Quechua
Qhichwa Simi, Runa Simi
Spoken in	Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina
Region	Central Andes
Ethnicity	Quechuas
Native speakers	10 million  (1987–2002)
Language family	Quechumaran? Quechua
Dialects	Quechua I     Ancash     Huánuco     Yaru     Wanka     Yauyos–Chincha Quechua II     Northern Peruvian     Northern       Kichwa (Ecuador)       Lowland Peruvian     Southern
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Peru and Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	qu
ISO 639-2	que
ISO 639-3	que
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Quechua (endonym: Runa Simi) is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from a common ancestral language. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably some 8 to 10 million speakers.^[1] At the time of the conquest, the Incans referred to their language as runasimi, only later to be called quechua by conquistadors. Many contemporary Andean Quechua speakers still call it runasimi (or regional variants thereof), literally "people speech", although "runa" here has the more specific sense of "indigenous Andean" people.

History: origins and divergence[link]

To compare with the historically known language families such as Romance, Germanic, Slavic or Arabic entails considering the linguistic process that explains other cases. Several studies (Alfredo Torero or Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino) show that the oldest form of Quechua appeared in Cajamarquilla, Lima. Afterwards, the main focus of this language was the famous zone of Pachacamac (Lima). A third period of expansion was Chincha (Ica). At this time, the Incas found out that the Quechua was very widespread and decided that this was a tool to achieve the unification of the Empire; thus, the language began to spread across the Andes more enthusiastically.

Quechua had already expanded across wide ranges of the central Andes long even before the Incas, who were just one among many groups who already spoke forms of Quechua across much of Peru. Quechua arrived at Cuzco and was influenced by languages like Aymara. This fact explains that the Cuzco variety was not the more widespread. In similar way, a diverse group of dialects appeared while the Inca Empire ruled and imposed Quechua.

After the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, Quechua continued to see considerable usage, as the "general language" and main means of communication between the Spaniards and the indigenous population, including for the Roman Catholic Church as a language of evangelisation. The range of Quechua thus continued to expand in some areas. However, the administrative and religious use of Quechua was terminated when it was banned from public use in Peru in the late 18th century in response to the Túpac Amaru II rebellion^[2] – even "loyal" pro-Catholic texts such as Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios Reales were banned.^[3] Despite a brief revival immediately after independence, the prestige of Quechua decreased sharply and it gradually became restricted to rural areas.^[4]

The oldest written records of the language are those of Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, who arrived in Peru in 1538 and learned the language from 1540, publishing his Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los indios de los reynos del Perú in 1560. ^{[5] [6] [7]}

Current status[link]

Today, Quechua has the status of an official language in Bolivia and Peru, along with Spanish.

Currently, the major obstacle to the diffusion of the usage and teaching of Quechua is the lack of written material in the Quechua language, namely books, newspapers, software, magazines, etc. Thus, Quechua, along with Aymara and the minor indigenous languages, remains essentially an oral language.

In recent years, Quechua has been introduced in Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, which is, however reaching only a part of the Quechua-speaking population.

In spite of a growing realization of its value as a national symbol and vehicle of native culture in the respective countries, there is an ongoing process of Quechua-speaking populations shifting to Spanish for the purposes of social advancement.^[8]

Quechua and Spanish are now heavily intermixed, with many hundreds of Spanish loanwords in Quechua. Conversely, Quechua phrases and words are commonly used by Spanish speakers. In southern rural Bolivia, for instance, many Quechua words such as wawa (infant), misi (cat), waska (strap, or thrashing) are as commonly used as their Spanish counterparts, even in entirely Spanish-speaking areas. Quechua has also had a profound impact on other native languages of the Americas, for example Mapudungun.^{[citation needed]}

Number of speakers[link]

The number of speakers given varies widely according to the sources. The total in Ethnologue 16 is 10 million, mostly based on figures published 1987–2002, but with a few dating from the 1960s. The figure for Imbabura Quechua in Ethnologue, for example, is 300,000, an estimate from 1977. The missionary organization FEDEPI, on the other hand, estimated one million Imbabura speakers (published 2006). Census figures are also problematic, due to under-reporting. The 2001 Ecuador census reports only 500,000 Quechua speakers, where most sources estimate over 2 million. The censuses of Peru (2007) and Bolivia (2001) are thought to be more reliable.

