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Quechua
Quechua is a Native American language|Native American language family spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably some 6 to 8 million speakers (estimates vary widely). Some speakers of Quechua also call it 'runa simi' (or regional variants thereof), literally 'people speech', although 'runa' here has the more specific sense of ''indigenous Andean'' people.
Language/Dialect Groupings
There are few sharp boundaries between what might be identified as specific 'languages' within the Quechua family, which consists of large zones of dialect continuum|dialect continua, although three major regions can be distinguished:
- Kichwa|Ecuador Quechua (usually known there as 'Quichua' or 'Kichwa'), both in the highlands and the Amazon River valley, with pockets also in southern and Amazonian Peru.
- Central Quechua, spoken in the highlands from the Ancash to Huancayo regions in north-central Peru.
- Southern Quechua, with the largest number of speakers, in all regions further south, again mostly highlands: from Huancavelica through the Ayacucho, Cuzco and Puno regions of Peru, across much of Bolivia and in pockets in north-western Argentina.
Speakers from different points within any one of these major regions can generally understand each other reasonably well. There are nonetheless significant local-level differences across each. (Huancayo 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, as it is often mistakenly described, but as a language family. The complex and progressive nature of how speech varies across the dialect continua zones make it nearly impossible to put a precise number on how many different Quechua languages or dialects there are. As a reference point, the overall degree of diversity across the family is a little less than that for the Romance languages|Romance or Germanic languages|Germanic language families, and more of the order of Slavic languages|Slavic or Arabic.
History: Origins and Divergence
To compare with the historically known language families such as Romance languages|Romance, Germanic languages|Germanic, Slavic languages|Slavic or Arabic, let us discover 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 expanded and decided that this was a tool to get the unification of the Empire. Thus the language began to spread across the Andes more enthusiasticly.
That is, Quechua had already expanded across wide ranges of the central Andes long even before the Inca Empire|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 language like Aymara language|Aymara. This fact explain that the Cuzco variety was not the more spread. In similar way, a diverse group of dialects appeared meanwhile the Inca Empire ruled and impose Quechua.
Quechua's original homeland was not in Cuzco, but further north, in central coast of Peru, exactly in Lima. The debate is closed for the science. Some linguists and archaeologists are moved by stereotypes and refuse the facts. They use to identify Lima with Spain conqueror and consider an insult the origin of Quechua in Lima. Neverthless this zone (Lima and the coast of Perú) has been the cradle of very old cultures before the Spanish conquest. The high culture of Caral (circa 5000 BC) demonstrates this point.
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.
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.
[Ethnologue report for Quechuan (SIL)]
Current status
Today, Quechua has the status of an official language in both Peru and Bolivia, along with Spanish language|Spanish and Aymara. Before the arrival of the Spaniards and the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Quechua had no written alphabet. The Incas kept track of numerical data through a system of ''quipu'' (knotted strings).
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.
Quechua and Spanish are now heavily intermixed, with many hundreds of Spanish loanwords into 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), ''michi'' (cat), ''waska'' (strap, or thrashing) are as commonly used as their Spanish counterparts, even in entirely Spanish-speaking areas.
Quechua and Aymara
Quechua shares a large amount of vocabulary, and some striking structural parallels, with Aymara language|Aymara, and these two families have sometimes been grouped together as a larger Quechumaran linguistic stock. This hypothesis is generally rejected by most specialists, however; the parallels are better explained by mutual influences and word-borrowing because of intensive and long-term contacts between their speaker populations. Many Quechua-Aymara cognates are close, often closer than intra-Quechua cognates, and there is little relationship in the affixal system.
Etymology of *qiĉwa
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".Classification
This macrolanguage is subdivided as follows, at least according to the traditional classification devised largely by Alfredo Torero and mostly adhered to by Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino. The validity of this classification is strongly disputed, however, by other Quechua linguists, since a number of regional varieties of Quechua, particularly those of Northern Peru (Cajamarca/Inkawasi), Pacaraos and the Yauyos province of the Lima department, do not classify well with either QI or QII and seem to be ''intermediate'' between the two branches.
Willem Adelaar largely adheres to the major QI-QII distinction, but does not accept QIIa as a valid unit. Other linguists such as Peter Landerman, Gerald Taylor and Paul Heggarty suggest more radical revisions to the whole classification. Landerman proposes a geographically based nomenclature (as for most other language families such as Germanic languages|Germanic or Slavic languages|Slavic) which identifies four regions: Northern (Ecuador and some small neighbouring areas); North Peruvian (Cajamarca/Inkawasi); Central (Ancash to Huancayo); Southern (from Huancavelica southwards).
