Adelaar Willem, Muysken Pieter. The languages of the Andes

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164 2 The Chibcha Sphere

multilingualism (Sorensen 1967, 1985; Jackson 1983; Aikhenvald 1999). In view of the

large number of tribal groups and names, there is some confusion regarding the ex-

act inventory of languages. Ardila (1993) and G´omez-Imbert (2000) distinguish ﬁfteen

Eastern Tucanoan languages in Colombia: Bar´a (or North Barasana), Barasana (or

Taiwano), Carapana, Cubeo, Desano, Guanano, Macuna, Piratapuyo, Pisamira, Siri-

ano, Tanimuca (or Letuama), Tatuyo, Tucano, Tuyuca and Yurut´ı.With more than 6,000

speakers each (Arango and S´anchez 1998), Cubeo and Tucano are the largest Tucanoan

languages; Pisamira has only a few dozen speakers. The Eastern Tucanoan languages

are typical Amazonian languages. They have contrastive tone, suprasegmental nasality

and elaborate nominal classiﬁer systems.

The Boran and the Huitotoan languages are spoken mainly in the Colombian depart-

ment of Amazonas, between the Caquet´a and Putumayo rivers, and in adjacent parts of

Peru. They are now generally considered related (Aschmann 1993). A linguistic isolate

found in the same area is Andoque (on the Aduchi river near Araracuara on the Caquet´a).

This region is the area most hit by the excesses of rubber exploitation at the beginning

of the twentieth century. It led the Andoque people to near extinction and decimated

the Bora and the Huitoto. The Boran group comprises the languages Bora, Mira˜na and

Muinane (Pati˜no Rosselli 2000). The Bora, the most numerous group, are mainly settled

in Peru. The Huitotoan group consists of the languages Huitoto, Nonuya and Ocaina (the

latter mainly in Peru). In Bora tonal contrast is exploited for the expression of grammat-

ical distinctions. Huitoto has several dialects (M



ka, Murui, N



pode). All indigenous

languages of the area have rich systems of nominal classiﬁers.

The Leticia triangle, a part of Colombian territory situated between the Putumayo and

the Amazon rivers, has speakers of Cocama, Ticuna and Yagua, three languages which

have their main population of users in the neighbouring countries (Brazil and Peru).

A virtually undocumented linguistic isolate is Yur´ı (on the Pur´eriver in the Brazilian–

Colombian border area of Amazonas). The language has long been considered extinct,

but there have been recent reports of speakers (Arango and S´anchez 1998; Pati˜no Rosselli

2000).

The richest source of information on Colombian lowland languages is again Gonz´alez

and Rodr´ıguez (2000). In addition, there are grammatical studies of several individual

languages: Achagua (Mel´endez Lozano 1989, 1998; Wilson 1992), Andoque (Land-

aburu 1979), Barasano (Jones and Jones 1991), Bora (Thiesen and Weber forthcom-

ing), Guayabero (Tobar Ortiz 1989), Sikuani (Queixal´os 1985, 1998, 2000), Tanimuca–

Retuar˜a (Strom 1992), Tariana (Aikhenvald 2003), Tatuyo (G´omez-Imbert 1982), Ticuna

(Montes Rodr´ıguez 1995) and Yagua (Payne and Payne 1990).

The Inca Sphere

The term ‘Inca Sphere’ is used to cover the area that falls within the limits of

Tahuantinsuyo, ‘the Empire of the Four Quarters’, at the moment of its greatest ex-

tension under the Inca ruler Huayna Capac (c. 1520). It roughly coincides with the

sphere of predominance of the Middle Andean civilisation before its destruction at the

hands of Spanish conquerors in 1532–4. Speaking in modern terms, and from north

to south, the Inca Sphere includes the Andean and Paciﬁc regions of Ecuador, Peru,

Bolivia, northern Chile and northern Argentina. (The languages of the Paciﬁc region

of northern Ecuador were discussed in chapter 2, whereas information on the Quechua

variety spoken in Colombia is found in the present chapter.)

