Talk:Quechuan languages

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redirect
I'm confused - can someone explain why Qu redirects here? -- Chuq 02:36, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * My guess would be becuase qu is the ISO language name for quechua (ie. en=english) The bellman 13:18, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

This is a good article, however, shouldn't it redirect from Quechua to Runa Simi? I can understand that most people know the language as Quechua, but it's a bit like having Inuktitut redirect to "Eskimo language." It would be perfectly appropriate, if you argue that Quechua is the English name, like Spanish for "Español", but it's not, it's a Spanish borrowing (whose origin I don't know). If there was an English word, it'd be something along the lines of "Roona See-mee" or an equally odd-looking approximation.

Atomsprengja 01:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I've talked to the one Professor who teaches the language at the Ohio State University, and he calls it "Quechua" in English. That's good enough for me, and because that's what it gets referred to as in English, I think it's a good name for the article.  If you came to the university and asked to learn Quechua, they'd send you to the Spanish and Portuguese department to talk to this guy, but if you asked to learn Runa Simi, you'd be told it's not offered here.Mitchell Powell (talk) 19:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

controversy
The validity of the Quechumaran Proposal is very controversial. Many are against combining the Quechuan and Aymaran families into this stock. The claims against the proposal have also been highly criticized. They may be related but the evidence is currently inconclusive. Interested readers are recommended to consult the summaries in the following:


 * Campbell, Lyle. (1995). The Quechumaran hypothesis and lessons for distant genetic comparison. Diachronica, 12, 157-200.
 * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of native America (pp. 273-283). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.

- Ish ishwar 05:59, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)


 * Yeah, there's really no genetic relation between quechua and aymara. For example, the suffix for plural in quechua is "-kuna", but in aymara it's "-naka"; This kind of sustancial differences shows it. --Huhsunqu 14:02, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

-

The point of having articles named XXX language is disambiguation, not to follow unofficial standard. Since there is to my knowledge no "Quechua people", I don't see the point of such a move. See Esperanto and Inuktitut for an example of language articles that simply don't need the extra "language"-addition. I would like to avoid yet more unnecessary mistakes like that of Urdu language. That move was obviously made by someone who didn't read the info at WikiProject Languages properly.

Peter Isotalo 22:07, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no -article- Quechua people, but there definitely are Quechua people. Some of the articles which link to Quechua are referring to the people, as well, for instance Puno Region. Eliot 22:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * No, there's no Quechua People. Some people wants to group all peruvian (also bolivian and ecuatorian) Andean etnies as a single one but, once again, there's more than one Quechua speaking etny. --Huhsunqu 04:30, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I understand. Well, I would withdraw the proposed move, but it looks like someone has already done it. I'd support moving it back, though. I also think we should have an article about the groups of people who speak Quechua, but I apparently am not the one to write it. Eliot 14:31, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

---There is no ´one Quechua people´, but there are Quechua Nations in the Andes. And a ´peruvian quechua community´ for example.

--Quechua General lingua franca incaica was Quechua-IIB, thus was Quechua ´Chinchay norteño`. This language was used in the dictionary of Domingo de Santo Tomás and from this Quechua the Spanish took their new words like ´tambo´, ´condor´, -bamba´. A variety of Lingua Franca incaica is used in the Manuscript of Huarochiri. --Quechua General colonial (quechua clásico) was the quechua standarized by the Spanish and was Quechua-IIC, thus sureño. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.194.60.5 (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, Sí, muchos quieren identificar los Andes con un solo grupo de personas por ignorancia y por el clásico afán de reduccionismo y esterotipación occidental, pero hay una diversidad muy rica en los Andes. Ademas, no solo los quechuas hablan quechua: aimaras, mestizos, y diferentes pueblos de la amazonia de Perú, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile y Brasil (migrantes) también hablan Quechua. En tiempos pre-hispánicos, los mochica, los puquina, y otros pueblos cuyas lenguas han muerto también lo hablaban, el bilingüismo era bastante extendido por el mundo andino. Además, Quechua fue un nombre no de un pueblo o etnia en particular, sino de una región geográfica: Quechua es la región de valles intermedios. La gente asoció el idioma de esta gente con la gente misma (lo que por supuesto es muy común). Por eso, también existían los yungas, los chunchos, etc. Tupananchikama!

