Mark'aykita mast'arispan Tawantinsuyuta wiñachirganki: Quechua
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"You extended your arms, and made our nation grow into an empire," goes a Quechua poem. The same might be said of the language itself; official tongue of the Inkan Empire and, at nearly 10 million speakers, the most widely-spoken First Nations language today, Quechua remains a critical, if critically endangered, world language.
Unconquered by the conquistadores
Known variously as Quechua, Quichua, Kechwa, and Runasimi ("the people's language), this Andean-Equatorial tongue is actually a family of dialects, many of which differ as much as French does from Spanish. Together, they form the dominant indigenous Andean language, the native (and often only) tongue of about a quarter of Bolivians, Ecuadorans, and Peruvians. Smaller populations also exist in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The single largest dialect is Cuzco-Bolivian, leading some to declare it the "standard" or "classical" tradition. However, scholars are uncertain that Cuzco-Bolivian most resembles the historical Inkan dialect, and most are unwilling to recognise it as standard.
During its 200-year lifespan, the Inkan government zealously forced Quechua on subject peoples. At conquest, its status as "imperial glue" helped to guarantee that the conquistadores couldn't eradicate it. On the contrary, Quechua actually expanded under the Spaniards, as missionaries embraced it as vehicle for established the Church in South America. Their activities account for Quechua's modern presence in such non-Inkan lands as Colombia and Argentina. During the same era, a few Quechua-speaking intellectuals alphabetised their language, unwritten before Conquest, and preserved a few classic Inka plays and poems in writing. One of these, Atau Wallpaj p'uchukakuyninpa wankan, a play documenting the demise of Emperor Altahualpa from an Inkan perspective, is still performed today.
Simplicity and complexity
Quechua grammar is a fascinating blend of simplicity and complexity. An agglutinative language like Esperanto, Quechua speakers can create words by adding particles to a root. This greatly facilitates acquisition. Quechua also features phonetic spelling, no gender or adjectival agreement, no articles, and regular verbs. (Even "to be" is regular, a rare find indeed.) On the other hand, Quechua boasts intriguing innovations such as a verb tense used for dimly-remembered or secondhand information.
Yet, in spite of its rich history, evocative structure, and impressive demographics, Quechua is gravely endangered. The usual suspects are to blame: racism, economic deprivation, and a colonial language imposed as the "elegant" medium of communication. Up to a third of Quechua vocabulary has been replaced by hispanicisms, most of which fill no lexical need. Consider this example, collected by the University of Cambridge's Paul Haggerty: "Chaypaq hinataqmi chay p'unchaykuna lliw callekunapi rimay kan, gringokunas avionpi semanantin purispa mama Killaman chayanku, nispa." Heggerty's take on the situation is a practical and intellectually defensible response to the problem.