As we have indicated in the introductory chapter, the Middle Andean civilisation did

not attain its greatest radiation until shortly before the European invasion. During the

Middle Formative (800–400 BC) the predominance of Chav´ın de Hu´antar as a centre

of cultural inﬂuence remained conﬁned to portions of what is now central and northern

Peru (Lumbreras 1974: 57–93). The period between 100 BC and AD 600 was marked

by political disintegration, whereas the artistic production reached its highest peak in

the history of the area with the development of the regional cultures of Paracas, Nazca

and Mochica. After the decline of these local cultures, the inﬂuence of Pachacamac,

situated just south of Lima at the mouth of the Lur´ın river, and Tiahuanaco on

the Bolivian altiplano became strongly felt throughout the area. The site of Huari

(AD 700–1100), situated near Ayacucho in the mountains of central Peru, is thought

to have been the capital of an empire based on military conquest (Isbell and Schreiber

1978), an interpretation which is not universally accepted, however (Shady Sol´ıs 1988).

This ‘imperial’ phase was followed by a further period of political disintegration, again

characterised by local cultural developments. Among them were the Chancay culture,

located in the lower valley of the Chancay river, north of Lima, and the Chim´u king-

dom, a continuation of the earlier Mochica society with its capital at Chanch´an near

present-day Trujillo.

The eventual uniﬁcation of the entire Middle Andean area was achieved by the Inca

lords of Cuzco. Their conquests began in the early ﬁfteenth century and continued until

166 3 The Inca Sphere

COLOMBIA

PASTO

ESMERALDEÑO

CARA

Quito

QUIJO

PANZALEO

PURUHÁ

CAÑAR

PALTA

CHIRINO

MANTA

HUANCA-

VILCA

PUNÁ

TALLÁN

SECHURA

OLMOS

Cajamarca

CULLI

MOCHICA

Trujillo

QUINGNAM

Malacato

Rabona, Bolona, Xiroa

Tabancale

Patagón

Sácata

Bagua

Copallén

HIBITO

CHOLÓN

PANATAGUA

Lima

JAQARU

PERU

Cuzco

CHIPAYA

ARGENTINA

TONOCOTÉ

Tucumán

LULE

ATACAMEÑO

HUMAHUACA

Potosí

BOLIVIA

URUGUAY

VENEZUELA

PANAMA

SURINAME

CANELO

Explanation of language names

indicated by numbers

BRAZIL

Map 3 The Inca Sphere: approximate distribution of indigenous languages in the sixteenth

century

3 The Inca Sphere 167

before the arrival of the Spanish invaders in 1532. Ecuador was one of the last areas

to be conquered. The Incas practised a policy of forced migration. Recently conquered

nations from the conﬁnes of the empire were replaced by loyal subjects from other

areas. The populations so established were called mitmaq in Quechua (in a Hispanicised

form mitimaes). Opinions differ over the importance which is attached to the effect of

the mitimaes upon the development of the native languages. Populations of outlying

areas, such as the Ca˜nar of the Ecuadorian inter-Andean valley (modern Azuay and

Ca˜nar) and the Chacha of the Chachapoyas region in the northeastern highlands of Peru,

were taken to the area surrounding Cuzco (Brundage 1967). So far, there have been no

reports of traces of their original languages that might have been preserved in Cuzco

Quechua.

Before he died in the town of Cajamarca, the Inca ruler Huayna Capac divided the

empire between his two sons. The northern part, with Quito as its capital, was given to

Atahuallpa, the son of an Ecuadorian mother of the Puruh´a nation. Huascar, the ofﬁcial

heir, received Cuzco and the south. The civil war that soon broke out between the two

brothers was to become a stroke of luck for the conqueror Francisco Pizarro, a native

of Trujillo in Extremadura, Spain. After a successful surprise attack, he imprisoned

Atahuallpa in Cajamarca and had him tried and executed on a dubious charge of treason.

In the meantime, from his prison, Atahuallpa himself had ordered the assassination

of his rival Huascar. The power vacuum that emerged from these events permitted the

Spaniards to gain control of the Inca’s subjects and territory in less than two years. It

meant the end of Andean civilisation as a separate entity and the beginning of profound

transformations, not least in the linguistic domain.

