| Puquina | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | south shore of Lake Titicaca |
| Extinct | 18th century |
| Language family |
unclassified
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | puq |
Puquina is an extinct language once spoken by the ancient Inca in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Perú and Bolivia) and in the north of what is now Chile.
Remnants of Puquina can be found in the Quechua and Spanish languages spoken in the south of Perú, mainly in Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. There also appear to be remnants in Callahuaya (Kolyawaya), which may be a mix of Quechua and Puquina. (Kaufman (1990) finds this proposal plausible.)
Sometimes the term Puquina is wrongly used for Uru, which is completely different.