Allinta uyariyta yachaspaqa, allintatiqmi yachanki.
If you listen and pay attention, you will learn well.
Quechua Proverb
Quechua and Ecuadorian Kichwa
Introduction
Quechua, [ˈkɛtʃwə], is a family of languages spoken by over 7 million people primarily in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and with more than one million speakers found elsewhere in the Andean Region of South America. Quechua is a dialect continuum, composed of more than 45 identified dialects, with few distinct boundaries and of which not all are mutually intelligible. Today Quechua dialects are broadly classified as Quechua I (QI) and Quechua II (QII). QI, or Central Quechua, encompasses dialects spoken in central Peru, while QII, or Peripheral Quechua, includes dialectal variations in Ecuador, Bolivia and peripheral areas of Peru.
Ecuadorian Kichwa, a sub-class of QII, is further divided into high and lowland varieties. Kichwa (or ‘Quichua’) comprises nearly all Quechua dialects spoken in Ecuador and southern Columbia for a total of over 1.5 million speakers. Despite Kichwa’s wide speakership, many dialects are in danger of becoming extinct due to an increasing in Spanish speakers and a decrease in Kichwa speakers. There are, however, attempts being made at the national and local levels to promulgate a standardized version of Quichua, i.e., Quechua Unificados, as well as revitalize several dialects. Due to a high degree of tribal affiliation between speakers and their dialects, officialized and standardized versions of Kichwa have largely failed as a mode of revitalization.
Historical Development of Quechua
Geographic and Historical Background
There are three main language areas of South American that correlate to boundaries and distinctions among families of languages: The Andean Region (the highlands) in the west, the Amazon (the lowlands) in the east, and the Southern Cone in the south. Quechua is spoken predominantly throughout the Andean Region, which stretches north-to-south along the Pacific coast, beginning in Columbia and encompassing large regions of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, as well as parts of Chile and Argentina. It is also spoken in the Amazonian basin (Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Bolivian) to a lesser extent.
Origins of Quechua
Proto-Quechua emerged sometime before the first century CE among hunter-gatherers in Peru. The exact origin and early history of Quechua is difficult to trace since, until the 16th century, it was solely a spoken language. Traditional Quechua oral history places the origins in ancient Cusco, Peru. This corroborated with the fact that Cusco was the capital city of the Incas and the approximate center of the Quechua-speaking world, as well as the location today where the prestige dialect of Quechua is spoken. Alternatively, the costal origins hypothesis is based on the analysis of dialects and neighboring languages through history and places Quechua’s origin on the coast of Peru, from which it then migrated to Cusco and the rest of the Peruvian highlands. Based on the timeline of the more widely accepted coastal hypothesis, the first split and expansion of proto-Quechua is estimated to have occurred sometime in the first half of the 1st millennium CE. Further spreading of Quechua occurred over the next several hundred years as small, agrarian tribes consolidated into larger groups and trade necessitated a lingua franca in the Andes. For instance, a 5th century salt trade between speakers of Quechua in the Andes and the Amuesha of the Amazon may explain the presence of Quechua traits in surviving dialects of Amuesha.
Height of Quechua and Colonialism in Latin America
The Inca Empire formed in the 13th century with Quechua as an official language. By the 15thcentury the predominantly Quechua- speaking empire extended throughout the Andes as far north as southern Columbia and as far south as northern Argentina and Chile. Quechua spread rapidly as a lingua franca from the second half of the first millennium thru the 15th century, generating a rich dialectal diversity that is still present and historically transparent today. ‘Quechuanisation’ of other languages continued as the Inca’s land-claim and sphere of influence in the Andes increased, though it is debated as to what extent, if at all, the Incas actively imposed Quechua on other populations through requisite education and possibly punitive measures. Consequentially, the language diversity of the Andes decreased.