I think the person above got confused. For the benefit of any non-Spanish speakers-

Yes, many people want to identify the Andes with a single group of people out of ignorance and from the classic enthusiasm for reductionism and western stereotyping, but there is a rich diversity in the Andes. Also, it's not only the quechuas who speak Quechua: aymaras, mestizos, and different peoples from the Peruvian amazon, �Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil (migrants) also speak Quechua. In pre-hispanic times, the mochicas, puquina, and other people whose languages have died also spoke it, as bilingualism was quite extended over the Andean world. Also, Quechua was a name not of a people or ethny in particular, but of a geographic region: Quechua is the region of intermediate valleys. The people associated the language of those people with the people themselves (which I suppose is pretty common). For that reason there also existed the yungas, the chunchos, etc. Tupananchikama!

and from me- Tlin!

71.240.161.241 00:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think several posters have confused different issues. One is the idea (mistaken) that all Andean peoples are Quechua speakers. They are right to reject this notion since the Andes are home to speakers of many languages. Another is the idea that all Quechua speakers belong to the same ethnicity. Also untrue, just like not all English speakers are of English ethnicity, nor all Spanish speakers of Spanish ethnicity. There's a third idea that because of these two previous facts, there is no such thing as the Quechua people or Quechua ethnicity. This final point is, however, untrue. There most certainly is a Quechua people and a Quechua identity, and this identity, as is the case with many other ethnicities, has sub-divisions and fuzzy boundaries. At times it makes more sense to speak of Quechua peoples and ethnic identities, in the plural, just as it can, at times, make sense to talk of, say, French identities or Chinese identities or USA identities.


 * To say that there is a Quechua ethnicity does not deny that in the Andes there are many other languages spoken: Aymara, Spanish, etc. It's the same with the categories "Peruvian people" or "Peruvian ethnicity": neither of these concepts are contradicted by the presence of other peopels or ethnicities in Peru. Likewise, to say there is a Quechua people/ethnicity is not inconsistent with the fact that many Quechua speakers belong to other ethnicities/peoples.


 * The most important criteria are the existence of people who share some commonality (in language, religion, culture, territory, or history) and the existence of some explicit awareness of such commonality. In Peru, there certainly is a Quechua identity which exists in a non-mutually exclusive relation with other ethnicities (Peruvian, local). In Peru, there are many people who say "Soy Quechua" and not just "Hablo Quechua". They say this because, for them, "Quechua" is something one can be and not just speak. Inter lingua talk email 13:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Writing system section

 * Quechua has been written using the Roman alphabet since

Okay, but exactly which characters are in its alphabet, and in what order? The article should either answer this, or explain why it can't be asked. 65.57.245.11 22:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The spelling conventions differ by dialect, and there are at least three spelling systems, as the article explains. An appropriate place to explain them all would be in the article on Cusco-Collao; we should really move away from putting too much dialect-specific information in this article.   Zompist 03:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Grammar section
Which type of Quechua is this written for? My guess is "southern Quechua" based on the above section, but it doesn't really say. It is slightly different from the Quechua I study (Qusqu). E.g. we see "-rqa" written for past sometimes, but always say "-ra" for past. Also switching "n" for "m"'s.. well the specifics aren't too important, someone that really knows should just put a sentence in saying what "type" of Quechua this grammar refers to. User:Kinser


 * As the article has come from many hands, it's a bit piecemeal. At the moment most of the examples in the Grammar section use Ayacucho spelling, though there are some Cusco forms in there too. Zompist 03:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal pronouns: Inclusive and Exclusive "We" and plural

Just curious, is there any other Native American languages other than Quechua that has the distinction of an inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"? I originally thought this is a characteristic of Standard Mandarin (Beijing, Tianjin) but later found it it is also the case in Mongolian. Also the way of adding a suffix to the singular form to make it a plural form is also a common grammar practice in almost all the Chinese languages that I know.

