Quechua’s Southern Boundary: The Case of Santiago del Estero, Argentina

This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It argues that Quechua reached north-west Argentina in Inka times and that it was widely used during the colonial period as well. The rationale for this argument is based primarily on evidence for (1) the extent of Inka resettlements in Argentina; (2) the nature of Inka relations with local peoples in the far south; and (3) continued use of Quechua under the Spaniards, as described in the documentary sources. Less clear are the precise population movements that brought Quechua speakers initially to Santiago del Estero, as the archaeological record suggests that the Inka frontier lay higher up the slopes in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, and Catamarca, where the majority of Inka installations are found. The documents reveal that activities of the Spaniards had further, far-reaching consequences for Quechua's presence in the south Andes, and that ultimately Quechua was replaced in most of north-west Argentina by Spanish.

The Herder–Cultivator Relationship as a Paradigm for Archaeological Origins, Linguistic Dispersals, and the Evolution of Record-Keeping in the Andes

This chapter explores an alternative proposal for the linguistic impact of Wari expansion: that it could in fact have been two-fold, dispersing both Quechua and Aymara simultaneously. To this end, it invokes the distinctive Andean institutions of ‘complementary asymmetric dualism’, to explore whether they might not have linguistic correlates too. Specifically, it looks to the wari–llaqwash dyadism between mid-altitude, maize-cultivating wari, hypothesized as speaking Quechua, and higher-altitude, camelid-herding llaqwash speaking Aymara.

Indicators of Possible Driving Forces for the Spread of Quechua and Aymara Reflected in the Archaeology of Cuzco

Linguistic studies have shown that the traditional idea that the expansion of the Inca Empire was the driving force behind the spread of all Quechua cannot be correct. Across much of its distribution, Quechua has far greater time-depth than can be accounted for by the short-lived Inca Empire. Linguistics likewise suggests that Aymara spread not from the south into Cuzco in the late Pre-Inca period, but also from an origin to the north. Alternative explanations must be sought for the expansion of these language families in the culture history of the Andes. Archaeological studies over the past two decades now provide a broad, generally agreed-upon outline of the cultural history of the Cuzco region. This chapter applies those findings to examine alternative possibilities for the driving forces that spread Quechua and Aymara, offering a clearer cross-disciplinary view of Andean prehistory.

How did Quechua Reach Ecuador?

The question of the antiquity of Quechua in Ecuador and how it arrived there remains a matter of debate among linguists. This chapter attempts, from an ethnohistorical and archaeological perspective, to disprove the theory of a pre-Inca seaborne spread from the southern coast of Peru, proposed by the linguist Alfredo Torero in El quechua y la historia social andina (1974). Rather, it supports a spread by land during the period of Inca rule.

Unravelling the Enigma of the ‘Particular Language’ of the Incas

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chroniclers call attention to the Incas having had a ‘particular language’, used exclusively by members of the court. The sparse linguistic material attributed to it consists of barely a dozen proper names which ‘El Inca’ Garcilaso de la Vega, unable to explain through his Quechua mother tongue, assumed must belong to the purported secret language. On closer inspection most of these words do turn out to be explicable in terms of either a Quechua or an Aymara origin. Nevertheless, a small amount of extant onomastic material — mostly Inca institutional names — cannot be traced back to either, and points to a third language instead. This chapter makes the case that this could have been Puquina, once a major language of the Titicaca Basin, whence the mythical Incas set out on their journey to Cuzco. Linguistic, mythohistorical, and archaeological evidence are offered support of this hypothesis.

Cajamarca Quechua and the Expansion of the Huari State

This chapter defends the hypothesis that Quechua was brought to Cajamarca during the final expansion of the Huari state (ad 800–900). It offers an alternative for the traditional view that Cajamarca Quechua originated on the central coast of Peru, immediately south-east of Lima. Archaic features of Cajamarca Quechua suggest that it became separated from the main body of the Quechua II branch of the family before it attained its present state of internal differentiation. Possibly the least innovative Quechua II dialect spoken today is that of Ayacucho region, where the Huari capital lay. Together this suggests that population movements underlying the existence of present-day Cajamarca Quechua may have originated in the Huari heartland. This association of Quechua II with Huari prompts a reconsideration of the prevalent view that Ayacucho, including Huari, would have been an exclusive stronghold of the Aymaran languages.

