No. 02 - Marzo 2006

Recognition of Native Languages in the Andean Community

Abstract: Análisis sobre el reconocimiento actual de lenguas nativas en los paises de la comunidad andina.

Qusqumantam hamunqa = It will come from Cusco; a phrase that can be hear in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and areas of Argentina, Colombia and Chile. What language is it? It’s Quechua, the fourth most spoken language in America as a Continent, and probably one of the many endangered languages in the world. But is not the only one, many Amerindian languages are endangered; maybe in our daily routine we have forgotten how important language is in our lives.

Languages are not only extremely adequate tools of communication; they also reflect a view of the world. Languages are vehicles of value systems and of cultural expressions and they constitute a determining factor in the identity of groups and individuals. According to The UNESCO, the statistics are actually far worse of what we imagine:

·        Over 50% of the world’s 6000 languages are endangered.

·        96% of the world’s 6000 languages are spoken by 4% of the world’s population.

·        90% of the world’s languages are not represented on the internet

·        One language disappears on average every two weeks.

With these numbers, is it possible for any Amerindian language to exist? And if they do exist, how long will they survive? The answers are yes they do exist, and in a big number, and they will exist as long as we preserve it. There is a necessity of awareness-raising of languages endangerment, and the need to safeguard our linguistic diversity.

Before the European arrival to the New World, Amerindian languages were spoken from what now is Canada to the last cornet in South-America by the people that was call Amerindians. In the last 500 years many of the tribes and native American languages have disappear, some times with out leaving a sign that they there around. Nowadays three languages Indo-Europeans (English, Spanish, and Portuguese) are politically dominant en each country of America and the native’s languages have a second class reputation and in some cases even worse.

Quechua

From all the Amerindian languages, Quechua has the greatest quantity of speakers, with 7 million people that speak it in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia, follow by the Guaraní, with 3 million in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, and the third one is Amayra with 1.5 million speakers. I’m going focus this paper on the languages spoken in The Andean Community that includes: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

There is not a clear existence of a native system of writing before the arrival of Spaniards to South America. Even though there are two examples of the use of Kuna one in Colombia and another in Bolivia and Peru, in both cases the European influence make them seem suspicious. There are ideograms and pictograms to recite religious texts in Quechua and medical rituals in kuna, being this last one still in use.  There has been a great effort to alphabetize the natives languages, existing some orthographies models since the XVII century (guaraní, quechua) and for other languages, Linguistics have design a writing system in these last years.

The Indian languages of South America vary a lot depending on the amount of loans received by Spanish and Portuguese. The greatest influence has happened in regions where languages had have a huge and continuous contact with Spanish o Portuguese, especially in areas where groups are economically dependent and there is big number of bilingual people, like quechua, or where there is not a cultural difference that will correspond to linguistic differences, like the Paraguayan Guarani. These languages loans had not been limited to objects of European origin, but in all the vocabulary spheres, displacing in many cases the natives' names.

Languages Families: These languages are being focus on the Andean countries; nevertheless, most of these languages are also spoken by other countries of the region.

            * Arawakanas – All the Andean countries       

            * Arutani-sapé – Venezuela

            * Aymara – Bolivia, Peru                                           

* Barbacoanas – Colombia, Ecuador

            * Cahuapananas – Peru                                             

* Caribe – Colombia, Venezuela

            * Chapacura-wanham – Bolivia                                  

* Chibchanas – Colombia

            * Chocó – Colombia                                                 

* Guahibanas – Colombia

            * Harákmbet – Peru                                                  

* Hibito-cholón – Peru

            * Jívaro – Peru, Ecuador                                            

* Macro-ge – Bolivia

            * Makú – Colombia                                                   

* Mataco–guaicurú – Bolivia

            * Panoanas – Bolivia, Peru                                         

* Peba-yagua – Peru

            * Quechua – Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia          

* Salibanas – Venezuela, Colombia

* Tacananas – Bolivia                                                

* Uri-chipaya - Bolivia           

* Tupí – Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela  

* Witoto – Peru, Colombia

* Tucanoano - Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador y Colombia.    

* Yanoman –  Venezuela

* Záparo – Peru, Ecuador.

There also exist 29 languages, once again in the Andean region that have not been classified or belong to any of these families.

Quechua or quichua (from qhiswa “cold zone”) also known as runasimi, is the 4^th most spoken languages in America y the native language most disperse trough out the continent, followed by Guaraní and Aymara. Is spoken in the Eastern part of South America, and it’s is together with Spanish the official language in Bolivia and Peru (in the areas where is spoken more than Spanish), and Colombia. In Ecuador, this language is use in the Andean region especially in big indigenous settlements.