Karolus 2006/08/29


 * See Clusivity. This feature is far from unique to these languages; it's found throughout the world and really, absolutely common in the Americas. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:59, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merger with Kichwa
I'd say no; that would be like merging "Portuguese" with "Romance". With 2.5 million speakers, Kichwa is a very respectable Amerindian language on its own-- more widely spoken than anything north of the Rio Grande. And we already have articles on other varieties of Quechua, those of Cuzco and Ayacucho. Zompist 14:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I would either have one article contain all Quechua varieties (with chapters on Cuzqueno, Kishwa, etc.), or a Category "Quechua languages" with separate articles on each variety. Unoffensive text or character 08:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Zompist. The Category:Quechuan languages already exists, as well as the main article Quechuan languages. No changes are necessary. -- PhJ 08:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, there is some detailed information on Kichwa in the German Kichwa article de:Kichwa showing the considerable differences to Southern Quechua. -- PhJ 08:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Quechua in Chile
Concerning the recent edition/reversion: Regarding the presence of Quechua in Chile, the only definite source I could come up with, is: http://csociales.uchile.cl/publicaciones/sitios/lenguas/estadolg.htm It says here: "Comparativamente, la vigencia del quechua, actualmente, es mínima. Según Lehnert, "en el presente el Quechua es hablado por algunos ancianos en las áreas de Cupo-Turi, y por algunos habitantes en Toconce y Estación San Pedro, como resultado del asentamiento de mano de obra que vive indistintamente en ambos sectores de la línea fonteriza Chile-Bolivia y muy de acuerdo con sus patrones de vida andinos" (Lehnert, 1981: 31). No proporciona información sobre número de hablantes. Luego, habría también hablantes de quechua, igualmente ancianos, en Arica e Iquique. Ellos procederían de Bolivia, llegando a trabajar en las minas y salitreras del norte, a comienzos de este siglo. Posteriormente se radicaron en esas ciudades. No se dispone de mayores antecedentes al respecto." I read this as follows: There are a few villages near the Bolivian border where Quechua used to be the traditional language of the community, but there were only a few elderly speakers left in 1981 (or whenever Lehnert did his fieldwork). As that was 25 years ago, we can reasonably assume most of them to be deceased by now. Then, there are some speakers of Quechua in Arica and Iquique, but these are immigrants to the country and should not count here, as there are certainly more speakers of Quechua in New York or San Francisco, and we do not seriously want to list those towns here. I conclude from this that Quechua in Chile is either dead or in its very last stages. However, I will not revert the recent changes before having discussed the matter here.Unoffensive text or character 09:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Ethnologue shows over 4500 speakers of Quechua in Chile:, though it's not stated when the information dates to. Note that since Quechua certainly was spoken in Chile, even if it's not today it would be better to say "...formerly Chile" in the geographical distribution rather than simply remove it. Zompist 16:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The Ethnologue is in many cases unreliable. Anyway, I agree that "formerly Chile" or "Chile (moribund or extinct)" would be the best solution.Unoffensive text or character 08:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC) Oh, by the way, Zompist: The Ethnologue shows over 4500 "ethnic population" and specifies "there may be no Quechua speakers in Chile".Unoffensive text or character 08:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There's no problem with being specific, here; we don't have to be succinct. We could say "and a small, nearly exitinct following in Chile", or something like that. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 16:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * All the more reason to get rid of the Languages of Chilean navigation template!--Gacelo 16:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ecuador
Quechua is "indigenous languages official in own territories in Ecuador", according to the most recent edit. Does anyone know how those "own territories" are defined? Is there a map somewhere on the web where they can be looked up?Unoffensive text or character 09:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong, but I think that the government recognizes ayllus as legitimate governmental bodies, and allows that Quechua is the official language in such ayllus. --Descendall 06:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * According to the Constitution of Ecaudor: "El castellano es el idioma oficial. El quichua, el shuar y los demás idiomas ancestrales son de uso oficial para los pueblos indígenas, en los términos que fija la ley." "Castillian is the official language. Quichua, Shuar and the other ancestral languages are of official use for the indigenous pueblos, in the terms fixed by law."  Of course pueblo here probably means "people" but could also mean towns.  --Descendall 06:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Official status
I also now note that Peru's constitution says "Spanish and, in areas where they predominate, Quechua, Aymara, and other native languages are official languages, according to the law" and Bolivia's constitution simply says that the languages of indigenous people are "respected and protected within the framework of the law." --Descendall 06:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Trillion?
Did we skip billion for a reason, or is the trillion in the numbers a typo?

