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Hello everyone. Welcome to Langfocus channel and my name is Paul.
Today's topic is a language that some of you have probably never heard up but it's a fascinating topic
and one that definitely worth a look.
The topic is Quechua.
And in Quechua, the language that sometimes is referred to as "Runa Simi", which means "the people's language".
If we include all varieties of Quechua, it is by far the most widely spoken native language in South America.
With between 8 and 10 millions speakers spread out across Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador,
as well as northern Argentina and southern Colombia.
Spanish is now the dominant language in all those countries, but of course that wasn't always the case.
Even if you haven't heard up Quechua, you must definitely heard up of Inca civilization
whose capital was located at Cusco, in present-day Peru.
And whose empire was the largest in the Americas in the pre-colonial period.
As their empire expanded, the language spread to new areas
because it became the "general language" (or the lingua franca) of the areas under the empire's control.
The origin of Quechua is debated with some people saying that it originated in Cusco area
and other saying that it originated in central coastal area of Peru.
Throughtout the time of Inca rule Quechua was not a written language.
Records were only kept in quipus, a system of knotten strings that serve as symbols or mnemonic reminds of information.
Quipus are not fully understood but they are not thought to represent the sounds or the structure of Quechua.
Insteand they simply provide reminds of information to be passed down orally.
Quechua did not become a written language until the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
which took place between 1532 and 1572.
Quechua continue to be spoken as a lingua franca after the Spanish conquest
and the Catholic Church used Quechua at its efforts to convert people, spreading the language even further.
The oldest written record of Quechua is a book written in 1560 by the missionary Domingo de Santo Tomás
called "Grammar or Art of the General Language of the Indians of the Royalty of Peru"
After the Tupac Amaru rebellion of 1780, the colonial power banned Quechua from public use.
Even Quechua texts that were pro-colonial or pro-Catholic were banned and the language began to decline.
After the Spanish-American wars of Independence from 1808 to 1833, Quechua had a brief revival.
But it has gradually lost prestige and decline in use.
One of the main reasons for the decline of Quechua is the use of Spanish as the language of education and of the media
and the use of Spanish as the main language of the national economies.
And with the economy development comes increased urbanization.
When people moved from their local area to a major city
it's necessary to speak Spanish with the majority of people who don't speak Quechua.
Spanish is often thought of as the language prestige and the economic opportunity
so speakers of Quechua or people whose parents speak Quechua often see it as something low prestige or something to avoid.
Some Quechua-speaking parents avoid speaking Quechua with their children at home and instead speak to them in Spanish.
Even a reseaching this and then looking for volunteers to read Quechua samples,
some people told me that they themselves don't speak Quechua but their friends parents speak Quechua
or their uncle or aunt speak Quechua.
Peru was the first country to make Quechua an official language in 1975
along with Aymara and other native languages.
In Bolivia it's been an official language along with 35 other native languages since 2006
In Bolivia each regional government has officially bilingual
choosing both Spanish and one of the official languages.
In Ecuador Quechua has had semi-official status since 2009.
Spanish is the main official language but Quechua and Shuar are reffered as official languages for intercultural relations.
Even though Quechua began to been written after the Spanish conquest is still mainly is spoken language
and it isn't really written all that much and there are various different standards of orthography.
This is partly because Quechua is spoken differently in different places.
Quechua is not really a single language.
Rather it is a series of closely related groups of dialects
and those groups of dialects that have a high level of mutual intelligibility can be considered languages.
If were a standard written language that was widely accepted and widely used throughtout all the different areas
then it might be able to be called a single language because that unifying force.
But there is no such standard language.
Quechua is divided into two major dialect categories: Quechua I and Quechua II,
which are fairly distinct from each other but there's a dialect continuum within each category.
Quechua I is spoken in central Peru, and is sometimes referred to as Waywash;
Quechua II, which is sometimes called Wampu, can be further subdivided into three dialect groups:
Quechua II-a, in northern Peru;
Quechua II-b - Northern Quechua, also known as Kichwa, which is spoken mainly in Ecuador and southern Colombia;
and Quechua II-c - Souther Quechua, which include the Quechua spoken around Cusco, in Bolivia and in Argentina.
Southern Quechua is the most commonly spoken, and the Cusco dialect is often seen as de facto standard variety of Quechua
even though it really isn't.
The dialects within each of those groups are largely intelligible and there is some degree of intelligibility between the different groups.
The lowest degree of intelligibility is between Quechua I and Quechua II, even if both varieties are located in Peru.
The difference between Quechua I and Quechua II seems to have resulted froma slipt from Proto-Quechua.
The main differences between them are in vocabulary and morphology.
There are differences in pronunciation too, but there are also pronunciation differences within each group.
So, what is Quechua like?
Let's look at some of the features of Quechua focusing on Southern Quechua.
Syntax
Quechua is a SOV language, subject - object - verb.
Let's take a look at an example sentence.
María wasita ruwan.
This means "María buids a house".
Word for word it's: María - house - object marker - build - third person singular
You can see that the basic order is "Subject - Object - Verb".
