Quechuan

Quechuan 

the language of the Quechua Indian people, which belongs to the Quechuamaran group.

Quechuan is spoken by approximately 10 million persons (1970, estimate) in Peru (Cuzqueño, Ayacucho, Chinchaisuyu, and Huancayo dialects), to some extent in Bolivia and Ecuador (Quiteño dialect), and in northern Chile and Argentina. Quechuan was the official language of the Inca empire until the colonization of South America (15th century). There are literary works in Quechuan that date from the time of the Incas. Modern literary Quechuan employs the Roman alphabet. Quechuan is an agglutinative language with well-developed suffixation. Some Quechuan words, such as quinquina, llama, huik’ uña, and puma, have found their way into the European languages (in Russian, khina, “quinine”; lama, “llama”;vigon’, “vicuña”; and puma, “puma”).

REFERENCES

Rivet, P., and G. de Créqui-Montfort. “Bibliographic des langues aymará et kiéua.” Travaux et Mémoires de l’Institut d’Ethnologie, 1951–53, vols. 1–3.
Orr, C, and R. Longacre. “Proto-Quechuamaran.” Language, 1968, vol. 44, no. 3.