Fun facts to know and tell about Quechua Language

by Mark Rosenfelder

I thought I'd tell you a little about the Native American language I'm learning, Quechua.
You may have heard of Quechua as the language of the Incas. You may not know, until you finish this sentence, that it's the most widely spoken Amerindian language, with over 8 million speakers. In Peru, a quarter of the population speaks Quechua, and about a third of the Quechua speakers speak no Spanish.

Quechua spoor

Here's some English words derived from Quechua: coca, condor, guano, gaucho, guanaco, Inca, jerky, lagniappe, lima [bean], llama, pampa, puma, quipu, quinine, quinoa, and vicuña.

Peruvian Spanish, of course, has literally hundreds of Quechua words, from names of animals and plants (papa 'potato', viscacha 'type of rodent', cuy 'guinea pig'-- yum, a delicacy in Peru), to cooking terms (choclo 'corncob', pachamanca 'earth oven', tocos 'horrid dish of fermented potatoes'), to items of clothing (chompa 'sweater', chullu 'knitted cap', cushma 'shirt') to terms from everyday life (china 'young woman'; calato 'naked', cachaco 'cop', chacra 'farm', caucho 'rubber', quena 'flute').

Quechua has also influenced Spanish syntax. In Iquitos, for instance, it's common for even monolingual speakers to put the verb at the end, as in Quechua, or to say things like de mi padre su casa 'of my father his house, my father's house', reflecting Quechua tayta-y-pi wasi-n.

Quechua can be heard on Andean music, which is getting easier to find in the States, either in its natural form (such groups as Rumillaqta, Markahuasi, Ayllu Sulca, Ch'uwa Yacu), or in more Westernized forms (e.g. Inti Illimani). The singer Yma Sumac has a Quechua name-- ima sumaq means 'how beautiful!'

The Quechua people

Peru is divided into three main racial strata. The criollos or whites (15% of the population) are on the top; the mestizos or mixed-blood people are in the middle (37%); the Indians (45%) are on the bottom. Peruvians can be very racist, and indio is used as an insult. (The Quechua refer to themselves as Runa, 'the people'.) Like oppressed classes worldwide, the Indians are described as lazy, criminal, and stupid.

However, there is much to admire about Quechua culture. It's a culture that places great emphasis on community and mutual help (ayni). The social system is based on reciprocity: you help your neighbors, they do something for you in return. Some Quechua communities were well enough organized that Peru's Sendero Luminoso guerrillas could make little headway among them.

The Incas also did not lay down before the Spanish quite as docilely as we are taught in school. Armed resistance continued for fifty years after the Spanish conquest, and flared up again in 1770 in the rebellion of Tupaq Amaru II, still remembered fondly by the Quechua (and by at least one American rapper).

The novels of José María Arguedas, himself bilingual in Spanish and Quechua, are powerful evocations of Quechua culture, and of the scorn the Quechua face from the rest of Peru.

A single word which tells much about the relationship of Quechua and Spanish speakers is pishtaku: in Andean folklore, a supernatural being which kills Indians and sells their fat in the cities to make sacrifices, or to be made into soap. In modern forms, this is said to be done to pay off the external debt! During the war, the pishtakus were associated with Sendero's guerrillas, or sometimes with the army-- twin sets of outsiders, coming into Quechua territory to make demands and to enact brutal crimes; only a word depicting a sort of demon predator could convey the appropriate tone of horror.

Types of Quechua

Quechua is divided into a number of dialects. The major division is into 'Central' and 'Peripheral' Quechua. These are not normally mutually intelligible. Mutual intelligibility is tricky, however (see the linguistics FAQ on 'languages vs. dialects'). Speakers of the modern Quechua dialects don't interrelate much (if they do much travelling, they know Spanish), and so don't have the habit of deciphering other dialects. Given the opportunity (for instance, at a congress of Quechua activists), the differences between the dialects can be bridged.

The Central Quechua dialects, spoken in the central Andean spine of Peru, are the most diverse among themselves; this leads some linguists to suppose that this area, and not the Inca capital Cuzco, is the ancient homeland of the Quechua peoples.

