| Southern Quechua | |
|---|---|
| Qhichwa | |
| Spoken in | Peru, Bolivia |
| Region | Andes |
| Ethnicity | Quechuas, Kollas |
| Native speakers | 6.9 million (1987–2002) |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | none (Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | qu |
| ISO 639-2 | que |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Southern Quechua (Spanish: quechua sureño), or only Quechua, is the most widely spoken of the major regional groupings of mutually intelligible dialects within the Quechua language family, with about 5 million speakers. The term 'Southern Quechua' refers to the forms of Quechua spoken in regions of the Andes south of a line roughly east-west between the cities of Huancayo and Huancavelica in central Peru. It includes the Quechua varieties spoken in the regions of Ayacucho, Cuzco and Puno in Peru, in much of Bolivia and parts of north-west Argentina.
In the traditional classification of the Quechua language family by Alfredo Torero, Southern Quechua is equivalent to Torero's 'Quechua IIc' (or just 'QIIc'). It thus stands in contrast to its many sister varieties within the wider Quechua family that are spoken in areas north of the Huancayo-Huancavelica line: Central Quechua (Torero's QI) spoken from Huancayo northwards to Ancash; North Peruvian Quechua around Cajamarca and Inkawasi (Torero's IIa, but whose classification is problematic); and Ecuador Quechua (locally known as 'Quichua', part of Torero's Quechua IIb).
The Peruvian linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino has devised a standard orthography intended to be viable for all the different regional forms of Quechua that fall under the umbrella term Southern Quechua. This orthography is a compromise of conservative features in the pronunciations of the various regions that speak forms of Southern Quechua. It has been accepted by many institutions in Peru and Bolivia, and is also used on Wikipedia Quechua pages, and by Microsoft in its translations of software into Quechua.
Some examples of regional spellings verses the standard orthography:
| Ayacucho | Cuzco | Southern Quechua | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| upyay | uhay | upyay | "to drink" |
| utqa | usqha | utqha | "fast" |
| llamkay | llank'ay | llamk'ay | "to work" |
| ñuqanchik | nuqanchis | ñuqanchik | "we (inclusive)" |
| -chka- | -sha- | -chka- | (progressive suffix) |
| punchaw | p'unchay | p'unchaw | "day" |
In Bolivia, the same standard is used, except for "j", which is used instead of "h" for the sound [h] (like in Spanish).
The following letters are used for the inherited Quechua vocabulary and for loanwords from Aymara:
a, ch, chh, ch', h, i, k, kh, k', l, ll, m, n, ñ, p, ph, p', q, qh, q', r, s, t, th, t', u, w, y.
Instead of "sh" (appearing in the northern and central Quechua varieties), "s" is used.
Instead of "ĉ" (appearing in the Quechua varieties of Junín, Cajamarca, and Lambayeque), "ch" is used.
The following letters are used in loanwords from Spanish and other languages (not from Aymara):
b, d, e, f, g, o.
The letters e and o are not used for native Quechua words, because the corresponding sounds are simply allophones of i and u that appear predictably next to q, qh, and q'. This rule applies to the official Quechua orthography for all varieties in general. Thus the spellings <qu> and <qi> are pronounced [qo] and [qe].
These letters appear only in proper names or words adopted directly from Spanish:
c, v, x, z; j (in Peru; in Bolivia, it is used instead of h).
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