The subjetc comes at the beginnig of the sentence when there's a explicit subject
but it's possible to have a complete sentence without the subject at the beginning like
Wasita ruwan
The end suffix at the end is a subject suffix so it's often not necessary to have a subject at the beginning.
Agglutination
One of Quechua's main feactures is that it's highly agglutinative.
Let's look at an example of agglutination using the noun Mishi means "cat".
Let's add the plural marker
kuna
Mishikuna
Means "cats" or "the cats". There's no definite article in Quechua, so it depends on the context.
Let's add the word for "with"
wan
Mishikunawan
Means "with the cats".
But let's move this over and add a different suffix meaning "your"
yki
Mishiykikunawan
Means "with your cats".
And if we take away wan we have
Mishiykikuna
which simply means "your cats".
One more example, using the word for "road"
Ñan
Add the plural marker kuna, and we have
Ñankuna
"roads"
Then add the word for "on"
pi
Ñankunapi
Means "on the roads".
Let's remove the word of the end and slide this over and again we can add a possesive suffix, this time
nku
meaning "their".
But it's awkward to have these two nasal sounds right next to each other with no vowels, so you add
ni
an euphonic particle that has no meaning.
So we have
Ñanninkukuna
which means "their roads".
Then add the post position
pi
again and we have
Ñanninkukunapi
which means "on their roads".
Let's look at an example of agglutination using a verb.
We're starting with
Uyariy
the infinitive of the verb, meaning "to hear".
If we take away the y of the end, we now have the verb stem to which we can add suffixes.
First add
ni
a subject pronoun suffix meaning "I", so
Uyarini
means "I hear".
Let's move this over and we can add a past tense suffix to the stem.
rqa
Now we have
Uyarerqani
which means "I heard".
Another example meaning "I am learning Quechua".
Runasimita yachakusani
Runasimi is the word of "Quechua", as I said earlier.
And ta is the object marker suffix
which shows that Runasimi is the object.
But let's focus on the verb
yacha is the stem of verb meaning "to know",
ku is a suffix which makes the verb reflexive or done to oneself
so yachaku means "learn",
sa is a progressive suffix which shows that the action is in progress now,
and ni is the subject pronoun suffix meaning "I".
One feature of Quechua that will be unfamiliar to speakers of many languages is topic and focus markers
The topic marker indicates what the topic of theme of a sentence is.
The topic is always some information that has been previously mentioned, or something that is presupposed.
The focus marker indicates new information or information that is not presupposed, or it shows some point of contrast.
The topic marker is [ka] or [ha] (qa)
and the focus marker is [m] or [n], or mi.
Let's look at the sentence.
Pin wasita ruwarqan?
This means "Who built the house?"
Word for word it's: Who - focus marker - house - object marker - build - past tense - third person singular subject
Here the focus marker is attached to the question word to the focus on the new information that is being requested.
Here's a posible answer.
Pirdum wasitataqa ruwarqan
This means "it was Pirdu who built the house".
Word for word it's: Pirdu - focus marker - house - object marker - topic marker - build - past suffix - third personal singular subject
The focus marker is attached to Pirdu because "he" (Pirdu) is the new information being introduced.
The topic marker is attached to "house", after the object marker
because "house" is the ongoing theme that was already introduce earlier in the conversation.
Evidential markers
That focus markers has another function to show direct evidence that something is true.
This is a kind of evidential, an indicator of the source of information.
Another evidential marker is
cha
which shows inference,
shi
or [sh]
which shows hearsay, something that you heard.
Let's look at the example sentences.
Paramushanmi
This means "it is raining".
Word for word it's:
Rain - cislocative particle which indicates movement towards the speaker - progressive suffix - third person singular subject - evidential marker
This evidential mi indicates that the speaker has observed firsthand that it's raining.
The next sentence is exactly except for the evidential marker at the end.
Paramushancha
This means something like "I think it is raining".
The marker cha indicates that the speaker in first or guesses that it's raining.
The next sentence
Paramushanshi
Means something like "I heard it is raining".
The evidential particle shi indicates that the speaker has been told by someone that it's raining
but they have no firsthand evidence of it.
Spanish loanwords
Quechua uses a large number of loanwords of Spanish
as much as one third of Quechua vocabulary depending of the variety of Quechua and the area.
Here are some examples:
Sirbisa
from Spanish cerveza.
Chufir
from Spanish chofer, meaning "driver".
Escuela
the Spanish word for "school".
And libro
the Spanish word for "book", instead of Quechua word
Patara
As you can see, Quechua is a fascinating language and one that is deeply connected with the history
and culture of the speakers, and of the countries where is spoken.
The decline of Quechua is unfortunate and the loss of Quechua would be a very sad thing indeed.
Perhaps the key to preserving Quechua is truly bilingual schooling and more focus on Quechua illiteracy.
The Question of the Day
If there are any native speakers of Quechua watching:
How often do you speak Quechua, and how often do you speak Spanish? Does it depend on the situation?
And for other people: Do you notice any features of Quechua that you've noticed in other languages?
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