Quechua Language

Imaynalla (Hello, how are you?) Nice to meet you, my name is Jon, I see you want to learn the Quechua language, you are in the right place.

I won’t bore you with a long introduction, you are here to learn a language, in this online course I will try to make the lessons as practical as possible, with short theoretical frameworks.

Now we will analyze the Quechua language family.

Quechua: a language family

Quechua is not a dialect or a unique language, it is a linguistic family consisting of about 45 languages and dialects closely related to each other. It is mainly spoken in the Andean region of South America and approximately 10 million people speak it.

The word “Quechua” comes from ‘Qheswa’, this word refers to a valley with a temperate climate.

The Quechua-speakers did not refer to their language as Quechua or Qheswa, however Domingo de Santo Tomás, author of the first Quechua dictionary entitled “Lexicon and Vocabulary of the General Language of Peru”, was the first to use the word Qhiswa, to refer into the lingua franca of the region, without having explained to Posterity his reasons.

Possibly he took the lexical terms of the town of Qhiswa Panpa, in the vicinity of the Pachachaka and Matará river in the current department of Apurírnac in Peru, where he lived for several years, publishing his first book in 1560, in Valladolid, Spain.

Qheswa means ‘valley with a temperate climate’, ideal areas for the production of corn and kiswar (buddleja incana).

The name that Quechua speakers commonly give their language is “Runa simi“, which means “The language of the people” or “The speech of the people” (Runa: people, simi: mouth, speech, language), also receives other names.

In the Quechua language family there are many variants, and many of them are very far from each other, in some cases there is little mutual intelligibility; The Huanca variant could even be considered a separate language.

Origin and history of the Quechua language

Contrary to what some may think, the most accepted is that Quechua did not originate in Cusco, but, like other languages, its origin is due to the union of several languages in a social process, which has to do with wars, migration, trade, etc.

There are many theories regarding the origin of Quechua language, which are passionately discussed. Some researchers think that it originated in central Peru (perhaps on the coast) around 2600 B.C.

Why precisely in this area? Due to the great diversity of variants that exist in a relatively small geographic space, between the Ancash, Huánuco, Pasco, Junín, Huancavelica regions and small areas of Lima, as we see in the following image:

Therefore, many researchers conclude that Quechua language, or what we would call Proto-Quechua, originated in central Peru and from there continued to evolve until reaching such a wide variety of dialects. (Do I put my hands to the fire for these conclusions? Of course not, it may be that in the future there will be new investigations that show that Quechua originated elsewhere, we will see what happens).

As time passed, Quechua continued to expand until it reached the area of Cusco, Ayacucho, Apurímac, among others. At that time there were only small kingdoms in these regions.

And one of those small kingdoms, Cusco, became the first period of development of the Inca culture. Under the rule of Pachacutec (Pacha kutiq) this small kingdom expanded into a great empire, but, something was needed -What?: A lingua franca to facilitate the administration of his domains.

Therefore, the Incas used Quechua as their official language, and it became the lingua franca of Tahuantinsuyo, the name that the Inca State receives.

Where is the Quechua language spoken?

The Incas flourished in the territories that Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia currently occupy until 1533 A.D. And although the Tahuantinsuyo only dominated these territories for approximately 100 years, Quechua spread throughout its territory and is still actively used today.

When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, Quechua had already spread throughout a large portion of western South America, and continued to expand even after that, because the Spaniards used it in their missionary work.

However, with the passing of the years and the advancement of the Spanish language as the main language in the region, the area of influence of Quechua was reduced, and even worse during the period of the republic, it was relegated to the background and object of prejudice.

Currently, the Quechua language has the following geographical distribution:

What does yellow and light blue mean? Let’s move on to it:

Variants or dialects of Quechua

Now, despite the fact that the Incas made Quechua official throughout Tahuantinsuyo, many variants continued to exist.

Currently the Quechua language family has been divided into 2 large groups: Quechua I and Quechua II, which in turn are subdivided into many other variants, let’s see a schematic of the Quechua variants:

As you can see, there is great diversity, what do the codes that appear next to the names of the Quechua language variants mean? These are the ISO/DIS 639-3 codes, in which you can find 44 variants of Quechua, just use the search engine on that page and type: Quechua, Quichua or Inga (Quechua variant from Colombia).

However, you will also notice that some variants do not have ISO 639-3 code, why? Well, these variants are not registered in the ISO, but they are recognized by several researchers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) has classified the family as a macrolanguage, a category created by this institution to describe those lineages that for political or social reasons are considered as if they were a single language against linguistic evidence.