Quechua was spoken by several million people and remained the most widely spoken language in the Andean Region until the colonial period. The Spanish reached the Andes by the 16th century and quickly defeated the Inca, who were at that time already weakened by civil war. The ensuing widespread hegemonic presence of the Spanish influenced Quechua linguistically and dramatically altered the sociolinguistic setting for Quechua speakers. Spanish missionaries aided in a widespread cultural conversion from the 16th to 18th centuries, debasing local religions and economic systems. Initially the Spanish language was not taught to the general indigenous population in order to maintain the power differential between them and Spanish rulers, who were greatly outnumbered until the 18th century, but later efforts (largely unsuccessful) were made to replace Quechua with Spanish, notably at the end of the 18th century when the use of Quechua was criminalized by the Spanish regime. Quechua was almost entirely excluded in government and other power settings throughout the course of colonialism into modernism, and has consequentially been marginalized mainly to rural areas today. Quechuanisation continued to occur in some Quechua-indigenous language contact settings. The overall number of Quechua speakers has increased significantly in the last 500 years, though the ratio of Quechua to Spanish speakers has consistently decreased, and many dialects of Quechua are endangered.
Dialect Distribution and Classification
Broad Dialect Classifications
The Summer Institute of Linguistics International (SIL) recognizes 45 dialects of the Quechua language family (ISO 639-3; que) [1] though numbers vary across sources. Classifications are made on the basis of mutual intelligibility and, that notwithstanding, on similarities among linguistic features such as syntax, morphology and lexical content. Occasionally there are discrete boundaries between dialects, but more commonly they are distributed across a non-discrete continuum, rendering a perfect classification system impossible to devise. The most widely accepted system today divides Quechua into Quechua (Q) I and II based on a distinct gap of mutual unintelligibility. Each fork in the tree below represents either full or partial divergence of mutual intelligibility.
QI encompasses a large, relatively discrete region of Central Peru in the areas of Ancash, Huɑ́nuco, Pasco, Junín and Lima. It is the smaller of the two Quechua classifications in number of speakers and area, yet presents greater internal linguistic variation. QII is larger both in geographic extension and number of speakers, but is linguistically and geographically less cohesive than QI and is thus subcategorized into Quechua II A, B and C. Similar to the distinction between QI and II, these classes create divisions where there is low-level partial intelligibility and co-categorize those with higher levels of intelligibility and linguistic similarity. QIIA is the smallest geographically and includes isolated pockets of dialects along the northeast and central-east region of Andean Peru. QIIB is composed of dialects in Ecuador and Columbia, as well as dispersed areas in Northern Peru. The majority of dialects under QIIB are Ecuadorian Kichwa. QIIC is by far the largest classification and the most southern, in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, as well as that of the southern half of Peru.
Ecuadorian Kichwa
History of Ecuadorian Kichwa
Quechua spread to Ecuador sometime between the 6th and 8th and, over the course of several centuries, eventually dialectized and diverged significantly from the Quechua spoken in Peru, Bolivia and Chile. The Incas, whose official language was Quechua, conquered the tribe nations of Ecuador in the early 16th century, which further solidified the presence of Quechua in the north. By this time most of the tribal languages of Ecuador were extinct and the remainder was endangered as a result of contact with Quechua and Inca hegemony. It is very likely that when the Spanish arrived in the mid-16th century the Quechua of Ecuador was already highly linguistically distinct from southern Quechua and mutually unintelligible with many Peruvian dialects. The subsequent Spanish colonial era established a sociolinguistic setting in which Spanish quickly became the more widely used, high-prestige language, while Kichwa, the second most common language, was relegated to a low-prestige status.
Kichwa in Relation to Other Dialects
Ecuadorian Kichwa
‘Kichwa’ or ‘Quichua’ (ISO 639-3 qxl) constitutes the majority of speakers under the Q IIB classification, with 1-2 million people in highland and lowland Ecuador. The recognized dialects of Kichwa, ordered based on number of speakers, are Chimborazo Highland, Imbabura Highland, Cañar Highland, Loja Highland, Salasaca Highland, Calderón Highland, Tena Lowland, Napo Lowland and Northern Pastaza. The first three account for roughly 90 percent of Q IIB speakers. Highland dialects are spoken in the highland Andes in north and south central Ecuador, while the lowland dialects (including Northern Pastaza) are spoken in or outside of the Amazonian basin in eastern Ecuador. The highland dialects are all fully mutually intelligible, and are partially mutually intelligible with the lowland dialects. Highland speakers are well aware of the differences between their dialects, but are generally able to communicate fluidly and fluently across dialect zones.