Proposed merger with "Quechuan languages"
At 17:48, 14 May 2007 User:Gacelo proposed merging this article with Quechuan languages without a comment. I think there is no necessity to merge the two articles, as this article (Quechua) mainly deals with the language itself, with sociolinguistic aspects and history, whereas "Quechuan languages" is about classification of the varieties of the Quechua languages. The term "Quechuan languages" is highly disputed because some linguist consider it one single language. Therefore the Spanish article has been named es:Variantes del Quechua. -- PhJ 07:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The distinction between language vs. dialect and small language family vs. language is notoriously contested, but and even the "mutual intelligibility" criterion, the most popular tool to help settle this kind of issue, is not straightforward at all. However, I think to call Quechua a single language stretches it and is misleading. I do get the impression that the comparison with Slavic, Arabic, Scandinavian/Norse, Tibetic and perhaps Sinitic (sans Min) is fair: The relationship is undoubtedly close and the similarity unmistakable, but in order to describe the grouping is just a little too incoherent to describe it as a single language; it's probably better considered at the very least four, or rather ten (or so) closely related languages. I note that the Spanish article is now at es:Lenguas quechuas and es:Variantes del Quechua has been deleted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:00, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

adverbs comment by 85.60.51.20
Here is a comment was written by 85.60.51.20 that I'm moving from the article to here:

"I do not have the reference for the following to hand however I have read that the above is how the ancient Greeks perceived the world. For instance - picture a time-line, oriented left to right where leftwards indicates the past and rightwards indicates the future. A person from ancient Greece and a speaker of Quecha would place a pictorial representation of themselves with their eyes fixed leftwards watching the past unfold before their eyes. It is an interesting intersection of metaphor, orientation an epistemology. The European model has the orientation of the perceiver reversed. I would not privilege either word-view."

Hope this is useful, Lisatwo 13:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is sometimes called the "ascending time" and "descending time" metaphor, for example here on p. 375, or "moving-ego" vs. "moving-events" in cognitive linguistics, compare Aymara language. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:51, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

More info on classification/relationship please
I have a background in linguistics, but I confess my ignorance of the indiginous languages of Central and South America. This is a very interesting article, but I would like to know more about how this language is classified. What are its familial affiliations (or is it an isolate)? Is it related to any other languages/families in the Americas? Has a "proto-Quechua" been identified and/or linked to other languages? Most other language articles have this info, or at least acknowledge its non-existence, if appropriate. Thanks.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 15:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Qhapaq Runasimi
User:Mary Tania added the following to the article:


 * It is important to know that the word "Quechua" or "Qheswa" is not the real name of the language of the Incas. The proper title to their language given by the Incas was "Qhapaq Runasimi", "The Great Language of the people" (Qhapaq = great, Runa = People, Simi = language). The word Quechua was given by Dominican priest Pedro Aparicio in the times of the conquest in 1540 misundestanding the meaning. The root of the word 'quechua' means, taken away by force,"quechuanchis" were called the Spaniards by the Incas an expression that means all together, killers, thiefs.
 * Quechuy = means, expropiar, robar by force.
 * Quechuypa = is a verb wich it means = the action of stealing.
 * To all of you who read this statement I ask you to refer to the descendenst of the Inca Impire not as a indigenous people because they weren't. The Inca Empire is to be seen as one of the great Cultures in the world. It will only be fair to refer to their present people as the "Inca descendents" and to their language not as Quechua but as the "Qhapaq Runasimi".


 * Manan "KECHUWACHU" nitaq "QHESACHU" sutinqa. Sutinqa = Qhapaq Runasimin Tawantinsuyu Incakunaq Simin Llapan.

