the quechuas

Quechua is famous for being the language of the Inca Empire of Peru. In truth, however, there is no single Quechua language--instead there is what linguists called a dialect chain across most of Western South America, in which speakers of one Quechua language can understand the languages spoken by their immediate neighbors, but not a language further from them. So, for example, a speaker of South Bolivian Quechua may understand North Bolivian Quechua, but not any of the Quechua varieties spoken in Peru; the North Bolivian Quechua speaker would not be able to understand Argentinian Quechua, and neither of them could understand Ecuadorian Quichua. There are as many as forty such Quechuan languages spoken natively by a combined seven million Indian people in South America.
As a complement to our Quechua language information, here is our collection of indexed links about the Quechua tribe and their society. Please note that Quechuas and other American Indians are living people with a present and a future as well as a past. Quechua history is interesting and important, but the Quechua Indians are still here today, too, and we try to feature modern writers as well as traditional folklore, contemporary art as well as museum pieces, and issues and struggles of today as well as the tragedies of yesterday.