How Does Quechua Work and Why Is It Declining?

Transcript

Follow Langfocus on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Hello everyone. Welcome to Langfocus channel and my name is Paul. Today's topic is a language that some of you have probably never heard up but it's a fascinating topic and one that definitely worth a look. The topic is Quechua. And in Quechua, the language that sometimes is referred to as "Runa ... Read More

Key Insights

• Quechua is the most widely spoken native language in South America when all its varieties are included, with between 8 and 10 million speakers distributed across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, northern Argentina, and southern Colombia.
• Quechua became a regional lingua franca as the Inca Empire expanded, allowing the language to spread throughout territories under imperial control. Its precise origin remains debated, with proposed origins around Cusco and in the central coastal area of Peru.
• Quechua was not written during Inca rule, and records were instead kept with quipus, systems of knotted strings used as symbols or memory aids. Quipus are not thought to encode Quechua sounds or grammatical structure directly.
• Quechua continued functioning as a lingua franca after the Spanish conquest, and the Catholic Church used it in conversion efforts. Its oldest written record is Domingo de Santo Tomás's 1560 grammar of the general language of Peru.
• Quechua declined after colonial authorities banned its public use following the Tupac Amaru rebellion of 1780. Later pressures included Spanish-language education, media, economic activity, urbanization, and beliefs that Spanish offered greater prestige and economic opportunity.
• Quechua is a collection of closely related dialect groups rather than one completely unified language. Quechua I and Quechua II are the two major categories, with the weakest mutual intelligibility occurring between these categories even when both varieties are spoken in Peru.
• Southern Quechua is generally a subject-object-verb language, but an explicit subject is not always required because the verb can carry a suffix identifying its subject. Object markers likewise indicate grammatical roles, reducing dependence on separate function words.
• Quechua is highly agglutinative, meaning roots accept sequences of suffixes that express plurality, possession, location, tense, progression, reflexivity, and subject identity. It also uses topic, focus, and evidential markers to organize information and identify its reported source.

Questions & Answers

Q: How many people speak Quechua and where is it spoken?

Between 8 and 10 million people speak the varieties collectively called Quechua, making it by far the most widely spoken native language in South America. Speakers are spread across Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, as well as northern Argentina and southern Colombia. Spanish is now dominant in all of these countries, while Quechua remains an important spoken language across multiple regions.

Q: How did the Inca Empire help spread Quechua?

Quechua spread as the Inca Empire expanded because it became the general language, or lingua franca, of territories under imperial control. The empire's capital was at Cusco in present-day Peru, although the language's original homeland remains disputed. Some proposals place its origin near Cusco, while others identify the central coastal area of Peru as its place of origin.

Q: Was Quechua a written language during Inca rule?

Quechua was not a written language during the period of Inca rule. Records were kept using quipus, systems of knotted strings that served as symbols or mnemonic reminders of information. Although quipus are not fully understood, they are not thought to represent Quechua sounds or grammatical structure. Instead, they apparently supported information that would be transmitted orally.

Q: When did Quechua first become a written language?

Quechua began to be written after the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, which occurred between 1532 and 1572. The oldest written record identified in the transcript is a book published in 1560 by the missionary Domingo de Santo Tomás. Its title describes it as a grammar or art of the general language of the Indians of the Royalty of Peru.

Q: Why has the use of Quechua declined?

Quechua declined because Spanish became the main language of education, media, national economies, and urban communication. Spanish also came to represent prestige and economic opportunity, while Quechua was often treated as low status. Consequently, some Quechua-speaking parents chose to address their children in Spanish, disrupting transmission of the language from one generation to the next.

Q: Is Quechua one language or a group of languages?

Quechua is better described as a series of closely related dialect groups rather than a single uniform language. Varieties with high mutual intelligibility can be considered individual languages. A broadly accepted written standard might provide a unifying force, but no such standard exists. Quechua remains primarily spoken, has multiple orthographic standards, and differs considerably from one region to another.

Q: What are the main Quechua dialect groups?

Quechua has two major categories, Quechua I and Quechua II. Quechua I, sometimes called Waywash, is spoken in central Peru. Quechua II includes II-a in northern Peru, II-b or Kichwa mainly in Ecuador and southern Colombia, and II-c or Southern Quechua around Cusco, in Bolivia, and in Argentina. Southern Quechua has the greatest number of speakers.

Q: How does Quechua grammar build words and sentences?

Southern Quechua generally uses subject-object-verb order, although verbs carry subject suffixes, so a sentence does not always need an explicit subject. The language is highly agglutinative, adding suffixes to roots for meanings such as plural number, possession, location, tense, progression, and reflexivity. It also marks topics, focused information, and evidence based on observation, inference, or hearsay.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Quechua spread widely as the general language of territories controlled by the Inca Empire, whose capital was at Cusco. It remained a lingua franca after the Spanish conquest, partly because the Catholic Church used it for conversion. Missionary Domingo de Santo Tomás produced its oldest written record in 1560.

• Quechua is better understood as closely related dialect groups than as one standardized language. Its two major categories are Quechua I in central Peru and Quechua II, which includes varieties in northern Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Cusco, Bolivia, and Argentina. Southern Quechua is the largest group, but no universal written standard exists.

• Southern Quechua generally places subjects before objects and verbs, although subject suffixes can make explicit subjects unnecessary. Its highly agglutinative structure builds meanings by attaching ordered suffixes to roots. Additional markers identify topics, focused information, and whether a claim comes from direct observation, inference, or something the speaker heard.

• Key Insights are provided separately.