Let’s talk now about the 2 main branches of the language family:

Quechua I – Wáywash

As we said in previous paragraphs, one of the most important reasons to believe that Quechua language originated in central Peru is the great diversity of linguistic varieties in a relatively small geographic space.

And not only because of the diversity (because Quechua II also has many variants), but also because of the great difference between these variants of Quechua, even sometimes, almost, there is no mutual intelligibility.

Quechua I is divided into 2 groups: the Wáylay and the Wánkay, this is done as they are both the most extreme dialects, the most differentiated from each other, so that the dialectal variants are grouped according to their proximity to one of these 2 extremes. In addition there is the Pacaraos that does not belong to any of these 2 groups.

In turn, these 2 groups are divided into 5 zones in which there is better mutual understanding.

• QUECHUA I (WÁYWASH)
  • Pacaraos
    • Pacaraos
  • Central Peru (Centrals)
    • Zone I: Ancash – Conchucos (Wáylay)
      • Huaylas (qwh)
      • Corongo (qwa)
      • Sihuas (qws)
      • Northern Conchucos (qxn)
      • Southern Conchucos (qxo)
      • Huamalíes (qvh)
    • Zone II: Alto Marañón – Alto Huaura – Alto Huallaga (Intermediate Wáylay / Wánkay)
      • Chiquián (qxa)
      • Cajatambo – North Lima (qvl)
      • Margos – Yarowilca – Lauricocha (qvm)
      • Huallaga (qub)
      • Panao or Pachitea (qxh)
    • Zone III: Yaru (Wánkay)
      • Alto Huaura
      • Chaupihuaranga (qur)
      • Santa Ana de Tusi (qxt)
      • San Rafael – Huariaca (qva)
      • North Juníne (qvn)
    • Zone IV: Jauja – Huanca (Wánkay)
      • Huaylla Wanka (qvw)
      • Jauja Wanka (qxw)
    • Zone V: Huangáscar – Topará (Wánkay)
      • Yauyos (qux)
      • Chincha (qxc)

This great variety not only reflects minor differences between variant and variant, such as what happens with the different accents that exist in English, these accents do not make communication difficult, since many times only the pronunciation of certain words or consonants varies. Not so in Quechua, the differences are greater.

And the Quechua language of central Peru (Quechua I) is the one with the most divergent variants, and is even more divergent with the Quechua of the south and north (Quechua II).

Some believe that the difference between Quechua I and Quechua II is the same as between Spanish and Portuguese or Italian or French (all languages from Latin).

Note that Portuguese is not as far from Spanish as Italian, and this in turn is less distant than French. In the same way, there are variants of Quechua I further away from Quechua II and others not so far, but still far enough away to make mutual understanding quite difficult.

Therefore it can be considered that Quechua I and Quechua II are different languages that probably had the same origin, in fact many agree that Quechua II evolved from a variant of Quechua I.

Quechua II – Wámpuy

Quechua II is the one that covers the largest geographical space and is divided into 3 subgroups: Yungay (QIIA), Chinchay (QIIB) and southern (QIIC), although they are not as different from each other as the Quechua I variants, yes there are remarkable differences, for example, the communication between an Ecuadorian and Bolivian Quechua speaker is not very easy.

These 3 subgroups are divided in turn into various variants of Quechua:

• QUECHUA II (WÁMPUY)
  • Quechua IIA (Yungay)
    • Central
      • Incahuasi – Cañaris (qhf)
      • Cajamarca (qvc)
    • Northern
      • Laraos
      • Lincha – Madeán – Viñac
      • Apuri
      • Chocos
  • Quechua IIB (Chinchay, northern)
    • Ecuador – Loreto (Kichwa) / Colombia (Inga)
      • Imbabura (qvi)
      • Pichincha (qud)
      • Salasaca (qxl)
      • Chimborazo (qug)
      • Cañar – Loja (qxr, qvj)
      • Tena (quw)
      • Napo (qvo)
      • Northern Pastaza (qvz)
      • Andean Inga (inb)
      • Jungle Inga (inj)
    • San Martín / Ucayali
      • Lamas [Llakwash] (qvs)
    • Chachapoyas
      • Kichwa Chachapoyas (quk)
  • Quechua IIC (Sureño)
    • Cusco – Collao
      • Cusco Quechua (quz)
      • Puno Quechua (qxp)
      • Arequipa – La unión Quechua (qxu)
      • South Bolivian (quh)
      • North Bolivian (qul)
    • Ayacucho – Chanka
      • Ayacucho Quechua (quy)
      • Eastern Apurimac Quechua (qve)
    • Argentina
      • Santiago del Estero Quichua (qus)

Northern Quechua (Kichwa shimi) is sufficiently different from Southern Quechua to hinder mutual understanding, although they do not make it impossible, it is only a matter of getting used to it a little, since their vocabulary and grammar are quite similar.