The Incas extended Quechua to (modern-day) Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile; the language continued to expand after the Spanish conquest, due to its importance as a trade and missionary language. As a result, it's spoken today in some areas (e.g. parts of Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina) which were never part of the Inca empire.

Distinctive forms of Quechua are found in the north of Peru (Cajamarca, San Martín, Loreto) and in Ecuador, where it is known as Quichua.

The best-known form of Quechua is that spoken in Cuzco (Qosqo), in southern Peru and east to Bolivia. A closely related dialect, that of Ayacucho, is spoken just to the west of Cuzqueño.
Cuzqueños, and even students of Quechua who should know better, will tell you that Cuzco Quechua is 'purer' than other varieties. This is quite untrue; Cuzco dialect has innovated in many ways, both in phonology and in the lexicon.
Quechua has been heavily influenced by Spanish, of course. Some 30% of the lexicon, even in monolingual speakers, comes from Spanish. Different layers of Spanish can be found in the language. Early borrowings, such as riru <>

It has long been believed that Quechua and Aymara are related, but doubt has recently been cast on this hypothesis. The chief problem is that the similarity (lexical and phonological) is most pronounced between Cuzco Quechua and its neighbor Aymara; other dialects of Quechua, and Aymara's relative Jaqaru, are less obviously related. It may be that Quechua has simply borrowed massively from its neighbor (or vice versa).

Sounds of Quechua

Quechua has a three-vowel system: a, i, u. The vowels, like computer geeks, spread out to fit the space available-- an i, for instance, may be heard as [i], [I], or [e]. Bilingual Quechua speakers may approximate the five-vowel Spanish system (but they often get it wrong, producing a distinctive Quechua accent called motosidad).

Quechua words are often cited with e or o in them. This is because before or after a /q/, i sounds like [e] and u sounds like [o]. Some people prefer to write (e.g.) qumir and not qomer 'green'.
Disregarding Spanish loans, the consonants of Ayacucho Quechua are: labial alveolar palatal velar post-velar glottal
stops p t ch k
fricatives f s q h
nasals m n ñ
laterals l ll
vibrants r
semivowels w y
Stress regularly falls on the next-to-last syllable.

About the only difficult sound for English speakers is q, rather like the German ch in Bach, but pronounced farther back in the throat. The pronunciation of q varies widely by dialect; in Cuzco it's a post-velar stop (like Arabic /q/) except at the end of a syllable, where it's fricativized; in Ecuador and San Martín it becomes [k]; in Junín it's lost at the beginning of a word, and becomes a glottal stop [?] elsewhere.

ll and ñ have their (original) Spanish values. Thus llama sounds something like "lyama", not "lama" or "yama".

Cuzco dialect has two entire additional sets of stops: aspirated ph th chh kh qh and glottalized p' t' ch' k' q'. Other dialects of Quechua, including Ayacuchano, do not have these sounds, and they constitute a puzzle in Quechua linguistics. The same sounds occur in Aymara, and our best guess is that they are borrowed from Aymara.

The northern dialects distinguish between two types of s and two types of ch (the phonetic details vary by dialect). Early colonial sources show such a distinction made in Cuzco dialect as well, indicating that the distinction dates back to the earliest forms of Quechua, and has been lost in the southern dialects.

Quechua, in fact, is very nice for studying sound change, because we have written sources (from bilingual speakers) dating back five hundred years, yet its monolingual speakers have generally been illiterate. We can thus observe the process of sound changes over the centuries, without the conservativizing filters imposed by a written language.

Highlights of the grammar

(Citations are in Ayacucho Quechua.)

Agglutination

Quechua words can almost always be divided neatly into morphemes (elements with a single meaning). Quechua is thus an agglutinating language. By contrast the Indo-European languages are inflecting languages.

Compare Quechua wasikunata 'houses (acc.)' with Russian domá. Both consist of a root (wasi-, dom-) plus suffixes; but while the Quechua suffixes can be separated into units adding the ideas of plurality (-kuna) and accusativity (-ta), Russian -á cannot be so broken down: it's a unit, plural + accusative.