There follows, for reference, the (much disputed) traditional Torero classification.
:
- * 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 Ancash, Huaylla Wanca, Northern Conchucos Ancash, and Southern Conchucos Ancash.
- * Quechua II or ''Quechua A'' or ''Peripheral Quechua'' or ''Wanp'una'', divided into
- ** Yunkay 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.
{{Clade
| label1=Proto-Quechua
| 1={{Clade
| label1=Quechua I
| 1={{Clade
| label1=Central
| 1=
| 2=Pacaraos}}
| label2=Quechua II
| 2={{Clade
| label1=Yungay (Quechua II-A)
| 1=
| label2=Chinchay
| 2={{Clade
| label1='''Northern Quechua|Kichwa''' (Quechua II-B)
| 1=
| label2='''Classical'''
| 2={{Clade
| 1=† ''quechua''
| label2= '''Southern Quechua''' (Quechua II-C)
| 2=}} }} }}}} }}
Geographical distribution
Quechua I or ''Waywash'' is spoken in Peru's central highlands. It is the most diverse branch of Quechua,[Lyle Campbell, ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America'', Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 189] such that its dialects have often been considered different languages.
Quechua II or ''Wamp'una (Traveler)'' is divided into three branches:
- II-A: Yunkay Quechua is spoken sporadically 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 in Ecuador and Peru;
- II-C: Southern Quechua, spoken in Peru's southern highlands, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, is today's most important branch because it has the largest number of speakers and because of its cultural and literary legacy.
Number of speakers
The number of speakers given varies widely according to the sources.
The most reliable figures are to be found in the census results of Peru (1993) and Bolivia (2001), though they are probably altogether too low due to underreporting. The 2001 Ecuador census seems to be a prominent example of underreporting, as it comes up with only 499,292 speakers of all Ecuadorian varieties of Kichwa (Quichua) combined, where other sources estimate between 1.5 and 2.2 million speakers.
- Argentina: 100,000
- Bolivia: 2,100,000 (2001 census)
- Brazil: unknown
- Chile: very few, spoken in pockets in the Chilean Altiplano (Ethnologue)
- Colombia: 9,000 (Ethnologue)
- Ecuador: 500,000 to 1,000,000
- Peru: 3,200,000 (1993 census)
Additionally, there may be hundreds of thousands of speakers outside the traditionally Quechua speaking territories, in immigrant communities.
Vocabulary
A number of Quechua loanwords have entered English language|English via Spanish language|Spanish, including ''ayahuasca'', ''coca'', ''condor|cóndor'', ''guano'', ''jerky (food)|jerky'', ''llama'', ''pampa'', ''couger|puma'', ''quinine'', ''quinoa'', ''vicuña'' and possibly ''gaucho''. The word ''lagniappe'' comes from the Quechua word ''yapay'' ("to increase; to add") with the Spanish language|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", ''chucaqui'' for "hangover" in Ecuador, and diverse borrowings for "altitude sickness", in Bolivia from Quechua ''suruqch'i'' to Bolivian ''sorojchi'', in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru ''soroche''.
Quechua has borrowed a large number of Spanish language|Spanish words, such as ''piru'' (from ''pero'', but), ''bwenu'' (from ''bueno'', good), and ''burru'' (from ''burro'', donkey).
Phonology
The description below applies to Qusqu-Qullaw|Cusco dialect; there are significant differences in other varieties of Quechua.
Vowels
Quechua uses only three vowel phonemes: and , as in Aymara (including Jaqaru). Monolingual speakers pronounce these as and respectively, though the Spanish language|Spanish vowels and may also be used. When the vowels appear adjacent to the uvular consonants , , and , they are rendered more like , and respectively.
Consonants
To these are added various suffixes to change the meaning. For example, ''-chi'' is a causative and ''-ku'' is a reflexive (example: ''wañuy'' = "to die"; ''wañuchiy'' = to kill ''wañuchikuy'' = "to commit suicide"); ''-naku'' is used for mutual action (example: ''marq'ay''= "to hug"; ''marq'anakuy''= "to hug each other"), and ''-chka'' is a progressive, used for an ongoing action (e.g., ''mikhuy'' = "to eat"; ''mikhuchkay'' = "to be eating").