An encyclopedia isn't the place for advocacy. The article already gives the Quechua name for the language. The other statements above need to be given sources. My sources (e.g. Mannheim (p. 7) and Cerrón-Palomino (p. 33), listed in the references; the dictionary of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua; see also the Spanish version of this article) give the etymology of Quechua as qichwa, Cusqueño qhishwa, 'temperate valley', rather than qichuy. Anyway 'robbers' would be something like qichuqkuna. Zompist (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

About borrowings from Spanish
Because of the lack of an actual organization regulator of Quechua, I think we need to maintain the Spanish orthography in those words which come from it. Since the pronunciation depends on the speaker's knowlege of Spanish, any borrowing from it could be pronounced as it is in Spanish (e. g.: chofer (driver) -> /chofer/), if the speaker actually speaks Spanish, or has had any contact with it (as it is in the majority of cases), or as the speaker could (e. g.: chofer (driver) -> /chufir/). So, it is necessary, in my opinion, that we write every borrowing as it is done in the original language.--Le K-li (talk) 14:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Many scholars and educators who use Quechua would disagree. (Take a look at the Quechua Wikipedia, for instance.)  In any case the sentences with chufir are taken from Clotoaldo Soto Ruiz's textbooks; I don't think it's appropriate for an encyclopedia to second-guess the best grammarians of the language. Zompist (talk) 16:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I write in the Quechua Wikipedia, and actually they agree with me!! But I know many educators would disagree. My opinion is based on what a native speaker told me (who, in fact, is my Quechua teacher), and when you listen to them, they use several expressions in Spanish, as they must be pronounced, without any problem. Nowadays, there's nearly no Quechua-speaking person who doesn't speaks Spanish as well.--Le K-li (talk) 23:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * PS: I learn Quechua with the Soto Ruiz's book!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Le K-li (talk • contribs) 23:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nominative case
So in Quechua linguistics, one doesn't talk about a "nominative case", which is of course "the noun itself", but is regarded as a case in most other languages? Belgian man (talk) 20:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

In fact one does talk about the nominative. (Soto Ruiz and Cerron-Palomino do, for instance.) Zompist (talk) 05:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. I assume the nominative can be listed among the cases then. Thus, Quechua has 20 cases? Belgian man (talk) 12:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a little trickier... I'm not sure that all the things listed on the page are cases. Quechua has a lot of suffixes, and grammars classify them differently.  One grammar I have here (Itier) lists just nominative, accusative, genitive, allative, ablative, locative, instrumental, associative, benefactive, comparative, terminative, causative, and translative; others are particles or derivational suffixes.  Other grammars have slightly different lists.   Zompist (talk) 15:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay I see. As a beginner, I am learning Quechua with the Lonely Planet phrasebook ;) Belgian man (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Fernando Avendano
The article about Fernando Avendano, who was a 17th century Catholic priest in Peru, ends with the sentences "Of great importance to linguistics are his Sermones de los misterios de nuestra santa Fe católica, published in 1649 by the order of the Archbishop of Lima, Petro Villagomez. These sermons were delivered in Quichua, and are published with their translation into Spanish." Could one of you experts take a look and decide whether "Quichua" is the right word, and whether it should redirect (as it does now) to "Kichwa"? Thanks. 24.36.74.15 (talk) 02:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert, but I do know Spanish, and in Spanish 'Quichua' and 'Kichwa' would be pronounced identically, if that helps at all.Mitchell Powell (talk) 19:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

revert
I reverted this edit for two reasons:
 * i) The number of possible speakers in Chile has already been discussed and agreed upon here;
 * ii) The number of 1,500 speakers in Brazil lacks reference.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 12:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Sacsayhuamán proposed for renaming
There is an ongoing discussion at Sacsayhuamán about a possible rename to Sacsayhuaman, without diacritics. Users watching this page might be interested in voicing their opinions at Talk:Sacsayhuamán. --Victor12 (talk) 19:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

merge
Quechua is a nice article, but duplicates either Quechuan languages or the various articles on individual Quechua languages. I don't see a point to having all three. kwami (talk) 23:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This has been suggested before. See Talk:Quechuan languages. Zompist (talk) 20:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's ambiguous. So why not just move the family here? Or redirect this article there? There's a lot of duplicate info. kwami (talk) 00:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If there's duplicate info, we should either merge or articulate some sort of criterion of scope for each article since they also seem to be covering more or less the same topic. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems odd that Quechua would be about the language and the Quechua people are relegated to Quechuas. Merging the language information on this page with Quechuan languages makes sense, then move Quechuas to this page. -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

The Quechuan languages article had no information in it that was not in this article apart from a table of cognates, which would fit just as easily here in the classification section, and a few tidbits such as an iso5 code. They were a WP:content fork, and as such I merged them. (If anyone ever does enough work on them so that the "family" is distinct from the "language", as is the case with Chinese, or if we think of a more meaningful target for 'Quechua' as an official language, we can of course split them up again, but given the sorry state they're in, that will probably be a long time.) A large number of the links to Quechua are about the people rather than the language, so I've moved the dab page to that name. This is the convention followed by nearly every pair of people/language articles on WP, following the MOS. I'm now going through the 800 main-space links and redirecting the more important ones, such as the country articles. — kwami (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Change of localization image
Should the Quechua Speaking World image be changed with the new version at the right?