After Spanish power had become consolidated, the former Inca domain was ruled by

a viceroy, who kept his residence in Lima. The Indian population suffered a demographic

decline of dramatic proportions, which continued throughout most of the colonial period.

Three of the principal Andean languages, Quechua, Aymara and Puquina, acquired the

status of ‘general languages’ (lenguas generales)tobeused in the administration and for

religious purposes. Quechua, already an ofﬁcial language during the ﬁnal period of Inca

administration, was by far the most important one, followed by Aymara. Puquina and a

score of other local languages gradually fell into disuse. The use of the great Andean

languages for purposes of religion and administration of justice was encouraged until

their interdiction by the Bourbon rulers in 1770 (Rivarola 1990: 108). Notwithstanding

a short revival of the Quechua language during the early times of independence at the

beginning of the nineteenth century, the prestige of the Andean languages declined

dramatically, and they gradually became conﬁned to rural areas. However, in spite of

their low social appreciation, both Quechua and Aymara have preserved a substantial

number of speakers until today.

168 3 The Inca Sphere

3.1 The languages and their distribution

The present-day linguistic situation in the central Andes is dominated by the presence of

two native language families, Quechuan and Aymaran.Astogenetic depth and the nature

of internal differentiation, they are comparable to the Romance or Slavic languages in

Europe. Historically and also numerically, Quechuan is by far the most important of

the two with an estimated number of speakers ranging between 8.5 million (Cerr´on-

Palomino 1987a) and 10 million (Itier 1997). The number of Aymaran speakers has

been estimated between 2 and 3 million speakers (Briggs 1992).

In Andean everyday speech, the Quechuan family (locally called Quichua in Ecuador

and Argentina) is referred to as a ‘language’. Its numerous local varieties are traditionally

called ‘dialects’, although they may differ considerably. Speakers of different Quechua

dialects often have a difﬁcult time understanding each other. If the dialects are not closely

related, there may be no mutual comprehension at all. Quechua speakers are strongly

aware of dialect differences which permit local groups to identify themselves as natives

of a particular village or area to the extent that quechua is often interpreted as a generic

term for any linguistic variety used by Indians, rather than as a language name (hence

expressions such as ‘la quechua aymara’ referring to Aymara or varieties of Quechua

inﬂuenced by Aymara). It will be shown that at least some of the linguistic diversity

within the Quechuan family is not recent and probably dates back to the beginning of

our era. Therefore, many linguists now prefer to speak of ‘Quechuan languages’, rather

than of ‘Quechua dialects’. The question remains: how many Quechuan languages are

there?

Even though Quechua is being pushed back by Spanish in many areas, some of

its major varieties, such as Ancash Quechua, Ayacucho Quechua, Bolivian Quechua,

Cuzco Quechua and Ecuadorian Quechua, are quite viable. In the Andean countries

Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, Quechua is the main native language. Bilingual educa-

tion programmes and ofﬁcial recognition, albeit half-hearted, have enhanced linguistic

awareness and provided a certain stimulus for the preservation of the language.

The area in which varieties of Quechua are spoken nowadays is not continuous and

has a protracted shape extending along the Andean cordilleras from the departments of

Caquet´a, Nari˜no and Putumayo in southern Colombia to the province of Santiago del

Estero in the lowlands of northern Argentina. It also includes parts of the Ecuadorian and

Peruvian lowlands to the east of the Andes. In the Quechua-speaking areas of Argentina,

Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador, the introduction of Quechua occurred at the cost of

local native languages. At several points, however, the Quechua linguistic domain is

Recent census data indicate that 8,000,000 is a more realistic ﬁgure for the number of Quechua

speakers (Chirinos Rivera 1998, 2001). For the number of Aymara speakers 2,000,000 is probably

close to reality.