Ecuadorian Kichwa (EcQ)
Orthography & Phonology
Quechua has utilized the Latin alphabet since the 16th century. Prior to European contact Quechua was a spoken language and there was no orthographic system. Orthography has historically been transliterated from the Spanish sound-letter system, though today there are many non-Spanish letters in Quechua orthography. Unified Quichua, for example, introduced the digraph ts to Kichwa dialects.
The following phonemic inventory of Kichwa is a generalization of all EcQ dialects. Some dialects’ inventories are nearly identical to the one below while others lack and/or contain certain phonemic variations. This inventory contains 23 consonants and three vowels for a total of 26 native phonemes, plus three consonant and two vowel loans from Spanish. The Spanish consonant loans are fairly integrated into native phonology; the vowels less so, usually appearing only in unassimilated borrowings.
Ecuadorian Kichwa: Phonemic Inventory (IPA) *Spanish loans
Morphology & Syntax
Quechua is an SOV, agglutinative language in which words/phrases are generated by attaching one or more suffixes to a root. Word order is fairly free since objects are marked explicitly, although somewhat less so in Kichwa. The following is a brief description of nominal and verbal morphology of Kichwa. Abbreviations for markers are found in the footnotes[2].
Nouns may contain the following morphological particles, ordered as such:
(1)
N (DIM) (DEL) (PL) (CASE) (DEL) (IND)
There is no grammatical gender or definite articles. The only indefinite article is the numeral <shuk> ‘one’. There is otherwise nothing in Kichwa resembling a determiner.
Noun pluralization is accomplished by attaching the particle <-kuna> immediately to the right of the constituent:
(2)
N (DIM) (DEL) (PL)
warmi-kuna
woman PL
‘women’
The diminutive suffixes are <-ku> and <-wa>.
(3) misi-wa
cat DIM
‘little cat’
There are numerous case markers, of which the most important are the nominative (Ø), accusative <-ta>, dative <-man>, ablative <-manta>, locative <-pi>, genitive and purposive <-pak>, instrumental <-wan>, causal <-rayku> and delimitative <-kama>.
Spatial relationships between markers reflect syntactic structure. For example, the delimitative marker <-lla> ‘just’ can modify either the noun or the entire NP or PP. Note the semantic ambiguity of the glosses:
(4) wasi – man – lla
house to DEL
‘only to the house’ (not away from it)
wasi – lla – man
house DEL to
‘only to the house’ (not anywhere else)
Verbs are always regular and may be inflected by attaching any of the following morphological particles, ordered as such:
(5)
V (MODAL) (TENSE) (PERSON) (NUMBER) (IND)
Past, present and future tenses are distinguished with the following affixes:
(6)
<-rka> past tense
A three-term evidential system exists in Kichwa. Evidential affixes identify the source, and therefore the reliability of a speaker’s information. <-mi, -n> expresses personal knowledge or first- hand observation. <-s, -si> denotes knowledge that is potentially unreliable.
Simple questions are formed by attaching the particle <-chu> to the constituent being questioned:
(7) kay ñan-chu Kitu-man ri-n?
this road- Q Quito-DEL go-3p.s.
‘is this the road to Quito?
WH-questions are formed by placing the constituent being questioned in the sentence initial position and then either accompanying or entirely replacing it with a WH-proform, commonly <pi> ‘who’, <ima> ‘what’ or <maikan> ‘which’:
(8)
maikan ñan Kitu-man ri-n?
WH pron. road Quito DEL go- 3rd per. sing.
‘which road goes to Quito?’
Negation is marked with double negatives, placing the particle <mana-> at the beginning of the negated constituent, and <-chu> in word final position of the last constituent word
(9)
Pedro mana wasi- pi puñu- n- chu
Pedro NEG house in sleep– 3p.s. – NEG
‘Pedro does not sleep in the house’
Phrase structure rules are described below for the sentence level, root node S, as well as the NP and VP levels. The basic order of constituents in a sentence, where parenthesized elements are optional, is as follows:
(10)
S = (Adv S) NP (PP)* (Adv) (NP) VP (-COMP)
The phrase structure rule for an NP is:
NP = (DEM) (NUMBER) (AP) (PP) N
And the phrase structure rule for a VP is:
VP = (PP) (Adv) (NP) V
Stress, Syllable Structure & Consonant Clusters
Stress patterns are relatively predictable, typically occurring on the penultimate (second- to- last) syllable and moves one syllable to the right when an additional affix is added. Stress shifts to the final syllable when the final phoneme of the word/phrase is /j/.