• Argentina: 900,000 (1971)
• Bolivia: 2,100,000 (2001 census); 2,800,000 South Bolivian (1987)
• Chile: few if any
• Colombia: 25,000 (2000–2007)
• Ecuador: 2,300,000 (Adelaar 1991)
• Peru: 3,260,000 (2007 census); 3,500,000 to 4,400,000 (Adelaar 2000)

Additionally, there are an unknown number of speakers in emigrant communities.

Classification[link]

The four branches of Quechua: I (Central), II-A (North Peruvian), II-B (Northern), II-C (Southern)

There is a sharp dichotomy in Quechua between the varieties of the central Peruvian highlands and the peripheral varieties of Ecuador on the one hand and southern Peru and Bolivia on the other. These are labeled Quechua I (or Quechua B, central) and Quechua II (or Quechua A, peripheral). Within these two groups, there are few sharp boundaries, making them dialect continua. However, there is a secondary division in Quechua II between the grammatically simplified northern varieties of Ecuador, Quechua II-B, known there as Kichwa, and the generally more conservative varieties of the southern highlands, Quechua II-C, which include the old Inca capital of Cuzco. The closeness is at least in part due to the influence of Cuzco Quechua on the Ecuadorean varieties during the Inca Empire, as northern nobles were required to educate their children in Cuzco, maintaining Cuzco as the prestige dialect in the north.

Speakers from different points within any one of these three regions can generally understand each other reasonably well. There are nonetheless significant local-level differences across each. (Wanka Quechua, in particular, has several very distinctive characteristics that make this variety distinctly difficult to understand, even for other Central Quechua speakers.) Speakers from different major regions, meanwhile, particularly Central vs Southern Quechua, are not able to communicate effectively.

The lack of mutual intelligibility is the basic criterion that defines Quechua not as a single language, but as a language family. The complex and progressive nature of how speech varies across the dialect continua makes it nearly impossible to differentiate discrete varieties; Ethnologue lists 44 that they judge require separate literature.^[5] As a reference point, the overall degree of diversity across the family is a little less than that of the Romance or Germanic families, and more of the order of Slavic^{[citation needed]} or Arabic. The greatest diversity in within Central Quechua, AKA Quechua I, which is believed to lie close to the homeland of the ancestral Proto-Quechua language.

Family tree[link]

Alfredo Torero devised the traditional classification, the three divisions above plus a fourth, northern Peruvian, branch. The latter cause complications in the classification, however, as they (Cajamarca-Lambayeque), Pacaraos, and Yauyos) have features of both Quechua I and Quechua II, and so are difficult to assign to either. Torero's classification is,

• Quechua I or Quechua B or Central Quechua or Waywash, spoken in Peru's central highlands and coast.
  • The most widely spoken varieties are Huaylas, Huaylla Wanca, and Conchucos.
• Quechua II or Quechua A or Peripheral Quechua or Wanp'una, divided into
  • Yungay Quechua or Quechua II A, spoken in the northern mountains of Peru; the most widely spoken dialect is Cajamarca.
  • Northern Quechua or Quechua II B, spoken in Ecuador (Kichwa), northern Peru, and Colombia (Inga Kichwa)
    • The most widely spoken varieties are Chimborazo Highland Quichua and Imbabura Highland Quichua.
  • Southern Quechua or Quechua II C, spoken in Bolivia, southern Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
    • The most widely spoken varieties are South Bolivian, Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Puno (Collao).

Adelaar (2004) adheres to the Quechua I / Quechua II (central/peripheral) bifurcation, but partially following later modifications by Torero, reassigns part of Quechua II-A to Quechua I:

Landerman (1991) does not believe a truly genetic classification is possible, and breaks up Quechua II, so that the family has four geographical–typological branches: Northern, North Peruvian, Central, and Southern. He includes Chachapoyas and Lamas in North Peruvian Quechua, so that Ecuadorian is synonymous with Northern Quechua.^[9]

Geographical distribution[link]

Quechua I (Central Quechua, Waywash) is spoken in Peru's central highlands, from Ancash to Huancayo. It is the most diverse branch of Quechua,^[10] to the extent that its divisions are commonly considered different languages.

Quechua II (Peripheral Quechua, Wamp'una 'Traveler')

• II-A: Yunkay Quechua (North Peruvian Quechua) is scattered in Peru's occidental highlands
• II-B: Northern Quechua (also known as Runashimi or, especially in Ecuador, Kichwa) is mainly spoken in Colombia and Ecuador. It is also spoken in the Amazonian lowlands of Colombia, Ecuador, and in pockets in Peru
• II-C: Southern Quechua, in the highlands further south, from Huancavelica through the Ayacucho, Cuzco, and Puno regions of Peru, across much of Bolivia, and in pockets in north-western Argentina. It is the most influential branch, with the largest number of speakers and the most important cultural and literary legacy.