3.1 The languages and their distribution 169

La Paz

Santiago

del Estero

ARGENTINA

PARAGUAY

Arequipa

COLOMBIA

Quito

ECUADOR

Cajamarca

Chiclayo

PERU

Lima

Huancayo

Cuzco

Antofagasta

Santa Cruz

de la Sierra

BOLIVIA

BRAZIL

Awa Pit

Cha'palaachi

Tsafiki

Mochica(†)

Pacaraos Quechua

Jaqaru and Cauqui

Callahuaya

Uchumataqu

Chipaya

Atacameño(†)

Quechua dialects of

Catamarca and La Rioja(†)

AYMARA

QUECHUA I

QUECHUA II

Aymara and Quechua II:

overlapping area

Explanation of

language names

indicated by numbers

Map 4 The Inca Sphere: approximate distribution of indigenous languages in the mid twentieth

century

170 3 The Inca Sphere

intersected by areas where other languages are predominant. One of these intermediate

areas, where Aymara is the main language, lies to the east and south of Lake Titicaca in

Bolivia and Peru. Another such area is situated in the northern Peruvian Andes (in the

departments of Amazonas, Cajamarca, La Libertad and Piura; in the province of Pallasca,

department of Ancash) and in the adjacent Andean region of Ecuador (province of Loja).

In this extensive area Quechua is present only locally, the predominant language now

being Spanish. It does not mean, however, that the area is less ‘Indian’ than those where

Quechua is predominant.

The native languages of northern Peru, now all extinct, showed

themselves resistant to the process of Quechuanisation. Instead, they directly gave way

to Spanish somewhere between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. The outlines

of their original distribution can be recovered through a study of the local toponymy (cf.

Adelaar 1999). In other areas, such as the highlands of Ecuador, northwestern Argentina

and much of Bolivia, Quechua did replace the local languages.

Aymaran, the second native language family in importance of the Inca Sphere region,

has been the subject of much terminological confusion. It has been known by two

different names, Jaqi and Aru. The term Jaqi,tobepronounced [h´aqe], was introduced

by Hardman (see, for instance, Hardman 1978b). It has the meaning of ‘man’, ‘human

being’ in the languages belonging to the family, and most US authors prefer it. The other

name, Aru,isfrom Torero (1970). It is the predominant term for ‘language’ or ‘speech’

in the Aymaran languages and is used in Peru and in several European countries.

Our

choice of the term ‘Aymaran family’ is inspired by the earlier tradition and by Cerr´on-

Palomino (1993), who also points at a discrepancy in the terminology connected with

the two linguistic groupings. The internal differentiation of Quechuan is by no means

less important than that of Aymaran. Yet, Aymaran has been treated as a ‘family’ (with

languages), whereas Quechuan is seen as a ‘language’ (with dialects).

The Aymaran family has two living branches of unequal size. The southern branch

accounts for a large majority of the Aymaran speakers. It consists of the Aymara language

itself, which is distributed over three countries (Bolivia, Chile and Peru). The Aymara

linguistic area is situated along the shores of Lake Titicaca, except for its western end.

Away from the lake, the main extensions of Aymara are towards the south, southeast

The nineteenth-century geographer and naturalist Antonio Raimondi (cited in Alvarez-Brun

1970) used the absence of Quechua in the province of Pallasca, in contradistinction to its presence

in other Ancashino provinces further south, as a criterion for the non-Indian character and higher

level of culture of that area. This argument is still often heard in northern Peru.

Hardman (1978a, b) rejects the term ‘Aru’ because it is often used for referring to the sound of

animals in the Aymara language.

We shall not follow the habit of referring to Jaqaru and Cauqui as Central Aimara or Tupino (Tupe)

Aimara, and to Aymara itself as Southern Aimara or Collavino Aimara (cf. Cerr´on-Palomino

1995a: 104). To us, Aymara is a language within the Aymaran family. It does not include the

other varieties.

3.1 The languages and their distribution 171

and southwest. They include some areas which come close to the Paciﬁc coast, in the

departments of Moquegua and Tacna in southern Peru, and in the region of Tarapac´ain

northern Chile. In Bolivia, parts of the departments of Cochabamba, Oruro and Potos´ı

are Aymara-speaking.

The northern branch of the Aymaran family is mainly conﬁned to a number of villages

belonging to the municipality (distrito)ofTupe, situated in the province of Yauyos

(department of Lima, Peru). It comprises two linguistic varieties, Jaqaru and Cauqui.