Likewise compare Spanish comí 'I ate' with its indivisible inflection -í conveying the first person singular subject and the tense, as against Quechua miku-rqa-ni, where -rqa expresses the past tense and -ni the subject.

Nouns

Nouns are pretty easy. There's no gender (as in Spanish or French) and no articles (i.e. 'the' and 'a'). The plural is -kuna, but it's optional if the meaning is clear.
Adjectives come before nouns: hatun wasi, 'a big house'. So does a noun used as a modifier: alqo wasi 'dog house'.

In addition to the direct object marker -ta-, there's also a topic suffix, -qa- (like Japanese wa). It indicates that the word in question is old information; it's what the sentences is about. Compare:
Alqoqa qarita kachuran.
Dog (topic) bit man: The dog bit the man; the dog, it bit a man.
Alqo qaritaqa kachuran.

Dog bit man (topic): The man was bitten by a dog; the man, he was bitten by a dog.
There are also suffixes to indicate possession: e.g. wasiy 'my house', wasiyki 'your house', wasin 'his house'.

Verbs

The verb generally comes last in a sentence. However, as objects are explicitly marked, word order is fairly free.
Quechua verbs are entirely regular. Once you know one verb, you know them all. Even kay 'to be' is regular.

That doesn't mean that they're exactly easy, however. Verbs are inflected by person--
rimay 'speak'
rimani 'I speak' rimanki 'you (singular) speak' riman 'he/she speaks' rimaniku 'we (but not you) speak' rimanchik 'we (and you) speak' rimankichik 'y'all speak' rimanku 'they speak'
Other tenses are expressed by other suffixes: rimarani 'I spoke'; rimachkani 'I am speaking', etc. None of this is really hard, but it takes getting used to, for an English speaker.

These can get pretty baroque: there's a narrative past suffix, a causative, a reflexive, a benefactive, suffixes indicating movement, repetition, and so on.
Even more unusually (at least to English ears... French speakers might find it natural) is that object pronouns are incorporated into the verb: e.g. rikuwanki 'you see me', where -wa- means 'me'.

Actually the distinction between nouns and verbs is not rigid in Quechua. The word awa, for instance, means 'weave' if you attach verbal suffixes, or 'a weaving' if you attach noun suffixes.

Pronouns

The basic pronouns are
ñoqa 'I' qam 'you (singular)' pay 'he/she' ñoqayku 'we (excl.)' ñoqanchik 'we (incl.)' qamkuna 'you (plural)' paykuna 'they'
Quechua makes do with one word, pay, for 'he' and 'she'.

'You' and 'they' are regular plurals, formed by adding the plural suffix to the singular pronouns. That's a regularity that didn't occur to the inventor of Esperanto!
Quechua distinguishes between an inclusive and exclusive we (including or excluding the hearer).

Particles

One of the most interesting features of Quechua is what we might call 'attitude particles'. For instance, -m(i) expresses personal knowledge:

Tayta Wayllaqawaqa karpintirum
Mr. Huayllacahua is a carpenter (I know it for a fact).
By contrast -s(i) expresses hearsay knowledge:
Tayta Wayllaqawaqa karpintirus
Mr. Huayllacahua is a carpenter (or so I've heard).
It would be nice to be able to see this distinction used in Usenet postings.

There are also particles expressing that an action was--
performed for someone else's benefit (-pa-)
performed for the actor's own benefit (-ku-)
futile or of little importance (-ri-)
unusual, out of the ordinary (-yku-)
important or urgent (-ru-)
lamentable (-lla-)
not the responsibility of the speaker (-sqa-)
...and so on...

As you can imagine, you can put quite a fine spin on a statement. Being able to use all these suffixes correctly is the mark of one who knows the language well.

Sources

It's a pain to find sources on Quechua in the States, and not much easier in Lima. One book that's not too hard to find is Ronald Wright's Quechua Phrasebook, from Lonely Planet. It's well done and contains such useful phrases as Q'echa onqoywan kashani 'I have the shits'.