Cognates[link]

A sampling of words in several Quechua dialects:^{[needs IPA]}

Quechua and Aymara[link]

Quechua shares a large amount of vocabulary, and some striking structural parallels, with Aymara, and these two families have sometimes been grouped together as a 'Quechumaran' family. This hypothesis is generally rejected by specialists, however; the parallels are better explained by mutual influence and borrowing through intensive and long-term contact. Many Quechua–Aymara cognates are close, often closer than intra-Quechua cognates, and there is little relationship in the affixal system.

Vocabulary[link]

A number of Quechua loanwords have entered English via Spanish, including ayahuasca, coca, cóndor, guano, jerky, llama, pampa, puma, quinine, quinoa, vicuña and possibly gaucho. The word lagniappe comes from the Quechuan word yapay ("to increase; to add") with the Spanish article la in front of it, la yapa or la ñapa in Spanish.

The influence on Latin American Spanish includes such borrowings as papa for "potato", chuchaqui for "hangover" in Ecuador, and diverse borrowings for "altitude sickness", in Bolivia from Quechuan suruqch'i to Bolivian sorojchi, in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru soroche.

Quechua has borrowed a large number of Spanish words, such as piru (from pero, but), bwenu (from bueno, good), and burru (from burro, donkey).

Etymology of *qiĉwa[link]

The native word */qiĉ.wa/ originally referred to the "temperate valley" altitude ecological zone in the Andes (suitable for maize cultivation). Use of the word to describe the language (by an indirect association) is recorded relatively early in the colonial period, and seems to have been begun by the Spaniards, not Quechua-speakers themselves. The name that native speakers give to their own language is "Runa Simi".^[11]

The name quichua is first used by Domingo de Santo Tomás in his Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los indios de los reynos del Perú, where he also mentions the mythical origin of the language, also quoted by Pedro Cieza de León and Bernabé Cobo. This myth held that the lengua general (the name by which Quechua was most widely known in the early colonial period) originated with the Quichua people, from modern Andahuaylas Province. The Hispanicised spellings Quechua and Quichua have been used in Peru and Bolivia since the 17th century, especially after the III Lima Council.

Today the various local pronunciations of Quechua include [ˈqʰeʃwa ˈsimi], [ˈχetʃwa ˈʃimi], [ˈkitʃwa ˈʃimi], [ˈʔitʃwa ˈʃimi].

Phonology[link]

The description below applies to Cusco dialect; there are significant differences in other varieties of Quechua.

Vowels[link]

Quechua uses only three vowel phonemes: /a/ /i/ and /u/, as in Aymara (including Jaqaru). Monolingual speakers pronounce these as [æ] [ɪ] and [ʊ] respectively, though the Spanish vowels /a/ /i/ and /u/ may also be used. When the vowels appear adjacent to the uvular consonants /q/, /qʼ/, and /qʰ/, they are rendered more like [ɑ], [ɛ] and [ɔ] respectively.

Consonants[link]

None of the plosives or fricatives are voiced; voicing is not phonemic in the Quechua native vocabulary of the modern Cusco variety.

	Voiceless bilabial plosives Pronunciation of voiceless bilabial plosive phonemes in Quechua
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

About 30% of the modern Quechua vocabulary is borrowed from Spanish, and some Spanish sounds (e.g. f, b, d, g) may have become phonemic, even among monolingual Quechua speakers.

Aspirated and ejective renderings of consonants are only phonemic in some varieties of Quechua. Others only use plain /p/, /t/, /t͡ʃ/, and /k/.

Stress[link]

Stress is penultimate in most dialects of Quechua. In some varieties the apocope of word-final vowels or other factors may cause exceptional final stress.

Writing system[link]

Quechua has been written using the Roman alphabet since the Spanish conquest of Peru. However, written Quechua is not used by the Quechua-speaking people at large due to the lack of printed referential material in Quechua.

Until the 20th century, Quechua was written with a Spanish-based orthography. Examples: Inca, Huayna Cápac, Collasuyo, Mama Ocllo, Viracocha, quipu, tambo, condor. This orthography is the most familiar to Spanish speakers, and as a corollary, has been used for most borrowings into English.