Jaqaru is spoken by some 725 speakers in the villages of Tupe, Aiza and Colca, and in the

coastal localities to which Tupinos have migrated (Pozzi-Escot 1998).

Cauqui speakers

are found in the villages of Cachuy, Chav´ın and Canch´an. Their number is estimated at

11 (in 1998). Cauqui is nearly undocumented.

Traditionally, the term Cauqui has been used to refer to the northern branch of Aymaran

in its totality (kawki means ‘which place?’ in Aymaran). Locally, however, the use of the

term Cauqui as a name for the language appears to be restricted to the Cachuy variety

(Hardman 1966, 1983a). There have been conﬂicting reports on whether or not Cauqui

constitutes a separate language. A comparison of the Cauqui and Jaqaru versions of

a quatrilingual text elaborated by Belleza, Ferrell and Huayhua (1992) suggests that

the differences do not exceed the level of mutual intelligibility. Therefore, Cauqui is

sometimes referred to as Jaqaru of Cachuy (e.g. in Belleza Castro 1995).

Historical sources, toponymy and loan words bear witness to the original extension of

the Aymaran languages. Their pre-Inca expansion must have been nearly as impressive

as that of Quechua during the colonial period. There is evidence of Aymaran presence

in most of what is now southern and central Peru and in all of the Bolivian highlands.

A document of 1600 for the instruction of Catholic priests, which was published by

Bouysse-Cassagne (1975), shows the predominant position of Aymara in Alto Per´u

‘Upper Peru’, as Andean Bolivia was then called.

Once the Aymaran languages occupied strongholds in what is now southern Peru and

Bolivia, they began to inﬂuence the surrounding languages. Loan words in the Tacanan

languages of the Bolivian lowland forest region (Girard 1971; Fabre 1995) and in the

Mapuche language of Argentina and Chile show speciﬁc Aymara inﬂuence. The centre of

radiation for such inﬂuence was clearly the Bolivian altiplano. The lending language was

Aymara, not (Proto-)Aymaran, which identiﬁes the process of borrowing as relatively

recent.

Numerically, the other native languages of the central Andean region are not nearly

as important as those belonging to the Quechuan and Aymaran families, and most of

them are extinct. In Ecuador, three languages of the Barbacoan family remain in use

Hardman (1983a) gives a number of 2,000 speakers for Jaqaru, including some 300 outside the

community.

172 3 The Inca Sphere

on the western side of the Paciﬁc Andean range. There are hardly any data on the other

languages once spoken in that area, except for the extinct Esmeralde˜no or Atacame

language (see section 2.19).

The southern sector of the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes is inhabited by the

Jivaroan Shuar. The Shuar linguistic area is concentrated in the provinces of Zamora-

Chinchipe and Morona-Pastaza. Historically, Jivaroan-speaking groups may have inhab-

ited the province of Loja in the southernmost part of the inter-Andean valley (Gnerre

1975). Further north, the eastern slopes and rainforest are inhabited by speakers of

Quechua, which has replaced earlier local languages (languages of the Zaparoan family,

among others).

The original native languages of the Ecuadorian inter-Andean valley are all extinct.

They are also virtually undocumented, except for numerous place names and a few lexical

items mentioned in Spanish colonial sources. Some more lexical items and possible

substratum elements can be found in the modern dialects which together constitute

Ecuadorian Highland Quechua. For the pre-Quechuan languages of highland Ecuador

Barbacoan and Mochica afﬁnities have been proposed (except for Palta and Malacato,

which are usually assigned to the Jivaroan language family). The language of the Cara

in the northern section of the inter-Andean valley has been associated with Barbacoan,

those of the Ca˜nar and the Puruh´ainits central part to Mochica. It is doubtful if the

scanty information on these languages will ever permit us to conﬁrm any such proposals.

Much interpretation of the available linguistic data (mostly toponymy) is due to the work

of Jij´on y Caama˜no (1940–5) and Paz y Mi˜no (1936–61).