Modelling the Quechua‐Aymara Relationship: Structural Features, Sociolinguistic Scenarios, and Possible Archaeological Evidence

This chapter explores various sociolinguistic scenarios of language contact which may be potentially invoked to account for the complex relationship between Quechua and Aymara. The evidence for the Quechuan and Aymaran language families having separate origins, but engaging in intensive borrowing, is stronger than that supporting common origin. One language may be assumed to have been ‘modelled’ on the other. It is argued here on linguistic grounds that it was most likely Aymara that provided the model for Quechua. The precise nature of their contact remains to be established, however. The chapter describes and evaluates eight scenarios, not necessarily mutually exclusive, that might be invoked to account for it. All are drawn from the literature on language contact studies, illustrating how results from such work can bear on deep-time historical linguistics. Finally, the chapter speculates on what might constitute archaeological evidence for these scenarios.

Accounting for the Spread of Quechua and Aymara between Cuzco and Lake Titicaca

This chapter explores broad social changes that may account for how Quechua and Aymara entered the Lake Titicaca and Cuzco regions so that they eventually replaced all other native languages. It starts with a brief overview of the topography and ecology of the area that provides the landscape upon which people developed their subsistence base and over which they moved. It then reviews what is known about the distribution of Aymara, Quechua, and Puquina in the region at the start of the colonial period. Based on this, the chapter presents a broad overview of the archaeological evidence for social development and change from the Formative to the early colonial period, in order to consider the social processes that led to the pattern of language use encountered by the Spanish. It is argued that the scale of social change wrought by the Wari Empire in the Vilcanota Valley is commensurate with the introduction and uptake of a new language, which is most likely to have been Quechua. But documentary evidence suggests the llama herders of the Lupaca, Canas, and Collagua were well-established Aymara speakers by the time of the earliest Spanish records. The social processes surrounding llama herding must be considered to account for the spread of Aymara into the Titicaca Basin.

The First Millennium ad in North-Central Peru: Critical Perspectives on a Linguistic Prehistory

This chapter reviews archaeological evidence for culture change during the first millennium ad in north-central Peru, and its implications for the spread of language(s). Important developments deriving from regional interaction typified the first centuries ad (north-west Ancash), the seventh century ad (Callejón de Huaylas), and the end of the Middle Horizon (across departments). If major language expansions can be pegged to transformations in material style, they should be sought in these periods and areas. Many different Amerindian languages are known from the region (Culle, Mochica, Quingnam, Quechua, Aymara), although most are now extinct. The cultural heterogeneity in north-central Peru during the Early Intermediate Period may indicate considerable time-depth for such linguistic diversity. The subsequent Middle Horizon marks a period of widespread interaction, though varying in nature and impact through time. This elicits issues for future research in the linguistic prehistory of the central Andes.

Broadening Our Horizons: Towards an Interdisciplinary Prehistory of the Andes

This chapter proposes a new and more coherent interdisciplinary prehistory of the Andes, based firstly on a long overdue re-examination of the relationships between the various regional ‘dialects’ within the Quechua language family; and secondly on a more satisfactory correlation with the archaeological record. The founding principle is that language families necessarily reflect past expansive processes, whose traces should also be clear in the archaeological record. It provides a logic by which to assess correspondences between archaeological and linguistic patterns, on the three levels of when, where, and why particular language expansions occurred. In the Andes, the horizons thus offer the most natural explanations for the major Quechua and Aymara dispersals. With the Incas too late for the time-depth of either family, the Wari Middle Horizon emerges as the most plausible candidate for the first major expansion of Quechua, and not (as per traditional linguistic thinking) of the Aymara family, here tentatively associated with the Early Horizon instead.