In 1975, the Peruvian government of Juan Velasco adopted a new orthography for Quechua. This is the writing system preferred by the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua. Examples: Inka, Wayna Qhapaq, Qollasuyu, Mama Oqllo, Wiraqocha, khipu, tampu, kuntur. This orthography:

• uses w instead of hu for the /w/ sound.
• distinguishes velar k from uvular q, where both were spelled c or qu in the traditional system.
• distinguishes simple, ejective, and aspirated stops in dialects (such as that of Cuzco) which have them – thus khipu above.
• continues to use the Spanish five-vowel system.

In 1985, a variation of this system was adopted by the Peruvian government; it uses the Quechuan three-vowel system. Examples: Inka, Wayna Qhapaq, Qullasuyu, Mama Uqllu, Wiraqucha, khipu, tampu, kuntur.

The different orthographies are still highly controversial in Peru. Advocates of the traditional system believe that the new orthographies look too foreign, and suggest that it makes Quechua harder to learn for people who have first been exposed to written Spanish. Those who prefer the new system maintain that it better matches the phonology of Quechua, and point to studies showing that teaching the five-vowel system to children causes reading difficulties in Spanish later on.

For more on this, see Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift.

Writers differ in the treatment of Spanish loanwords. Sometimes these are adapted to the modern orthography, and sometimes they are left in Spanish. For instance, "I am Roberto" could be written Robertom kani or Ruwirtum kani. (The -m is not part of the name; it is an evidential suffix.)

The Peruvian linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino has proposed an orthographic norm for all Southern Quechua. This norm, el Quechua estándar or Hanan Runasimi, which is accepted by many institutions in Peru, has been made by combining conservative features of two widespread dialects, Ayacucho Quechua and Cusco Quechua. For instance:

To listen to recordings of these and many other words as pronounced in many different Quechua-speaking regions, see the external website The Sounds of the Andean Languages. There is also a full section on the new Quechua and Aymara Spelling.

Grammar[link]

Morphological type[link]

All varieties of Quechua are very regular agglutinative languages, as opposed to isolating or fusional ones. Their normal sentence order is SOV (subject–object–verb). Their large number of suffixes changes both the overall significance of words and their subtle shades of meaning. Notable grammatical features include bipersonal conjugation (verbs agree with both subject and object), evidentiality (indication of the source and veracity of knowledge), a set of topic particles, and suffixes indicating who benefits from an action and the speaker's attitude toward it, although some languages and varieties may lack some of these characteristics.

Pronouns[link]

In Quechua, there are seven pronouns. Quechua has two first person plural pronouns ("we", in English). One is called the inclusive, which is used when the speaker wishes to include in "we" the person to whom he or she is speaking ("we and you"). The other form is called the exclusive, which is used when the addressee is excluded. ("we without you"). Quechua also adds the suffix -kuna to the second and third person singular pronouns qam and pay to create the plural forms qam-kuna and pay-kuna.

Adjectives[link]

Adjectives in Quechua are always placed before nouns. They lack gender and number, and are not declined to agree with substantives.

Numbers[link]

• Cardinal numbers. ch'usaq (0), huk (1), iskay (2), kimsa (3), tawa (4), pichqa (5), suqta (6), qanchis (7), pusaq (8), isqun (9), chunka (10), chunka hukniyuq (11), chunka iskayniyuq (12), iskay chunka (20), pachak (100), waranqa (1,000), hunu (1,000,000), lluna (1,000,000,000,000).
• Ordinal numbers. To form ordinal numbers, the word ñiqin is put after the appropriate cardinal number (e.g., iskay ñiqin = "second"). The only exception is that, in addition to huk ñiqin ("first"), the phrase ñawpaq is also used in the somewhat more restricted sense of "the initial, primordial, the oldest".

Nouns[link]

Noun roots accept suffixes which indicate person (defining of possession, not identity), number, and case. In general, the personal suffix precedes that of number – in the Santiago del Estero variety, however, the order is reversed.^[12] From variety to variety, suffixes may change.

Adverbs[link]

Adverbs can be formed by adding -ta or, in some cases, -lla to an adjective: allin – allinta ("good – well"), utqay – utqaylla ("quick – quickly"). They are also formed by adding suffixes to demonstratives: chay ("that") – chaypi ("there"), kay ("this") – kayman ("hither").

There are several original adverbs. For Europeans, it is striking that the adverb qhipa means both "behind" and "future", whereas ñawpa means "ahead, in front" and "past".^[13] This means that local and temporal concepts of adverbs in Quechua (as well as in Aymara) are associated to each other reversely compared to European languages. For the speakers of Quechua, we are moving backwards into the future (we cannot see it – i.e. it is unknown), facing the past (we can see it – i.e. we remember it).