User:Qhochalo

A bit about Qhochalo

Qhochalo is a resident of Cochabamba, Bolivia since 2005 having been raised in the Seattle, WA area of the United States. He is fluent in English, Spanish and more recently in Quechua. The name Qhohalo is the term 'cochabambinos' use to refer to themselves as residents of the 'llajta' which is Quechua for city. The word Cochabamba is a corruption of the Quechua term qhocha pampa, meaning 'plain of lakes' which previous to the canalization of the Cochabamba valley was exceptionally lush.

Southern Bolivian Quechua's language code in the ISO format is QUH. Qhochalo's interests include seeing increased comprehensive literacy in the QUH population, stimulating cultural research based, not on historical values (already being done), but in contemporary QUH culture, the growth of mother-language authorship and increased status for QUH in both Bolivia and her neighbors. Of primary value is building bridges based on historical Quechua, modern QUH Quechua, and the ever fascinating use of neologisms and loan words. A language that doesn't employ loan words, invent new words, and learn from history is usually on its way to being moribund.

Notes on Qhochalo's preferred QUH orthography:

There are a lot of arguments in the Quechua orthography universe based on 3 vs. 5 vowel systems, the use of the Q/J and other fun concepts. Historically Bolivia has wandered from one system to another due to the shifting winds of academic fortune without ever fully equipping students to use them. If we wished to be asses about it, we could insist on the IPA to most perfectly represent QUH in written form. This would neither be kind nor helpful since QUH speakers first learn to read in Spanish. They have tremendous trepidation of reading in Quechua, yet with just 1/2 hour's practice, they realize it can be done. Since I am a lumper, not a splitter, when it comes to orthography my desire is that it be easy to read by bilinguals QUH/Spanish readers. Quechua is both difficult and unique. There is no need to attempt to make it more unique by using a complicated orthography.

I prefer to use the system that has been propagated by the Maryknoll fathers at their institute in Cochabamba. The orthography used is as approved by the Bolivian Decreto de Ley no. 03820, 1 Septiembre, 1954. While I can, with minor difficulty, read the other orthographies including Cala, the modern Bolivian Reform, and some more difficult examples from Peru that employ IPA symbols, I definitely prefer the so-called Maryknoll orthography because of its immediate simplicity and excellent representation of speech. If you want to bang out your work in 3 vowels, have at it. There was actually quite a stir created when someone put up a billboard by the Cochabamba airport using ´llaqta´ instead of the popularly preferred ´llajta´.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of literature in QUH. The revered Jesus Lara, apart from his novel use of SH' for the aspirated CHH, generally uses this orthography. The Maryknoll system is perhaps best enshrined in masterwork of Joaquín Herrero S. J. and Federico Sánchez de Lozada´s grammar and dictionary set as well as the 1993 Bible translation and supporting study documents. It is also the orthography used in the basic literacy books created by the Radio Mosoj Chaski(purely QUH broadcasting).

The Maryknoll system is briefly as follows: 5 vowel, J for both soft and harsh breathing. The consonants are then divided as follows according to non-aspirated, aspirated and glottalized/explosives:

p, ph, p' (bi-labials)

t, th, t' (Alveolars)

k, kh, k' (palatals)

q, qh, q' (Uvulars)

j (medial alveolar rough and finial uvular harsh breathing)

ll and y must be differentiated carefully. The QUH ll is characterized as a "Palatal lateral approximant" Historically the phonemes y and ll and ñ have shifted back and forth. For example, blood can be llawar or yawar, road can be yan or ñan.

n, ñ, m stand on their own, but when n occurs next to p, ex. ñan + pi, the result is both written and spoken as ñampi

r has various values including flap (Spanish r) and semi-vowel similar to j in judge in English

l is standard as in Spanish

a e i o u - if you want 3 vowels, they are a i u. e and o result from vowel shifting to facilitate speaking.

Loaned letters

b,d, f, g, h and v only occur in loan words. In other orthographies, hu is used for the w, so cow is written huaca and pronounced 'waca'. House is huasi and pronounced 'wasi'.

c is not used - the hard c is represented by k and sibilant by s.

Other interests

International and traditional cuisine, classic Land Cruisers, Latin American anthropology and archaeology, megalithic cultures and English, Spanish and Quechua etymology.