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Language Lineage

Quechua II

The peripheral branch that spread north and south from central Peru. One of its southern varieties became the common language of the Inca empire and then the missionary 'general language'.

c. 1st millennium CE – presentFrom southern Colombia and Ecuador through northern and southern Peru to Bolivia and northwest Argentina
On this page
  1. An Imperial Language
  2. The Written Colonial Language
  3. Where its languages are spoken
  4. Turning points
  5. Contested classifications

01

An Imperial Language

Quechua II surrounds Central Quechua on both sides. Torero divided it into II-A in the northern Peruvian highlands, II-B in Ecuador, Colombia and the Peruvian Amazon, and II-C in southern Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Its spread was partly the work of trade along the coast before the Inca, and partly of the Inca themselves, who used a southern variety across their empire in the 15th century. After the conquest, the Spanish kept that role going: missionaries preached, wrote and printed in a standardised lengua general.

The first grammar of the language, published in 1560 by the Dominican Domingo de Santo Tomás, describes a coastal Quechua II variety.

02

The Written Colonial Language

Quechua II is the branch in which almost all early Quechua writing was done. The Jesuit Diego González Holguín published a grammar of the Cusco language in 1607 and a large Quechua–Spanish dictionary in 1608. His Vocabulario records thousands of words and idioms and is still consulted for the meaning of older terms.

The same years produced the most remarkable Quechua text of the colonial period, the Huarochirí Manuscript of about 1608. It is an anonymous collection of myths and religious practices from the highlands east of Lima, gathered in connection with the campaign against 'idolatry' led by the priest Francisco de Ávila. Although collected in a Central Quechua region, it is written in a form close to the colonial general language. It is the only extensive account of Andean religion written in an Andean language.

The Andean chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala included Quechua songs and speeches in his illustrated letter to the Spanish king of about 1615. In the 18th century the Quechua drama Ollantay, set in the Inca court, became the best-known work of the language's literature. Its date and author are uncertain, and scholars still debate how much it owes to Spanish Golden Age theatre.

On the map

Where its languages are spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. PeruNorthern Peruvian c. 40,000–60,000 · Kichwa tens of thousands · Southern Quechua c. 3 million
  2. BoliviaSouthern Quechua c. 1.5 million
  3. EcuadorKichwa c. 590,000
  4. ArgentinaSouthern Quechua c. 60,000–100,000
  5. ColombiaKichwa c. 10,000–20,000
  6. ChileSouthern Quechua

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Contact15th century CEContested

    The language of Tawantinsuyu

    The expanding Inca state uses a Quechua II variety as its language of administration across the empire, carrying it to Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. What the Inca court spoke originally, perhaps Aymara or Puquina, is disputed.

    Sources (2)
    • Adelaar, Willem F. H. with Pieter C. Muysken. 2004. The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    • Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo. 2013. Las lenguas de los incas: el puquina, el aimara y el quechua. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
  2. Writing1560

    The first Quechua grammar

    Domingo de Santo Tomás publishes in Valladolid the Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los indios de los reynos del Peru and a dictionary, writing Quechua in the Latin alphabet for missionary use.

    Figures · Domingo de Santo Tomás (1499–1570)

    Sources (2)
    • Santo Tomás, Domingo de. 1560. Grammatica o arte de la lengua general de los indios de los reynos del Peru. Valladolid: Francisco Fernández de Córdova.
    • Adelaar, Willem F. H. with Pieter C. Muysken. 2004. The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Outside the tree

Contested classifications

These disagreements may never be settled. Each position is given with its grounds, and no side is declared correct.

  • Widely accepted

    Torero's II-A / II-B / II-C

    three clean subgroups of Quechua II

    Evidence for

    The division fits the main isoglosses and is the standard reference classification, used in most descriptions and in Glottolog's broad outline.

    Evidence against

    Quechua forms a dialect continuum, and transitional varieties such as Pacaraos and those of Yauyos do not fit neatly. II-A in particular may be a geographical collection rather than a true subgroup, and the close ties of II-B and II-C may reflect the Inca and colonial spread rather than descent.

    Sources (1)
    • Adelaar, Willem F. H. with Pieter C. Muysken. 2004. The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.