Grammatical particles
Grammatical particle|Particles are indeclinable, that is, they do not accept suffixes. They are relatively rare. The most common are ''arí'' ("yes") and ''mana'' ("no"), although ''mana'' can take some suffixes, such as ''-n''/''-m'' (''manan''/''manam''), ''-raq'' (''manaraq'', not yet) and ''-chu'' (''manachu?'', or not?), to intensify the meaning. Also used are ''yaw'' ("hey", "hi"), and certain loan words from Spanish, such as ''piru'' (from Spanish ''pero'' "but") and ''sinuqa'' (from ''sino'' "rather").
Evidentiality
Nearly every Quechua sentence is marked by an evidential clitic, indicating the source of the speaker's knowledge (and how certain s/he is about the statement). The enclitic ''=mi'' expresses personal knowledge (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirmi'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver-- I know it for a fact"); ''=si'' expresses hearsay knowledge (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirsi'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, or so I've heard"); ''=chá'' expresses high probability (''Tayta Wayllaqawaqa chufirchá'', "Mr. Huayllacahua is a driver, most likely"). These become ''=m, =s, =ch'' after a vowel, although the latter is rarely used in its reduced form and the majority of speakers usually employ ''=chá'', even after a vowel (''Mariochá'', "He's Mario, most likely").
The evidential clitics are not restricted to nouns; they can attach to any word in the sentence, typically the comment (as opposed to the topic).
Literature
Although there is not a lot of literature in Quechua, some works of fiction have been published. Johnny Payne (writer)|Johnny Payne has translated two sets of Quechua oral short stories, one into Spanish and the other into English.
In popular culture
- The fictional Huttese language in the Star Wars|''Star Wars'' movies is largely based upon Quechua. According to Jim Wilce, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, George Lucas contacted a colleague of his, Allen Sonafrank, to record the dialogue. Wilce and Sonafrank discussed the matter, and felt it might be demeaning to have an alien represent Quechuans, especially in light of Erich von Daniken's popular publications that claimed Inca monuments were created by aliens because "primitives" like the Incas could never have produced them. Sonafrank declined, but a grad student, who could pronounce but did not speak Quechua, recorded Jabba's dialogue. There are reports that the dialogue was played backwards or remixed, possibly to avoid offending Quechuans.
- The 90's TV series "The Sentinel" included numerous references to the shamanism and spirituality of the Peruvian Chopec, and included many Quechua words in several episodes.
- The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, speaks fluent northern Kichwa.
- The sport retailer Decathlon Group brands their mountain equipment range as ''Quechua''.
- In ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'', Indy has a dialogue in Quechua with Peruvians. He explains he learned the language in Mexico from a couple of the "guys" he met while briefly riding with Pancho Villa. This adventure was featured in the pilot episode of ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''. The guys were most likely Peruvian mercenaries recruited to the División del Norte.
- In The Adventures of Tintin in particular The Seven Crystal Balls and its sequel Prisoners of the Sun. In these stories there are Quechua characters who are in league with the Inca and facilitate the abduction and incarceration of Professor Calculus at the Temple of the Sun for committing sacrilege by wearing the funerary bangle of Rascar Capac.
- In Trading Card Game Yu-Gi-Oh!, monsters in the card series List_of_Yu-Gi-Oh!_cards#Earthbound_Immortals|Earthbound Immortals have their name originated from Quechua. In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's|the animated series, Earthbound Immortals are described as powerful beasts sealed in Nazca Lines, which each one of them represents.
See also
- Aymara language
- Andes
- List of English words from indigenous languages of the Americas#Words from Quechua|List of English words of Quechuan origin
- South Bolivian Quechua
Notes
References
- Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo. ''Lingüística Quechua'', Centro de Estudios Rurales Andinos 'Bartolomé de las Casas', 2nd ed. 2003
- Cole, Peter. "Imbabura Quechua", North-Holland (Lingua Descriptive Studies 5), Amsterdam 1982.
- Cusihuamán, Antonio, ''Diccionario Quechua Cuzco-Collao'', Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolomé de Las Casas", 2001, ISBN 9972691365
- Cusihuamán, Antonio, ''Gramática Quechua Cuzco-Collao'', Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolomé de Las Casas", 2001, ISBN 9972691373
- Mannheim, Bruce, ''The Language of the Inka since the European Invasion'', University of Texas Press, 1991, ISBN 0292746636
- Rodríguez Champi, Albino. (2006). Quechua de Cusco. ''Ilustraciones fonéticas de lenguas amerindias'', ed. Stephen A. Marlett. Lima: SIL International y Universidad Ricardo Palma. http://lengamer.org/publicaciones/trabajos/quechua_cusco_afi.pdf
Further reading
- Quechua bibliographies online at: http://www.quechua.org.uk/Eng/Main/i_BIBL.HTM
- Adelaar, Willem F. H. ''Tarma Quechua: Grammar, Texts, Dictionary''. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press, 1977.
