Classic Quechua

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" Classic Quechua " or Classic Ketschua is the name of SIL International for the shape of the Quechua , by the Inca or in the colonial as lingua franca (lengua general) was used. According to SIL, which describes the language as extinct, the ISO-639-3 code of this southern Quechua language is qwc . Under this designation, however, different variants can be understood, in particular, used at the beginning of the colonial era, especially the Ayacucho Quechua similar to " General language of Peru " (Lengua general del Perú) and the spoken in the colonial language stage of the Cusco Quechua , the differed from the former in particular phonologically and lexically.

Regional variants from the early colonial period

Since the Incas did not know any script, there have only been written evidence of Quechua since the beginning of the colonial period. It was written according to Spanish spelling, which only incompletely reproduced the Quechua sound. It can be seen, however, that there was no uniform Quechua even then: the dictionaries of Domingo de Santo Tomás , who described the Quechua of Lima , and Diego González Holguín , who represented the variant of Cusco , essentially already show the regional differences known today .

The lingua franca of the Viceroyalty of Peru and its differences to the earlier and today's Cusco-Quechua

Early written sources show that in the Viceroyalty of Peru in the former territory of Tawantinsuyu used, also known as "general language of Peru" called lingua franca , as we also Huarochirí manuscript find, to a large extent with the present-day Ayacucho Quechua agreed. In contrast to the Quechua spoken in Cusco and described by Fray González, the “general language” had no ejective and aspirated plosives . These sounds, probably borrowed from the Aymara , were only found in the Cusco region and further south, where they still occur today in the Quechua Qusqu-Qullaw . In the colonial times, however, they were reproduced by double writing the consonants, e.g. B. ttica for modern t'ika "blossom".

The most important differences between the “General Language of Peru” and Cusco-Quechua in colonial times compared to the dialects of today's Southern Quechua are:

  • There was a distinction between [s] and [š], back then with "c" / "ç" / "z" or "s" - still today in almost all Quechua regional variants with the exception of Southern Quechua, ie in Waywash , Yunkay and Chinchay including the Ecuadorian Kichwa , where it is spelled as "s" and "sh".
  • The ending for accusative was -kta after vowels (still in Wanka Quechua today ), while it is now -ta throughout .
  • The plosives at the end of the syllable were also spoken in Cusco as in today's Chanka-Quechua. The fricatization of plosives at the end of a syllable, which is typical of Quechua Qusqu-Qullaw , had not yet taken place.
  • There is no evidence that a narrative past based on the participle in -sqa (then -šqa ) was known. As in the Huarochirí manuscript, the simple past with -rqa (in some modern dialects -ra ) was used instead.

"Classic Quechua" as a forerunner of today's variants

The “General Language of Peru” used by the Spanish colonial power to communicate with the indigenous population in the Viceroyalty of Peru , also in the Doctrina Christiana of 1584 and in the Huarochirí manuscript, probably corresponded largely to the Quechua variant and differentiated previously by the Inca as a lingua franca thus from Quechua, as it was spoken in the Inca metropolis of Cusco . Nevertheless, the ethnologue of SIL International counts the "classical" Cusco-Quechua , as it was used by the Protestant pastor Gybbon-Spilsbury of the South American Missionary Society in his 1880 translation of the Gospel of John , as "classical Quechua" [qwc] and names it in 1880 as the date for the translation of parts of the Bible.

As far as the Quechua variants spoken at the time of the Conquista are viewed in their entirety as "Classical Quechua", these are earlier language levels of today's variants Chanka and Qusqu-Qullaw, and therefore an early form of Southern Quechua. Thus "Classical Quechua" lives on today as a spoken language in these dialects. That of Rodolfo Palomino Cerrón as written standard of the Southern Quechua as a written language leaning in spelling almost entirely (except [s] / [š] and ta / -kta ) to the old pronunciation of the Cusco Quechua on. The "General Language of Peru", which lacks the ejective and aspirated plosives, is more similar to Chanka Quechua , but also has lexical elements of Chinchay Quechua (e.g. tamyay instead of paray "rain", mitikay instead of ayqiy "flee") .

The Australian-French linguist Gerald Taylor has researched and edited some texts in the “General Language of Peru” from the colonial era. For a revitalization of Quechua, in 2016 he proposed the use of traditional texts in the “General Language of Peru” and thus the creation of a “Modernized General Language of Peru”.

literature

  • Gerald Taylor: ¿Hay un futuro para la lengua general? . Hawansuyo, August 5, 2016.
  • Gerald Taylor: Introducción a la lengua general (quechua) . IFEA, Lluvia Editores, Lima 2001 ( PDF ).
  • Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino (1987): Lingüística Quechua . Centro Bartolomé de Las Casas, Cuzco, Perú.
  • Diego González Holguín (1607): Gramatica y Arte nueva de la lengua general de todo el Perú, llamada Qquichua, o lengua del Inca Ciudad de los Reyes (Lima), 1607.
  • Diego González Holguín (1608): Vocabvlario de la Lengva General de todo Perv llamada lengua Qquichua, o del Inca. Ciudad de los Reyes (Lima), 1608. Online PDF

Works in the "General Language of Peru" (Classical Quechua)

  • Gerald Taylor: Ritos y tradiciones de Huarochirí. Edición bilingüe Quechua normalizado-castellano. Texto quechua y traducción al castellano . Instituto de Estudios Peruanas, Lima 2008.
  • Gerald Taylor: Choque Amaru y otros cuentos nuevos. Siete relatos sobre la extirpación de idolatrías en el Arzobispado de Lima, siglo XVII . Institut français d'études andines (IFEA), Travaux de l'IFEA 329, Lima 2015.
  • Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo para instrucción de los Indios, ya de las demás personas, que han de ser enseñadas en nuestra sancta Fé. Con un confessionario, y otras cosas necessarias para los que doctrinan, que se contienen en la pagina siguiente. compuesto por auctoridad del concilio provincial, que se celebró en la Ciudad de los Reyes, el año de 1583. Y por la misma traduzido en las dos lenguas generales, de este Reyno, Quichua, y Aymara . Impresso con licencia de la Real Audiencia, en la Ciudad de los Reyes, por Antonio Ricardo primero Impressor en estos Reynos del Piru. Año de MDLXXXIIII. 1584. (Spanish, Quechua, Aymara.)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ethnologue report for language code: qwc (Quechua, Classical - A language of Peru) . M. Paul Lewis, Gary F. Simons, Charles D. Fennig (Eds.). Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the World, 17th Edition. SIL International, Dallas (Texas) 2014. ISO 639-3: qwc. Population: No known L1 speakers. Location: Central Peru. Language Status: 10 (Extinct). Classification: Quechuan, Peripheral Quechua, Chinchay, Southern Chinchay, Southern Peruvian Quechua. Dialects: A member of Macrolanguage Quechua [que]. Language Development: Bible portions: 1880 .
  2. ↑ Apunchis Yesus-Kiristup, Santu Yoancama ehuangeliun; Santo evangelio de nuestro Señor Jesu-Cristo según San Juan. Traducido por the Rev. JH Gybbon-Spilsbury. Sociedad Bíblica, Británica y Estrangera, Buenos Aires 1880.
  3. ↑ Gerald Taylor: Respuesta a un twitter de Pablo Carreño. Hawansuyo, October 20, 2016.