Anatole Lyovin's An Introduction to the Languages of the World has a sketch of Quechua grammar in a little more detail than this one (and is worth reading for its other grammatical sketches as well: Tibetan, Tok Pisin, Inuit, Dyirbal, etc.).

I've also used Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino's Lingüística Quechua, Bruce Mannheim's The Language of the Inka since the European Invasion, John Lipski's Latin American Spanish,and the series of reference grammars and dictionaries published in 1976 by the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. One of them (San Martín) has, I swear to God, the sample sentence wakayni kuruyan ukutinpi 'My cow has worms in its anus.' And you think you've got problems.

I'm also indebted to my wife Lida, a Peruvian, for giving me an inside perspective on Peruvian society, and for being understanding when I didn't like the chicken stomachs.
If you're inspired to learn Quechua, your best options, in descending order, seem to be--
go to South America and learn it there
find a native speaker here and arrange for lessons
find a university that offers Quechua courses
wait for UFOs to kidnap you and give you good self-study materials
Happy learning! Watch out for those worms!

About the Quechua Culture

1 • INTRODUCTION

The Quechua Indians of the central Andes are the direct descendants of the Incas. The Inca Empire, which existed for a century before the arrival of the Spanish, was a highly developed civilization. The Inca Empire stretched from parts of present-day Colombia in the north, southward into Chile. The Incas had an impressive governing structure. The government imposed tribute and taxes on the population which were exacted in the form of labor and in crops. Vast warehouses were used to store food, which was then distributed in times of famine. The Incas also had an immense army, used to continuously expand the empire and conquer new peoples.

The Spanish conquistadors arrived in South America in the early 1500s. When they arrived, the Inca king Huayna Cápac(d.1527) had already died from one of the many European diseases that preceded the conquistadors. The Incas were in a state of civil war when Spanish forces arrived. After the Spanish captured the new Inca king, Atahualpa (1500?–33), the Incas suffered a swift defeat.

Peru attained independence from the Spanish in 1821. Modern-day Peru has struggled to modernize. It has been plagued by problems of hyperinflation, poor governments, and terrorism. Most Quechua still live in the Andean highlands. They rely on subsistence agriculture (growing little more than their own food) and pastoralism (nomadic herding) as did their Inca ancestors.

2 • LOCATION

Quechua Indians still live in the areas once governed by the Inca Empire in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The geographical conditions between regions differ dramatically. In mountain valleys there is rich soil and access to water that is suitable for farming. Most Quechua, however, live on the stark, steep slopes of the central Andes. Here the soil is poor, the wind strong, and the weather cold.

About one-third of Peru's 24.5 million inhabitants are Quechua Indians. Migration and urbanization in the past few decades have drawn many Quechua to Lima, the capital city of Peru. There is now a large indigenous and mestizo (mixed-race) population in Lima.

3 • LANGUAGE

The Quechua language is known by its speakers as Runa Simi, or the language of the people. The term quechua refers more to the language than to a concrete ethnic group. The Quechua language was the administrative language of the Inca state. It is spoken by millions of people in Peru (about 8 million), Ecuador (nearly 2 million), and Bolivia (about 1 million). Quechua words that have been assimilated into the English language include puma, condor, llama, and coca. Unlike most other native South American languages, Quechua is an official language of Peru, accorded the same status as Spanish. Although it rarely occurs, senators and members of congress can give speeches in the Peruvian Congress in Quechua.

4 • FOLKLORE

The myth of Incarrí perhaps reveals the most about the feelings of the vanquished Inca. After the conquest of Peru in 1532, the Inca rulers retreated from Cuzco to Vilcabamba. There they resisted the Spanish invasion for nearly fifty years. In 1579 the last rebel Inca, Tupac Amaru, was captured and beheaded by the Spanish. The Spaniards stuck his head on a pike and placed it in the plaza of Cuzco as a warning to the rebels. The head disappeared, and they say that it is buried. The myth tells that it is slowly growing its body back and when the body is complete, the Incas will return to rule their land.

Many of the ancient Quechua myths are still preserved in their oral tradition. Most of them narrate the origin of various ethnic groups, or of mountains, rivers, and lakes.