- Bills, Garland D., Bernardo Vallejo C., and Rudolph C. Troike. ''An Introduction to Spoken Bolivian Quechua''. Special publication of the Institute of Latin American Studies, the University of Texas at Austin. Austin: Published for the Institute of Latin American Studies by the University of Texas Press, 1969. ISBN 0292700199
- Curl, John, ''Ancient American Poets''. Tempe AZ: Bilingual Press, 2005.ISBN 1-931010-21-8 http://red-coral.net/Pach.html
- Gifford, Douglas. ''Time Metaphors in Aymara and Quechua''. St. Andrews: University of St. Andrews, 1986.
- Harrison, Regina. ''Signs, Songs, and Memory in the Andes: Translating Quechua Language and Culture''. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. ISBN 0292776276
- Jake, Janice L. ''Grammatical Relations in Imbabura Quechua''. Outstanding dissertations in linguistics. New York: Garland Pub, 1985. ISBN 082405475X
- King, Kendall A. ''Language Revitalization Processes and Prospects: Quichua in the Ecuadorian Andes''. Bilingual education and bilingualism, 24. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters LTD, 2001. ISBN 1853594954
- King, Kendall A., and Nancy H. Hornberger. ''Quechua Sociolinguistics''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004.
- Lara, Jesús, Maria A. Proser, and James Scully. ''Quechua Peoples Poetry''. Willimantic, Conn: Curbstone Press, 1976. ISBN 0915306093
- Lefebvre, Claire, and Pieter Muysken. ''Mixed Categories: Nominalizations in Quechua''. Studies in natural language and linguistic theory, 11. Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988. ISBN1556080506
- Lefebvre, Claire, and Pieter Muysken. ''Relative Clauses in Cuzco Quechua: Interactions between Core and Periphery''. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1982.
- Muysken, Pieter. ''Syntactic Developments in the Verb Phrase of Ecuadorian Quechua''. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press, 1977. ISBN 9031601519
- Nuckolls, Janis B. ''Sounds Like Life: Sound-Symbolic Grammar, Performance, and Cognition in Pastaza Quechua''. Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics, 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN
- Parker, Gary John. ''Ayacucho Quechua Grammar and Dictionary''. Janua linguarum. Series practica, 82. The Hague: Mouton, 1969.
- Sánchez, Liliana. Quechua-Spanish Bilingualism: Interference and Convergence in Functional Categories. Language acquisition & language disorders, v. 35. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub, 2003. ISBN 1588114716
- Weber, David. ''A Grammar of Huallaga (Huánuco) Quechua''. University of California publications in linguistics, v. 112. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. ISBN 0520097327
- Wright, Ronald, and Nilda Callañaupa. ''Quechua Phrasebook''. Hawthorn, Vic., Australia: Lonely Planet, 1989. ISBN 0864420390
External links
- El Quechua de Santiago del Estero, extensive site covering the grammar of Argentinian Quechua (in Spanish)
- runasimi.de Multilingual Quechua website with online dictionary (xls) Quechua - German - English - Spanish.
- Quechua Language and Linguistics an extensive site.
- The Origins and Diversity of Quechua
- The Sounds of the Andean Languages listen online to pronunciations of Quechua words, see photos of speakers and their home regions, learn about the origins and varieties of Quechua.
- CyberQuechua, by the Quechua-speaking linguist Serafín Coronel Molina.
- Multilingual Dictionary: Spanish - Quechua (Cusco, Ayacucho, Junín, Ancash) - Aymara
- Toponimos del Quechua de Yungay, Peru
- Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec
- Quechua Network's Dictionary a very good one.
- Quechua lessons (www.andes.org) in Spanish and English
- Quechua course in Spanish, by Demetrio Tupah Yupanki (Red Científica Peruana)
- Detailed map of the varieties of Quechua according to SIL (fedepi.org)
- Google Quechua
- 5 Quechua dictionaries online
Category:Quechuan languages|
Category:Language families
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