Quechuan languages

"Quechuan" redirects here. Not to be confused with Quechan, Quechan language, or Quiché.
Quechuan
Qichwa/Qhichwa, Kichwa, Runa Simi
Geographic
distribution		Throughout the central Andes Mountains including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
EthnicityQuechua
Native speakers
7.2 million[1]
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-1qu
ISO 639-2 / 5que
ISO 639-3que
Glottologquec1387
Map showing the distribution of Quechuan languages

Map showing the current distribution of the Quechuan languages (solid gray) and the historical extent of the Inca Empire (shaded)
PersonRuna / Nuna
PeopleRunakuna /
Nunakuna
LanguageRunasimi /
Nunasimi

Quechua (/ˈkɛtʃuə/,[2][3] Spanish: [ˈketʃwa]), also called Runa simi (Quechua: [ˈɾʊna ˈsɪmɪ], 'people's language') in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes.[4][5][6][7] Derived from a common ancestral "Proto-Quechua" language,[4] it is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with the number of speakers estimated at 8–10 million speakers in 2004,[8] and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011.[9] Approximately 13.9% (3.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechua language.[10]

Although Quechua began expanding many centuries before[4][5][6][11][7] the Incas, that previous expansion also meant that it was the primary language family within the Inca Empire. The Spanish also tolerated its use until the Peruvian struggle for independence in the 1780s. As a result, various Quechua languages are still widely spoken today, being co-official in many regions and the most spoken language lineage in Peru, after Spanish.

  1. ^ Quechuan at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Longman Dictionary". Archived from the original on 2024-05-26. Retrieved 2018-06-02.
  3. ^ Oxford Living Dictionaries, British and World English
  4. ^ a b c Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo (2003). Lingüística quechua. Monumenta lingüística andina (2. ed.). Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas. ISBN 978-9972-691-59-1.
  5. ^ a b Adelaar, Willem F. H.; Muysken, Pieter (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge (G.B.): Cambridge University press. ISBN 978-0-521-36275-7.
  6. ^ a b Torero, Alfredo (2002). Idiomas de los Andes: linguistica e historia. Travaux de l'Institut Français d'études andines. Lima: Instituto Francés de estudios andinos Editorial horizonte. ISBN 978-9972-699-27-6.
  7. ^ a b Heggarty, Paul; Beresford-Jones, David, eds. (2012-05-17). Archaeology and Language in the Andes (1 ed.). British Academy. doi:10.5871/bacad/9780197265031.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-726503-1.
  8. ^ Adelaar 2004, pp. 167–168, 255.
  9. ^ Howard, Rosaleen (2011), Heggarty, Paul; Pearce, Adrian J. (eds.), "The Quechua Language in the Andes Today: Between Statistics, the State, and Daily Life", History and Language in the Andes, Studies of the Americas, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 189–213, doi:10.1057/9780230370579_9, ISBN 978-0-230-37057-9, archived from the original on 2024-05-26, retrieved 2024-01-09
  10. ^ "Perú Resultados Definitivos de los Censos Nacionales". Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática. 2017. Archived from the original on Apr 6, 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  11. ^ Heggarty, Paul (October 2007). "Linguistics for Archaeologists: Principles, Methods and the Case of the Incas". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 17 (3): 311–340. doi:10.1017/S095977430700039X. ISSN 0959-7743. S2CID 59132956. Archived from the original on 2024-05-26. Retrieved 2024-01-09.