Quechua survival kit

About this kit

Quechua is the language of the Incas, still spoken by about 9 million people in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and more marginally in Argentina and Colombia. An official language in several Andean countries, it exists in several variants (Southern Cusco Quechua, Ancashino, Ayacuchano). With this kit, you have the bare minimum to get by in Cusco, La Paz or the Andes.

Quechua (runasimi, "the language of humans") is the language of the Incas, still spoken today by about 9 million people in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and more marginally in Argentina, Colombia and Chile. An official language in Peru (since 1975), Bolivia and Ecuador, it is among the most spoken Native American languages on the continent. Quechua is not a single language but a family of variants: Southern Quechua (spoken in Cusco, Puno, Ayacucho and Bolivia) remains the best-known form, while Ancashino, more archaic, dominates in northern Peru.

Quechua is an agglutinative language: suffixes stack at the end of words to express tense, possession, place, cause, evidentiality. This last notion is particularly rich in Quechua: the suffixes -mi, -shi, -cha indicate whether information was seen, heard or supposed, making it a remarkably precise language. The phonology has three vowels (a, i, u), some glottalized or aspirated consonants in the south, and a highly regular system that makes pronunciation accessible once a few rules are absorbed. Quechua gave the world many words: condor, llama, puma, quinoa, coca, gaucho.

Traveling in the Andes with a few Quechua words completely transforms encounters. Greeting in Quechua at a Cusco market, in a Lake Titicaca village or at a Pisac inn instantly opens smiles, especially in rural communities. This kit gathers the essentials to greet, ask for directions, eat, handle an emergency and leave respectfully. You will also find cultural tips to understand Pachamama, coca against altitude sickness, bargaining and the codes of Andean culture.