Quechua, also called Runa simi in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral "Proto-Quechua" language, it is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with the number of speakers estimated at 8–10 million speakers in 2004, and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011. Approximately 13.9% of Peruvians speak a Quechua language.
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Bolivian Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over one million speakers. Aymara, along with Spanish and Quechua, is an official language in Bolivia and Peru. It is also spoken, to a much lesser extent, by some communities in northern Chile, where it is a recognized minority language.
Aymaran is one of the two dominant language families in the central Andes alongside Quechuan. The family consists of Aymara, widely spoken in Bolivia, and the endangered Jaqaru and Kawki languages of Peru.
The Uru or Uros are an indigenous people of Bolivia and Peru. They live on a still-growing group of about 120 self-fashioned floating islands in Lake Titicaca near Puno. They form three main groups: the Uru-Chipaya, Uru-Murato, and Uru-Iruito. The Uru-Iruito still inhabit the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and the Desaguadero River.
South Bolivian Quechua, also known as Central Bolivian Quechua, is a dialect of Southern Quechua spoken in Bolivia and adjacent areas of Argentina, where it is also known as Colla. It is not to be confused with North Bolivian Quechua, which is spoken on the northern Andean slopes of Bolivia and is phonologically distinct from the South Bolivian variety. Estimates of the number of speakers of South Bolivian Quechua range from 2.3 to 2.8 million, making it the most spoken indigenous language in Bolivia, just slightly greater than Aymara, with roughly 2 million speakers in Bolivia. In comparison, the North Bolivian dialect has roughly 116,000 speakers.
Pano-Tacanan is a proposed family of languages spoken in Peru, western Brazil, Bolivia and northern Paraguay. There are two close-knit branches, Panoan and Tacanan, with 33 languages. There are lexical and grammatical similarities between the two branches, but it has not yet been demonstrated that these are genetic.
Puquina is a small, putative language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, which consists of the extinct Puquina language and Kallawaya. It is assumed that the latter is just a remnant of the former mixed with Quechuan, Puquina speakers are last mentioned in the early nineteenth century.
Yuracaré is an endangered language isolate of central Bolivia in Cochabamba and Beni departments spoken by the Yuracaré people.
The languages of Bolivia include Spanish; several dozen indigenous languages, most prominently Aymara, Quechua, Chiquitano, and Guaraní; Bolivian Sign Language. Indigenous languages and Spanish are official languages of the state according to the 2009 Constitution. The constitution says that all indigenous languages are official, listing 36 specific languages, of which some are extinct. Spanish and Quechua are spoken primarily in the Andes region, Aymara is mainly spoken in the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca, Chiquitano is spoken in the central part of Santa Cruz department, and Guarani is spoken in the southeast on the border with Paraguay and Argentina.
Chimuan or Yuncan is a hypothetical small extinct language family of northern Peru and Ecuador.
Kunza is a mostly extinct language isolate spoken in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru by the Atacama people, who have since shifted to Spanish. The last speaker was documented in 1949; however, it has since been learned that the language is still spoken in the desert.
Chipaya is a native South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family. The only other language in the grouping, Uru, is considered by some to be a divergent dialect of Chipaya. Ethnologue lists the language vitality as "vigorous," with 1,800 speakers out of an ethnic population of around 2,100, although younger generations speak it progressively less. Chipaya has been influenced considerably by Aymara, the Quechuan languages, and more recently, Spanish, with a third of its vocabulary having been replaced by those languages.
The Uru–Chipaya family is an indigenous language family of Bolivia.
Kallawaya, also Callahuaya or Callawalla, is an endangered, secret, mixed language in Bolivia; another name sometimes used for the language is Pohena. It is spoken by the Kallawaya people, a group of traditional itinerant healers in the Andes in their medicinal healing practice living in Charazani, the highlands north of Lake Titicaca, and Tipuani.
Chimané (Tsimane') is a South American language isolate. Some dialects are known as Mosetén. Chimane is a language of the western Bolivian lowlands spoken by the Tsimane peoples along the Beni River and the region around San Borja in the Department of Beni (Bolivia). Sakel (2004) classifies them as two languages for a number of reasons, yet some of the variants of the language are mutually intelligible and they reportedly have no trouble communicating and were evidently a single language separated recently through cultural contact.
North Junín Quechua is a language dialect of Quechua spoken throughout the Andean highlands of the Northern Junín and Tarma provinces of Peru. Dialects under North Junín Quechua include Tarma Quechua spoken in Tarma Province and the subdialect San Pedros de Cajas Quechua. North Junín Quechua belongs to the Yaru Quechua dialect cluster under the Quechua I dialects. Initially spoken by Huancas and neighboring native people, Quechua's Junín dialect was absorbed by the Inca Empire in 1460 but relatively unaffected by the Southern Cuzco dialect. The Inca Empire had to defeat stiff resistance by the Huanca people.
The indigenous languages of the Americas form various linguistic areas or Sprachbunds that share various common (areal) traits. The following list of linguistic areas is primarily based on Campbell.
Khapia is a mountain in Peru, possibly an extinct volcano, situated at a height of about 4,809 metres (15,778 ft). It is located in the Puno Region, Chucuito Province, in the districts Pomata and Zepita, and in the Yunguyo Province, in the districts Cuturapi, Copani and Yunguyo. The mountain lies near Lake Titicaca at the road which connects Yunguyo and Puno, south of the hill Asiru Phat'jata.
The indigenous languages of South America are those whose origin dates back to the pre-Columbian era. The subcontinent has great linguistic diversity, but, as the number of speakers of indigenous languages is diminishing, it is estimated that it could become one of the least linguistically diverse regions of the planet.
