Follow Langfocus on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 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? Be sure to follow Langfocus on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And again I'd like to say thank you to all my wonderful Patreon supporters, especially these excelent people right here on the screen for their monthly pledges. Thank you for watching and have a nice day.
Nuqa queshwata yachani.
Ari! Runasimita munani. Nuqa universidadpi yacharqanj. Iskay waranqa chunka iskayniyuqni peruta rirqani.
Who know Quechua??