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Hands Around the World |
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Hands Around the World |
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Indian Cultures from Around the World
Other Names: Kichwa, Qquichua, Quechua, Kechua
Countries inhabited: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador
Language family: Andean Equatorial
Language branch: Aymara-Quechua
With a population around 2.5 million, the Quichua groups of South American Indians are the largest of any American Indian group in the World today. Aymara-Quechuan languages (of which the Quichua speak many dialects) are collectively the most widely spoken of all indigenous languages in South America. The Quichua are also the only people to have migrated both south along the ridges and valleys of the Andes mountains and east into the rainforest of the Amazon Basin. This early divergence in their migration paths has created distinct mountain- and jungle-Quichua identity and culture.
Many Quichua migrated east to the Amazon Basin. Because of the different landscape, climate, indigenous plants and animals their culture developed separately from that of their southward migrating cousins. Rainforest Quichua have remained more isolated from the historical forces that have shaped the northern parts of South America. Rivers, not roads, are the primary means of transport. (Text from The Peoples of The World Foundation)
QUECHUA [Quechua] Kechua , or Quichua , linguistic family belonging to the Andean branch of the Andean-Equatorial stock of Native American languages (mainly in South America). Encompassing far more native speakers than any other aboriginal language group in the Americas, the languages of the Quechuan family are spoken by peoples in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. There is a modern standard language of this family spoken by close to 10 million indigenous people in Peru and 2 million in Bolivia, as well as smaller populations in Ecuador and Argentina. Some 28 Quechuan languages are still in use. The official language of the ancient Inca empire, also called Quechua, was of this family. In the early 1400s, Quechua was dominant in S Peru. As the Incas' empire expanded, their language became the administrative and commercial tongue from N Ecuador to central Chile. After their conquest of the Incas in the 16th cent., the Spaniards spread the use of Quechua beyond the Inca empire. (Text from Quechua on Encyclopedia.com).
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