This language descends from Protoquechua, language that was spoken in the costal and central Andes of the “old Peru”, and later it was expanded through wards the South as a commercial language. When the Incas establish themselves in Cuzco, they adopted this language for the administrative issues, even though the spoke puquina and made a point to teach in all the towns of the empire this language, they did not close the doors for vernaculars languages.

During the Spanish rule in Peru, Quechuas was used to bring religion to the towns and settlements, doing some changes to the language, like the changes to aymara, muchik o mochica and to the quingnam. This allowed that the Quechua influence to grown over the Andean towns, and even being use in some of the Amazonian areas.

The word runa simi, means “popular speak” (runa “human being”; simi “language”). This denomination corresponds to its original function of lingua franca, instead of the puquina, also know as inka simi for being the original language of the Incas. This last one stayed for exclusive use of the panacas.

Quechua has 46 different dialects set in 2 genetic groups: Quechua I (or Waywash) and Quechua II (or Wanp’una), this last one also divides in three subcategories: A (Yunkay), B (Chinchay) and C (meridional). The Peruvian linguistic Alfredo Torero, has also group them in 7 different types according to their mutual characteristics:

·        Ancash-Huanuco (I)

·        Tarma-Huánuco (I)

·        Jauja-Huanca (I)

·        Cañaris-Cajamarca (IIA)

·        Chachapoyas-Lamas(IIB)

·        Ecuador-Colombia (IIB)

·        Ayacucho-Cusco-Bolivia (including Santiago del Estero in Argentina) (IIC)

For a long time it’s been debated about the used of some type of pre-Hispanic method of Andean writing. It’s suspected that the quipus (Khipu) and the tokapus, but even like that, there is still lots to investigate. Nowadays the Latin alphabet is use for writing.

Quechua had has from before the Spanish invasion, and intense relationship with the Aymara language, especially with some vernacular dialects, and with some languages from the Amazon region like the ashaninka.

Aymara

This Language is part of a family of languages name Aru, integrated also by the Jaqaru language. It was born with the Protoaymara, in the Central Andes. Around 400 it gets divided in Jaqaru and Aymara-Kawki. Around 700, this last one divides in the presently knows, aymara and kawki, even though this last one is an endangered language, it’s still spoken by the elders in the district of Catahuasi, in the Yauyos Province, State of Lima.

The alphabetic representation of the Aymara language has received more than 30 different proposals, most of them where found inadequate for the phonetics of Aymara. Around the 60’s the Bolivian Professor Juan de Dios Yapita, an Amayra speakers, proposed and alphabet that was accepted and named the unique or unified alphabet.

According to theories, the Aymaran language is connected with the State of Tiwanaku (high culture before the Inca rule), this theory states that Amayra used to exist at the same time with the pukina and uru-pchipaya languages, being Pukina the most prestigious language used by the government class. In the XVII century Bernabé Cobo published that Tiwanaku ruins where always sacred inside the Inca State and that the Aymaran translation for Tiwanaku is Taypi Qala (Central stone). After the fall of the Tiwanaku society, other Aymaran societies emerged, politically organized, making the most important areas Lupaqa and Qulla. The Incas didn’t distinguish any differences, naming all the Aymarans: Qullas; and all the Aymara territory became the Qullasuyo, one of the 4 regions of the Inca Empire. Nevertheless the Inca rule didn’t eliminate Amayra, at least not in the Titicaca Area and surroundings. Many say that the language that the Incas used was Aymara; and that the Quechua expansion in the Qullasuyu happened after the Spaniards arrival.

Nowadays the Aymaran Nation is trying to rescue the language, but a bilingual education either castellano/aymara or castellano/quechua, is not expected to be of good quality. Bolivia is making a bigger effort in rescuing Aymara language by far, more so than Chile or Peru. In La Paz, the radio station San Gabriel has 15 hours only in Aymara and has alphabetizations programs, and information about Aymaran culture. This radio station is part of the Catholic Church network, and it is supported financially by Spanish inversion. Localized in La Paz is also the Institute for Aymaran Culture and Language, witch has several publications on Amayra grammar and sociology.

The advances in preserving Aymara and Quechua had grown with the years, but some governments seem to forget that those are not the only languages in the Andean Community, and don’t seem to realize that with the lost of any of these languages, a system, traditions, culture and an ethnic group disappears. Let’s hope that none of these languages disappears one by one every two weeks, like the statistic show.

Work Cited

www.aymara.org./histo.php

www.proel.org/mundo/amerindia.htm

www.quechuanetwork.org

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenguas_amerindias

http://portal.unesco.org/culture

Ravines, Roger, Atlas Etnolingüistico del Peru. IASAP: 1988, Lima Peru,