There are two types of syllable structures permitted in Kichwa:
- (C)V(C) is the typical structure for onsets (but can also be found at word- medial or final) and generates any of the following patterns V, VC, CV and CVC.
- The second broad type of syllable structure is CVV(C), which only occurs word- medial or final and generates the patterns CVV and CVVC.
Consonant clusters in Kichwa permit a maximum of two consonants and are only found word- medial across syllable boundaries. They can be divided into five classes: All possible combinations of stops (S), fricatives (F), nasals (N), liquids (L), and semivowels (Sv) occur, commonly or uncommonly, with the exception of FF, LF and LL, which do not occur at all. Below are examples of descriptions and examples of just a few cluster types.
Complex Clusters in Quichua
Loan Words in English
Several Quechua words are now commonplace in English, including coca, condor, guano, gaucho, guanaco, Inca, jerky, lima (bean), llama, pampa, puma, quinine and quinoa.
(11)
Borrowings from English (Muysken 1988: 418)
Intonsi lindu radiyu-da trayi-shka
Then nice radio-ACC bring-SD
‘Then it turned out they’d brought a nice radio.’
Grabadora-da trayi-mu-ngi
Tape recorder-ACC bring-CIS-2
‘Bring the tape recorder’
(12)
Borrowings from Spanish
Ecuadorian Quichua (Carpenter 1982)
Spanish Quichua English
en que inki ‘in what’
mas que maski ‘even though’
por que purki ‘because’
Current Status
Kichwa is highly stigmatized throughout most of Ecuador, and is generally perceived by mestizos and Hispanics as the language of the poor, uneducated and uncivilized. There exists a sharp economic divide between Spanish and Kichwa; Spanish is used in urban and modernized settings where there is economic growth and opportunity, and Kichwa is mostly used in rural and undeveloped settings (this naturally being a product of colonial hegemony). The population of Ecuador is approximately 15 million, of which over 13 million are either Spanish monolingual or bilingual. In contrast, less than 2.5 million speak Kichwa. Since the 1980’s the number of Kichwa speakers has increased; However, Kichwa population growth is statistically marginal in comparison to the overall population growth and the rate at which Spanish speakership increases. Some dialects are faring better than others; Of the nine Ecuadorian dialects, three contain over 90 percent of Kichwa speakers and continue to grow. Many dialects have less than 20 thousand speakers and their populations are shrinking.
Indigenous rights’ groups such as CONAIE and Instituto Indigenista make progressive efforts toward revitalizing Kichwa by bringing a more positive image of Kichwa to the general population of Ecuador, as well as increasing government-backed opportunities for Kichwa speakers. Only within the last 20 years have the first Kichwa- speaking schools emerged in Ecuador. Prior to these schools, Spanish was the only language taught and used for instruction in classrooms. As several Kichwa dialects are endangered with uncertain futures, the introduction of more schools could prove to be the vital factor in their revitalization. The current government of Ecuador has also shown increased support for Kichwa speakers as a consequence of transition to a more tolerant, democratic regime as well as influence on the part of indigenous rights’ groups.
Interesting Facts
Idioms of Quechua (Cuzco dialect)
Sonsochakoq
Literally means “acting dumb”. A person is up to something, maybe he is trying to listen in on a conversation by acting as a dummy, or maybe he doesn’t want to work, so he is pretending to be working, but really he is just fooling around.
Iskay siki
Literal translation is “two rear ends” but it is used to refer to a “person who wants to sit down in two homes”, for example, a husband spends as much time at his parents’ home as with his wife, so he is undecided about which home he should be in.
Champ’a Uma
Literally means “head, weed” it is a name given to a woman with messy hear, as if saying weeds are growing from her head.
