Quechua Language History
By Morgan Liaw (USA)
A land tracing the Andean Mountain Range. The Incas, the empire built upon the mountains of Chile and making a name for itself. Even amongst the rich history of the Incan civilization , a part of it is elusive to people: its language.
Before the rise of the Incan empire, the language that it adopted was already widespread. The language, known as Quechua, was used throughout the mountain range’s diverse ethnic groups as a way to communicate for trade. The ethnic groups of the coast such as the Chincha people established Quechua as the common language in nearby trade routes.
At the time , the Incas were still just a small ethnic group amongst its neighbors in the Andes, but through conquests of neighboring groups, there was the growing requirement for a unified language. Under the conquest of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, his expansion of the empire led him to adopt the Quechua language as the official language of the empire. This unification of a common language was designed so every tribe is able to communicate with one another and to establish control of the language of the empire.
To further expand their influence on recently conquered local communities , the Incas used the process of Mitma. This process is the forced reallocation of empire established Quechua speaking loyal citizens to integrate a life in these conquered territories to expand the teaching of the unified state language. Mitma was basically the way to educate the people on the state language and helped secure control of the conquered territories.
While there was the state language of Quechua, it’s crucial to understand that the language was absent from writing, as it was spoken. In order to write down historical events, the people used the Quipus system of colorful braided knots. These knotted strings are designed to write down administrative information, major events, and narrative histories, along with census control data.
However, the Incan empire suffered major problems, one of which would destroy the entire nation: Incan Civil War. This civil war already weakened the country’s political leadership, which during the same time, Spanish conquistadors exploited for their own gain. After the war, the Spanish government took over the once prosperous Incan nation, but the Quechua language didn’t die. Why? This was because the state language was seen by the Spaniards as an easier way to convert the local people into Christians since everyone in the empire already communicated with it. Thus, there was the establishment of Quechua as the main language for making people convert and consequently, accelerated the spread of the language.
But the language doesn’t stop there. In modern times, the language has become the second most spoken language in countries such as Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and some of the Andean mountain ranges. Thus, there is the local preservation of a language spanning more than 300 years, which Ecuador has constitutionally protected. As well as that, many English words actually come from the Quechua language such as puma and llama.
In light of the rich language history of the Quechua dialect, a community has safeguarded it from losing its identity and importance to the local region. With o many languages in the world, it is our duty to learn and protect these languages from going extinct.