The new image shows a easier to read map, because it only shows the quechua zone; and also this image is in the SVG raster image format. Ularevalo98 (talk) 02:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Adessive
Is the translation for the adessive case in the table correct? It says the same as for the accusative case, this doesn't seem right. Nothingbutmeat (talk) 22:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Good catch. It isn't an adessive, which is a form of locative; -ntin is used for ‘in the company of X’, ‘the whole of X [time units]’, or ‘a group of X [numbers]’. Zompist (talk) 23:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I see you've changed it to comitative, that makes a lot more sense! If I may venture a criticism, I'd say the order of the cases is a bit strange, is there a particular thought behind their order in the list? I would have grouped the "basic" cases (nom., acc., dat. etc) together first, then the locative cases and so on. Nothingbutmeat (talk) 22:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Khipu a semiotic system that stands in for writing?
Dr. Galen Brokaw argues in A History of the Khipu (Cambridge U P, 2010), that the khipu is a semiotic system that stands in for writing, despite traditional allegations that Andean peoples had no writing but were only oral cultures.

cf Quipu

Ocdnctx (talk) 01:39, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Map image
The new image was proposed few years ago, and it was added to article. However, there is no reason given why (only) Bolivia is highlighted in darkest colour. The article says most speakers are in Peru, second most in Bolivia. It is official language in both Bolivia and Peru. So, there is no reason to have only Bolivia in darkest colour. Or is there? If there is, it was not explained but it should be. 82.141.118.227 (talk) 02:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Why Quechua? According to the article: "At the time of the conquest, the Incans referred to their language as "runasimi", only later to be mistakenly called quechua by conquistadors."

How could they mistake "Quechea" for "Runasimi"? Does the word "Quechea" mean something in Spanish? The "explanation" makes no sense as it stands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.118.29 (talk) 18:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The entire section History: origins and divergence looks to have been cribbed intact from some other source, by someone who really didn't understand what it meant, and thus couldn't paraphrase it. Crappy section as a result, that needs to be reworked by someone who does understand it.67.242.49.221 (talk) 23:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Classification section clarification please
> 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).

seems to be a contradiction, I am not an expert but should the first sentence read: if not please clarify

> There is a sharp dichotomy in Quechua between the varieties of the central Peruvian highlands on the one hand and the peripheral varieties of Ecuador, > southern Peru and Bolivia on the other. These are labeled Quechua I (or Quechua B, central) and Quechua II (or Quechua A, peripheral). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gene Thomas (talk • contribs) 17:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The phrasing is not optimal, but I think it refers to the fact that the peripheral varieties are split between northern and southern varieties, i. e., varieties spoken north of the central Quechua varieties (which are found in central Peru) – namely in Ecuador and northern Peru – on the one hand, and varieties spoken to the south of central Quechua – in southern Peru and Bolivia. Compare the map. This is really rather tricky to express. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:19, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Phonetics/Pronunciation.
A section of phonetics/pronunciation should be started. --Dorpater (talk) 19:47, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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-- Note to copyeditors: I am sad to see that this is tagged as "not following policy" on external links, because the external links here are useful for people learning the language who do not live in Peru. I hope you'll consider making theses articles on languages useful for people who are actually learning the language, not only for linguists! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.166.93.253 (talk) 16:48, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Quechua in Chile once more
As the outcome of a discussion that took place in 2006, the number of Quechua speakers was changed to "few, if any". This was supported by http://csociales.uchile.cl/publicaciones/sitios/lenguas/estadolg.htm, which is now to be found here. ''Comparativamente, la vigencia del quechua, actualmente, es mínima. Según Lehnert, "en el presente el Quechua es hablado por algunos ancianos en las áreas de Cupo-Turi, y por algunos habitantes en Toconce y Estación San Pedro, como resultado del asentamiento de mano de obra que vive indistintamente en ambos sectores de la línea fonteriza Chile-Bolivia y muy de acuerdo con sus patrones de vida andinos" (Lehnert, 1981: 31). No proporciona información sobre número de hablantes. Luego, habría también hablantes de quechua, igualmente ancianos, en Arica e Iquique. Ellos procederían de Bolivia, llegando a trabajar en las minas y salitreras del norte, a comienzos de este siglo. Posteriormente se radicaron en esas ciudades. No se dispone de mayores antecedentes al respecto."

