology proposed by Peter Trudgill (2010, 2011). I conclude that the Spanish of the northern Peruvian Andes can be straightforwardly described as a traditional variety as defined by this author. As an outcome of this analysis, I expect to increase our knowledge about the history of this variety, as well as to subject Trudgill's theoretical proposal to an empirical evaluation in the Hispanic realm.