| Quichua | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kichwa | ||||
| Spoken in | Ecuador, Colombia | |||
| Native speakers | 2,500,000 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Quechuan
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-1 | qu | |||
| ISO 639-2 | que | |||
| ISO 639-3 | – | |||
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Kichwa (Kichwa shimi, Runashimi, also Spanish Quichua) is a Quechuan language, and includes all Quechua varieties spoken in Ecuador and Colombia (Inga) by approximately 2,500,000 people. Kichwa belongs to the Northern Quechua group of Quechua II (according to Alfredo Torero).
Kichwa syntax has undergone some essential changes and therefore holds a special position within Quechua.
A unified orthography (Kichwa Unificado, Shukyachiska Kichwa) has been developed.
The earliest grammatical description of Kichwa is contained in a manuscript of the XVII century by the jesuit father Hernando de Alcocer (Ciucci & Muysken 2011).
In contrast to other regional varieties of Quechua, Kichwa does not distinguish between original ("Proto Quechua") /k/ and /q/, which are both pronounced [k]. Therefore, [e] and [o], the allophones of the vowels /i/ and /u/ near /q/, do not exist, and kiru can mean both "tooth" (kiru in Southern Quechua) and "wood" (qiru [qero] in Southern Quechua), and killa can mean both "moon" (killa) and "lazy" (qilla [qeʎa]).
Additionally, Kichwa in both Ecuador and Colombia has lost possessive and bidirectional suffixes (i.e. verbal suffixes indicating both subject and object), as well as the distinction between the exclusive and inclusive first person plural.
Examples:
On the other hand, other particularities of Quechua have been preserved. As in all varieties of Quechua, the words for 'brother' and 'sister' differ depending on who is using them. A woman must say ñaña for her sister and turi for her brother. On the other hand, a man must say pani for his sister and wawki for his brother. A woman reading "Ñuka wawki Pedromi kan" would therefore read aloud "Ñuka turi Pedromi kan".