5 • RELIGION

Quechua religion combines both pre-Columbian and Catholic elements. The most significant pre-Columbian influence that endures is the belief that supernatural forces govern everyday events, such as weather and illness. This belief serves a utilitarian purpose to the agricultural Quechua. By making offerings to the powers that control natural forces, the Quechua feel they can influence events and not merely be helpless in the face of bad weather or disease. When drinking alcohol, for example, it is customary to first offer a drink to Mother Earth, Pachamama.

This religious Andean world is populated by gods who have human attributes. Sometimes they love each other and other times they hate and fight each other. For this reason, the Andean religion has two dimensions in the lives of the people. First, in human terms it promotes social cohesion, and second, in transcendental terms it connects gods and humans.

The Quechua have adopted Christianity and also have incorporated it into their indigenous beliefs.

6 • MAJOR HOLIDAYS

The Quechua celebrate important Catholic holidays such as Christmas and Easter. At the same time, they have not abandoned their ancient holidays. In the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco, the Inca Sun Festival is still celebrated. The Inti Raymi festival, as it is called, draws thousands of tourists from all over the world to witness its spectacular festivities. Donning replicas of Inca tunics, rather than contemporary Andean garb, Quechua Indians reenact the Inca sun-worshiping ceremony. The Inti Raymi festival, which celebrates the June solstice, reflects the Inca's vast knowledge of astronomy. On this occasion, there is much eating, drinking, and dancing. True to Inca traditions, a llama is also sacrificed on this day.

7 • RITES OF PASSAGE

Major life transitions, such as birth, puberty, and death, are marked by rituals and celebrations that combine Catholic and indigenous traditions.

8 • RELATIONSHIPS

Courtship and marriage involve a lengthy series of rituals and stages. Most unmarried youths meet (and flirt) during one of the community's many festivals. When a young couple decides that they are ready to consider marriage, the family of the bride is visited by the family of the prospective groom. The groom himself stays home while his parents and godparents discuss the wedding and negotiate what each family will donate to the newlyweds. The engagement is made official at a later date when the bride and groom exchange rosaries. At the wedding, there is a public procession as the bride leaves her home to join her husband's ayllu or community. Various other rituals, including fertility rites, follow the wedding.

9 • LIVING CONDITIONS

The dominant building material throughout most of the Andes is adobe. Adobe has the advantages of being highly durable, free, and widely available. Adobe can be made almost year-round with the rich Andean soil. Traditionally, roofs were made from thatched material.

However, now they are more often made of tiles. House-building is a communal affair, based on the ancient Inca system of labor exchange known as mita. Neighbors are offered chicha (beer), cigarettes, and food in return for their help in the construction of a new home. In exchange, those who participated in the house-building are owed labor that they can claim at any time.
The quality of health care in rural communities is still extremely poor. Most Quechua first turn to a curandero (literally, "curer") who provides herbal medicines and treatment.

10 • FAMILY LIFE

Children in Quechua society play many important roles. From a very young age they participate in economic activities and key household tasks. As in most other subsistence economies, children are essential as they are expected to provide long-term economic security to their parents as they age. An optimum family size is considered to be three or four children. However, due to limited access to birth control, many families have ten or more children. Generally, male children are more highly valued than females, as their economic potential is seen to be greater.

Women play a subordinate role compared to men in the community political structure. Women are less likely to receive a formal education, do not hold significant positions of power within the community, and are excluded from many potentially profitable economic activities. A clear sexual division of labor exists with regard to both agricultural and household tasks. Within the family, women have a say in matters such as decisions about finances or issues surrounding the upbringing of children. However, there is little evidence to suggest that they are free from subordination in that domain either.

11 • CLOTHING

Traditional Andean clothing reflects Spanish influences. In 1572, the Spanish prohibited the Quechua from wearing native Inca tunics and wrap-around dresses. Andean peoples then adopted the clothing still in use today. Quechua women wear skirts and blouses, with colorful woven shawls around their shoulders. Men wear trousers, shirts, and woven ponchos (capes). Sandals are the preferred footwear for both men and women.