Kichwa shimi, Northern Quichua or Quechua IIB

Commonly called “Quichua“, it is the second in number of speakers, after southern Quechua, with 2.5 million speakers.

The Quichua has a set of variants, which are mutually intelligible, which are mainly located in the mountains and eastern Ecuador, in the southwest of Colombia and in the northern Peruvian jungle.

Efforts have been made in Ecuador to standardize this language into a unified Kichwa or Shukllachishka Kichwa.

In Kichwa there is no distinction between the /k/ and /q/ phonemes, something very characteristic in southern Quechua, among other notable differences.

Southern Quechua

It also has a set of variants, which are mutually intelligible, which are mainly located in southern Peru, western Bolivia, and in certain areas of Argentina and Chile.

Among the variants of southern Quechua language there is a low divergence and good mutual intelligibility, lower compared to other subgroups of the linguistic family.

An example of this is the “Ñuqanchik” program that is broadcast on the state channel TV Peru, in which news presenters use various variants of Quechua, including Cusco Quechua and Ayacucho Quechua, maintaining a very good intelligibility.

Current situation of the Quechua language

There have been many efforts to promote the use of Quechua, achieving good results, however, in terms of writing, there have not been many advances, since the material published in Quechua is very scarce, and it is not widely disseminated either, making it remain primarily as an oral language.

• Quechua is currently one of the official languages in Peru and Bolivia, along with Spanish and Aymara. It is used on a daily basis both in rural areas and in many homes in Andean cities. Being for many their mother tongue.
• Unfortunately, a large percentage of Quechua speakers cannot read or write Quechua, so Quechua is mostly an oral language. If you are looking for books in Quechua, you will mostly find Quechua learning manuals, publications related to Quechua culture (folklore, stories, music, etc.), which, unfortunately, does not reach the general public, making Spanish continue to be the main language written among Quechua speakers.
• In the formal context, in relation to the central government, administration, commerce, education and the media, Spanish is generally used, but there are occasional efforts to use Quechua and other languages. For example, Quechua language is already taught in schools, although there is a lot to improve.
• Quechua is also widely used in Andean music.
• Many older Quechua speakers are monolingual, understand little Spanish, it is much more common for young people to be bilingual.
• In Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador there have been movements to revitalize Quechua, which has resulted in the introduction of Quechua teaching in schools, including bilingual teaching, however there are few written materials and even fewer teaching materials.
• In the digital sphere, Quechua has very little presence. Is there a popular web page that deals with everyday, practical and interesting topics that reaches a large audience? Unfortunately no. Are there books, newspapers or other digital publications in Quechua? Very few, which is essential at this time.

Writing

• Do you want to know the Quechua alphabet and pronunciation? Click here.
• Do you want to learn the Quechua grammar? Click here.

No evidence has been found that the Incas had a writing system, the only examples of information recorded by them are the Khipus (quipus), which consisted of strings of various colors knotted in a specific way, managing to create a code to store information , mainly numerical data for accounting and census purposes, although there are also scholars who indicate that they were also used to store narrations.

With the arrival of the Spanish, the Latin writing system was introduced, so the Quechua language began to be written with that alphabet. It was first made in 1560 in the Lexicon or Vocabulary of Domingo de Santo Tomas and in some religious texts.

Until the 20th century, Quechua was written with an orthography based on Spanish, but in 1975, the Peruvian government began to give new vigor to the language and to propose a new form of writing, and thus better reflect the pronunciation of Quechua.

Since then, much has been debated about Quechua writing, and although linguists and other scholars agree on many points and have a sincere desire to achieve unified and standard writing, there is still much to work on.

Added to this, there is little diffusion of publications in Quechua, it is true that books are published, but they only reach a few, on the other hand, print media are less and less used, giving way to digital media and there is not much Quechua’s presence in these media.

It will be useless to debate on the writing of Quechua until it has enough diffusion, I am of the idea that it is necessary to publish more and debate less.

From QuechuaLanguage.Com I intend to teach English speakers at least a basic level to speak Quechua, this page is aimed at people who do not speak the Quechua language, not at Quechua speakers who want to learn to write and read, that is why I use the system penta-vocal, because it seems to me the most practical and intuitive, but of course I respect the trivocal system, and it seems totally valid to me, although I differ in some points and agree in others.

I hope the information presented here is helpful to you, and I encourage you to learn this beautiful language.