Yuyay Allinta!

This week’s post is dedicated to Quechua, a language I had a brief run-in with during my time in Bolivia. Yuyay allinta means “remember well” which is very applicable as I remember how hard Quechua was to learn!

Although I had never heard of it before I moved to South America, it is the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas. This is likely because it was the official language of the Incan Empire. It is still spoken widely in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Speakers of Quechua can also be found in Northern Chile, Argentina, and Southern Colombia. Estimates on the total number of speakers range between six and thirteen million.

Another interesting fact about Quechua is the way it differs across countries. Quechua exists in what is called a dialect chain across most of Western South America. This means that speakers of one Quechua language can understand the languages spoken by their immediate neighbors, but not a language further from them.

To find out more about Quechua, check out the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quechua_language

http://ullanta.com/quechua/

http://www.quechua.org.uk/Eng/Main/i_INTRO.HTM#Andes

http://www.native-languages.org/quechua.htm