The style and color of clothing worn by Quechua Indians varies dramatically from region to region. The Otavalo of Ecuador, an important subgroup of the Quechua, have a very distinctive dress. They wear white trousers and shirts, covered by a solid black poncho. Otavalo men are also famed for their long black braids.

12 • FOOD

The potato was first domesticated in Peru approximately 4,500 years ago. The potato and quinoa grain remain as two of the main staples of the Quechua diet. Common dishes include meat or potato stews, spiced with hot peppers, coriander, or peanuts. For community feasts, a pachamanca, or underground oven, is occasionally used.

Also considered a delicacy is guinea pig. The preferred dish for festivals, guinea pigs are often raised in the house and provide a productive use for kitchen scraps and discarded food. The use of guinea pigs as an important source of protein pre-dates the Incas.

13 • EDUCATION

Formal education in Peru is required until the age of sixteen. In rural areas, however, the percentage of students who finish their schooling is much lower than in urban areas. This is, in part, because children play a valuable role in household and agricultural tasks and their labor cannot be spared. The schooling received is generally very poor. Teaching methods are based on rote memorization rather than problem-solving skills. Personal initiative is rarely encouraged, and teachers generally have low expectations of what their students can achieve. A further problem emerges for Quechua children, since Spanish is the primary language taught and used at schools.

14 • CULTURAL HERITAGE

The characteristic music of the central Andes is called huayno . The mountain origins of huaynos are reflected in their lyrics that recount daily life in mountain villages and proclaim Andean nationalism (patriotism). Traditional instruments still widely used include drums, flutes, and the charrango, a mandolin-style guitar made from an armadillo shell. Huayno singers are increasingly popular in urban areas.

Quechua folk music also includes beautiful, haunting music for panpipes (hollow pipes of graduated length). One of these songs, "El Condor Pasa," was a hit record for the singing duo, Simon and Garfunkel in the 1960s.

As the Incas did not write, there is not a tradition of Quechua literature. In twentieth-century Peru, however, there has emerged a tradition of indigenista writers who focus on the life of the indigenous (native) Andean peoples. Jose Maria Arguedas, Cesar Vallejo, and Ciro Alegría have written influential books that portray the oppression of the Quechua throughout the centuries and chronicle their hard life in the Andes. These authors have contributed to a growing Andean nationalism and pride.

15 • EMPLOYMENT

Most Quechua rely on subsistence farming for their livelihood. Corn, potatoes, and grains are crops that have adapted to the high-altitude environment. Land is still farmed using the Inca method of terracing on steep slopes. This labor-intensive approach to agriculture requires a tremendous amount of time. Little time is left to devote to other economic activities.

Trade is highly developed between different villages and regions. In addition to agricultural products, many communities produce pottery, textiles, belts, hats, and other handicrafts for cash sales. In most communities, there is a weekly market day, which plays an important role in the economic and social fabric of the village.

16 • SPORTS

There are no uniquely Quechua sports. However, as part of a mestizo (mixed background) society, the Quechua participate in a variety of Western sports, such as soccer.

17 • RECREATION

Socializing is the primary form of recreation in Quechua society. The Quechua celebrate a great many religious festivals, national holidays, and birthdays. Parties and festivals are eagerly anticipated and require many weeks of planning. Many festivals involve up to eight days of drinking, feasting, and dancing.

18 • CRAFTS AND HOBBIES

The most significant handicraft produced by the Quechua is textiles. Women throughout the Andes can be seen spinning wool almost all day, even while sitting at the market or waiting for a bus. Both llama and sheep wool are used. The "belt loom" still in use by the Quechua dates back to pre-contact (with Europeans) times. The Quechua are skilled weavers. Their products are increasingly in demand for the tourist and export markets.

19 • SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Male drunkenness is a serious social problem throughout the central Andes. Drinking alcoholic beverages is not only an accepted behavior at the Quechua's many festivals and parties, it is also an expected behavior.

Alongside feasting and dancing, becoming drunk is a core part of most social occasions. Unfortunately, this behavior often spills over into daily life. Excessive male drinking has a negative impact on both family relations and family finances. Spousal abuse is a common result of alcoholism.