Q’oyo siki
Literal translation is “rear end with bruises” but refers to someone who always complains they feel cold, so you reply that their skin will turn purple (a bruised color) because of the cold weather.
Yuraq siki
Literal translation “white rear end” but it means a “white person, or Gringo”.
Siki sapa
Literal translation is a “big rear end”, but refers to someone who can hardly walk, because they are very overweight, and their bottom is too heavy to move around.
Proverbs of Quechua (Cuzco dialect)
Tukuy suwan, llapanmi suwa nin.
A thief thinks that everyone else is also a thief.
Todo ladrón dice que todos son ladrones.
Pisin p’unchau llank’ay munaqpaqqa.
For those who want to work, the day seems too short, to do all the work that needs to be done.
Es corto el día para el quien quiere trabajar.
Khuyakuyqa yachaypaqmi, mana yachaspaqa usuchiwaqmi.
If you don’t know how to love, you will lose your love.
Hay que saber querer, si no sabes lo echarás a perder.
Llaqtakunaq atipayninwan, teqrimuyuta kuyuchisunchis.
When the villages work together, we will turn this world around.
Con el poder de los pueblos moveremos el mundo.
Wañuymi aswan allin, qonqorchaki kausaytaqa.
It’’s better to die while standing, then live on your knees.
Es mejor morir que vivir de rodillas.
Learn Quechua Words and Phrases:
Lessons in Ecuadorian Kichwa in a downloadable .pdf
Words and Phrases in the Cuzco dialect
Learn More About Kichwa Speakers of the Ecuadorian Highlands:
PeoplesOfTheWorld.org
References
Abugattas, L., & Conagham, C. (1987). Ch. 6 Populism and After: The Peruvian Experience, Ch.7 Party Politics and Democratization in Ecuador. In J. Malloy & M. Seligson (Eds.), Authoritarians and democrats: Regime transition in Latin America. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Adelaar, W., & Muysken, P. (2004). Ch. 3 The Inca Sphere. In The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Aikhenvald, A. (2012). The languages of the Amazon. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cole, P. (1985). Imbabura quechua. London: Croom Helm.
Dixon, R., & Aikhenvald, A. (1999). The Amazonian languages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Eguren, Fernando (2005) Las ONG y el desarrollo rural: Un ensayo provisional, in Debate Agrario 38, Lima, July 2005;
Escobar, A. M. (2011) Spanish in Contact with Quechua, in The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (ed M. Díaz-Campos), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781444393446.ch16
Howard, R. (2011). Ch 8. The Quechua Language in the Andes Today: Between Statistics, the State, and Daily Life. In P. Heggarty (Ed.), History and language in the Andes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Howard-Malverde, R. (Ed.). (1997).Creating context in Andean cultures. New York: Oxford University Press.
King, K. (2001). Language revitalization processes and prospects Quichua in the Ecuadorian Andes (pp. 22-23). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Klein, H., & Stark, L. (Eds.). (1985). South American Indian languages: Retrospect and prospect (1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Muysken, P. (1977). Syntactic developments in the verb phrase of Ecuadorian Quechua. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.
Orr, C. (1962). Ch 1. Ecuador Quichua Phonology. In B. Elson (Ed.). Studies in Ecuadorian Indian Languages (Linguistic Series, Number Seven). Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma.
Parker, G. (1969). Ayacucho Quechua grammar and dictionary (Vol. 82). Paris: Mouton &, (now De Gruyter).
Rendón and Adelaar Loanwords in Imbabura Quechua
Shappeck, M. (2011) QUICHUA-SPANISH LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SALCEDO, ECUADOR: REVISITING
MEDIA LENGUA SYNCRETIC LANGUAGE PRACTICES. DISSERTATION. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
[1] SIL International
[2] N = noun (SUB = subject, OBJ = object) DEM = demonstrative, DIM = diminutive, PL = plural, CASE = case (NOM = nominative, ACC = accusative, DEL = delimitative, LOC = locative), IND = clitics and additional classes of morphemes, SQ = simple question, WH = WH-question proform, NEG = negation, V = verb, PERSON = grammatical person, Adv S = sentential adverb, DSAS = different subject adverbial subordination and * signifies multiple availability within the structure
- Okum
