Names and
Spellings
for the Andean Languages
Contents
Names for the Andean Languages and Language Families
What do the Andean Languages’ Names Mean? Where do They Come From?
Spellings for Fieldwork Placenames
Names for the Andean Languages and Language Families
There is considerable inconsistency in how many of the languages
of the
Cerrón-Palomino,
Rodolfo (1993) Quechuística y aimarística: una propuesta terminológica
Alma Mater, 5, 41-55 (publication of the Universidad San Marcos,
Cerrón‑Palomino argues for a particular set of terms in Spanish, and here we use the most directly corresponding English terms. So we speak of the language families as a whole as Quechua and Aymara, and for any particular dialects or languages within them we always specify which, thus: Cuzco Quechua, southern Quechua, southern Aymara, central Aymara (i.e. Jaqaru/Kawki), etc..
That is, we do not use the terms some writers in English have used, adding an –n to give an adjective form also to be used for referring to the whole family: Quechuan, Aymaran, and the putative Quechumaran. So some writers have sought to use this –n to distinguish between the Aymaran family, of which the Aymara language is just one of the surviving languages (albeit by far the most biggest), alongside the little known and endangered Jaqaru/Kawki language(s). In practice we have found this distinction solely by means of one letter –n at the end of a word potentially confusing and unhelpful, indeed even writers who use it do so rather inconsistently. Moreover, there is certainly no need for a new term such as Quechuan, for the word Quechua itself has always referred to the language family and not to any one language within it.
We agree with Cerrón‑Palomino that it is much clearer always to specify geographically which language variety is meant: indeed there are enough differences within even the southern Aymara language for specifications like Puno Aymara and Oruro Aymara to be frequently necessary. Above all, this technique of always specifying the variety concerned has always been followed for the Quechua language family, with no problems whatever. There is no single language called Quechua, it is only the term for the language family, and it seems simplest to take the term Aymara in the same sense.
Names for the Aymara Family (also known as the Aru or Jaqi family)
Terminology is notoriously inconsistent for the Aymara language family particularly.
Our use of Aymara to refer to
the whole family is broader than that followed by other linguists who have used
Aymara specifically only for the main
surviving language, spoken in the far south of
Alongside Aymaran in English, other forms coined by linguists for to refer specifically to the family as a whole are Aru proposed by Alfredo Torero, and Jaqi proposed by Martha Hardman. We have no particular problem with these terms as such, though we do not agree with Hardman’s ‘anthropological’ justifications for her Jaqi is most suitable, for there are plenty of arguments in the other direction in favour of making explicit the ‘pedigree’ of Jaqaru/Kawki as relatives of the better-known southern Aymara.
What do the Andean Languages’ Names Mean?
Where do They Come From?
Please refer to the full explanations and histories of the all the names given to the Andean languages provided by Cerrón‑Palomino in the introductions to his main books on each language family:
• For the origins of the term Quechua, and its many variants such as Quichua, and other spellings like Kichwa, and other terms with other roots such as runasimi (literally people’s language, or specifically Indians’ language), see Cerrón‑Palomino (2003).
• For the origins of the term Aymara, the alternatives Aru and Jaqi, and the names Jaqaru and Kawki, see Cerrón‑Palomino (2000).
Spellings for Language Names
As for spellings, the principle is followed that each language is
written in the form most appropriate to the orthography of the language of the
text in which they are being talked about.
That is, on the Spanish version of this page the spellings used are quechua, aimara, jacaru and
cauqui, even
though in those respective languages the spelling proper to that language gives: qhichwa, aymara, jaqaru, kawki.
The somewhat anarchic orthography of English, of course, generally
accepts spellings as in the original language, unless an accepted form already
exists, hence the spellings we used are indeed the same as in each language
itself: Quechua,
Aymara, Jaqaru, Kawki.
Spellings for Fieldwork Placenames
Certainly, there are some arguments in favour of adopting native spellings for placenames in Andean languages, and in our own fieldwork studies we have used these in occasional cases in the Andean countries themselves, such as the spelling Inkawasi alongside Incahuasi. While we might hope that eventually this would become generalised, for now for practical reasons we have generally kept to the most usual spelling in Spanish, to facilitate identifying our fieldwork locations on maps, which so far always use the Spanish spellings.