This is further supported by Alain Fabre, Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: Quechua, p. 84

''Chile: quizás se hable todavía en algunos lugares aislados de la prov. de Antofagasta, en el altiplano cercano a Bolivia, pero no existe ninguna confirmación actual al respecto. Hacia los años 20, Hanson (1926) afirma que Aiquina [en el río Salado, afluente del Loa, a unos 75 kms. al este de la ciudad de Calama] y Caspana [a 16 kms. al este de Ayquina, al pie del monte de Cablor, a unos 30 kms. en línea derecha al oeste del geyser de Tatío, en la frontera boliviana] eran bilingües quechua-español, mientras en el pueblo de Toconce [a unos 25 kms. al norte de Caspana y hacia el oeste del cerro Linzor], se hablaba aymara y español. De todas maneras, en esta zona, tanto el quechua como el aymara se hablaron sobre un substrato kunza. Lehnert (1981-82, citado por Sánchez 1993-94) dice que algunos ancianos todavía hablan el quechua en Cupo y Turi [dos pueblitos ], así como en Toconce y Estación San Pedro.''

The claim that there are 8,200 speakers in Chile according to the 2002 census is certainly wrong, as the census did not ask for language use or proficiency. I will therefore revert that claim to "few, if any". Yupanqui (talk) 09:20, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Wrong word →‎ nonsense
The lead paragraph ends with:
 * It is perhaps most widely known for being the main language of the Inca Empire and was disseminated by the colonisers throughout their reign but ultimately survived and has since then evolved, and variants are still widely spoken today.

That's literally nonsense; whoever wrote it didn't know what "disseminate" means:
 * 1: to spread abroad as though sowing seed &middot; disseminate ideas
 * 2: to disperse throughout
 * —Merriam-Webster

So the colonizers spread the language but it survived? No. To quote § History, just below that,
 * After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century, Quechua continued to be used widely by the indigenous peoples as the "common language". It was officially recognized by the Spanish administration and many Spanish learned it in order to communicate with the local peoples.[8] Clergy of the Catholic Churchadopted Quechua to use as the language of evangelization. Given its use by the Catholic missionaries, the range of Quechua continued to expand in some areas.
 * In the late 18th century, colonial officials ended administrative and religious use of Quechua, banning it from public use in Peru after the Túpac Amaru II rebellion of indigenous peoples.[5] The Crown banned even "loyal" pro-Catholic texts in Quechua, such as Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios Reales.[9]
 * Despite a brief revival of the language immediately after the Latin American nations achieved independence in the 19th century, the prestige of Quechua had decreased sharply. Gradually its use declined so that it was spoken mostly by indigenous people in the more isolated and conservative rural areas. Nevertheless, in the 21st century, those speaking Quechua language speakers number 8 to 10 million people across South America,[5] the most speakers of any indigenous language.

I'm changing that sentence in the lead paragraph to
 * The colonisers initially encouraged its use, but from the middle of their reign they suppressed it. But Quechua ultimately survived, evolving as all languages do, and variants are still widely spoken today.

--Thnidu (talk) 03:13, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

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native pronunciations of the language names missing!
The native pronunciations of "Quechua" and "Runasimi" are missing. And shouldn't that be "Runa Simi" in two words, or is the link to the Quechuan Wikipedia spelled wrong?! It's spelled as one word on https://qu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qhichwa_simi --Espoo (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Mahal kita
Mahal kita 49.149.183.41 (talk) 05:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Quechua language
Quechua language redirects here. However, as a non-specialist, my understanding is that references to a "Quechua language" almost always refer to Southern Quechua. Is this correct? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)