The coast and mountains of northern Peru exhibited a mosaic of languages, which are

now all extinct or probably so. What remains is Quechua in those areas where it became

ﬁrmly rooted (near the town of Cajamarca and further north near Bambamarca; in a few

villages in the provinces of Chachapoyas and Luya in the department of Amazonas; and

in the area of Ca˜naris and Incahuasi in the interior highlands of the province of Ferre˜nafe,

department of Lambayeque). There is evidence that Quechua never became widespread

in the region. Early Spanish chroniclers, such as Garcilaso de la Vega (1609: Book 7,

chapter 3) conﬁrm this (cf. Torero 1986).

The languages of northern Peru are somewhat better documented than those of the

Ecuadorian highlands. Best known is the Mochica language (also called Muchic or

Yunga)ofthe coastal region near Chiclayo. Mochica became extinct around the middle

of the twentieth century, although some individuals are said to remember words and

sentences. A rather substantial amount of premodern grammatical and lexical descriptive

material on the Mochica language awaits updating and reinterpretation in a contemporary

framework (see section 3.4).

For the Culli language, formerly spoken in the extensive highland area between the

coastal town of Trujillo and the Mara˜n´on river, and for the Sechura and Tall´an languages

3.1 The languages and their distribution 173

of coastal Piura, short word lists are available (cf. Torero 1986; Adelaar 1988). Several

other extinct languages have been identiﬁed in the department of Cajamarca, mainly on

the basis of local toponymy (Torero 1989, 1993a). Although the ﬁnal disappearance of

these languages may have been relatively recent, most of them are not even known by

name, nor are they mentioned in any known historical documents.

A particularly complicated linguistic situation was once found along the tropical

banks of the Mara˜n´on near Ja´en and Bagua, as is shown in an anonymous document of

1570 entitled Relaci´on de la tierra de Ja´en (Rivet 1934; Torero 1993a). The presence

of the river and the moderate elevation of the Andes at this point constituted favourable

conditions for trade, which apparently had attracted populations from different parts

of the Amazon basin (including the Carib-speaking Patag´on). The incursions of the

Jivaroan Aguaruna may have eliminated most of the small ethnic groups once living in

this region, who disappeared without leaving a trace.

The original language situation of the Andean highlands situated to the east of the

Mara˜n´on is not clear. The people of the Chachapoyas region in the department of

Amazonas probably had a separate language, usually referred to as Chacha (Taylor

1990a). It may have extended as far south as Bol´ıvar (formerly Cajamarquilla) in the de-

partment of La Libertad. Still further south, in the province of Pataz (La Libertad), there

is the possibility of the former presence of Hibito and Chol´on speakers. The province

of Pataz harbours at least one Quechua-speaking community, La Maca˜n´ıa in the district

of Urpay (Vink 1982).

Along the coast of Peru, from the Trujillo region downward, at least one other non-

Quechuan language was spoken. Rivet (1949) called it Quingnam on the basis of a

mention by the Augustinian friar Calancha (1638). The view that Quingnam was a

separate language (and not a dialect of Mochica, for instance) long remained open to

doubt. It has lately received new support (Torero 1986). Judging from the absence of any

reference to Quingnam in the vocabularies included in Bishop Mart´ınez Compa˜n´on’s

pictographic encyclopaedia of the region (Mart´ınez Compa˜n´on 1985 [1782–90]), it

appears that this language had already become lost from memory towards the end of

the eighteenth century. It may have extended as far south as Lima, where it would have

competed with the local Quechua and possibly with Aymaran.

Until the twentieth century, the highlands of central Peru have been the undisputed

domain of Quechua. It includes the Andean parts of the departments of Ancash, Hu´anuco,

Pasco and Jun´ın. In the north of Ancash the boundary separating the province of Pallasca

from the rest of the department marks the division between the former Culli (now

Spanish-speaking) linguistic area and the area of Ancash Quechua.

The high mountain valleys of the department of Lima, which carry their waters to

the Paciﬁc Ocean, have also been predominantly Quechua. Here, however, the inﬂu-

ence of Aymaran languages is visible as well, both through borrowing and as a result