PCI - Introduction à la langue et à la tradition orale quechua

Introduction to the Quecha Language and Oral Tradition

List of Clips

Title		Description	Length
	César Itier’s Intellectual Background	After discovering the Quechua universe after attending several lectures, César Itier began learning the Quechua language when he was 15. Wishing to continue his research on the Andean world, he went on to study Spanish at the Université d’Aix en Provence where he met Pierre Duviols, a historian and specialist of ancient Andean religions. He encouraged Itier to undertake research on Quechua theater from the early 19th century in Cuzco. The theme was first addressed by Georges Dumézil when he travelled to Cuzco in 1952. César Itier later became a researcher at the Institut Français d’Etudes Andines in Peru where he continued working on the topic in order to rebuild the historical context in which the phenomenon occurred. He eventually became more interested in the oral tradition and began doing more field work. His research has led him to an in-depth study into the Quechua language and its description.	00:06:06
	Quechua Linguistic Family	César Itier nous rappelle où se situent les langues amérindiennes dans la classification générale des langues. César Itier specifies Amerindian languages’ place in the broader classification of world languages. A few years ago, American linguist Joseph Grinberg proposed grouping most indigenous Amerindian languages in an “Amerindian family,” but the idea was rejected by the academic community. South America is currently the continent which has the largest number of language families. Generally speaking, Quechua does not belong to any language family. In fact, with its many dialectical varieties, it is a language family in and of itself. In the 1970s, one researcher proposed regrouping Quechua with Aymara into a new family called Quechumara. But, despite certain similarities between the two languages, namely their phonological and morphological structures, the lexical differences in vocabulary were too great to group both languages into a single family.	00:06:12
	Linguistic Research on Quechua	To undertake linguistic research, one must possess a solid description of the language’s varieties and spoken dialects. This is lacking, however. Although work began in the 1970s, it has advanced little and much is left to be done, especially in regions where Quechua has greatly diminished or even disappeared in recent years. By the same token, keys to unlocking Peru’s ancient history are also being lost. Research on dialectical description is urgently needed on the ground level for certain disappearing languages (endangered languages).	00:03:03
	Description of Quechua Languages	In the early 1960s, the father of Andean linguistics, Alfredo Torero published a classification of Quechua dialects in which he formulated two broad dialectical groups: Quechua I and Quechua II dialects, which are distinguished geographically. In the 1980s, an Australian linguist working in France, Gérald Taylor discovered that there were mixed dialects, or dialects that displayed characteristics of both Quechua I and Quechua II (namely in and around Lima, which seems to be a transition area between dialects I and II). According to recent censuses, some 10 million people speak Quechua making it the largest linguistic family in South America.	00:03:50
	Quechua: Language of the Incas?	Since the 16th century and up to the early 20th, it was thought that the Incas were the first to speak Quechua language (ethnic group living in a valley in the Cuzco region). Today, we know that Quechua began expanding well before the Incas began using the language as their language of communication. The first home of the language is located far from Cuzco, between Lima and the north-central Andes in Ancash.	00:04:17
	Initial Expansion of Quechua Language	The ancient period from 500 to 200 b.c. - Chavin civilization - looks to be the time of Quechua language’s first expansion. The following phenomena were characteristic of the period: greatly intensified exchanges between small societies, diffusion of religious iconization, and cultural unification which encouraged rapid cultural expansion. Quechua was the language of trade in Ecuador. The Incas had their own language (lingua maternal), but also spoke Aymara (very common language in south Peru). Quechua was the lingua franca in the most developed areas of their empire. It was initially a language of communication, but they later made it an official language. The expansion of the language primarily occurred before and after the Incas, especially during Spanish colonialization.	00:03:36
	Expansion of Quechua during Spanish Colonialization	Spanish colonialization marked a new era in the spread of the Quechua language. Further growth occurred with the appearance of urban centers inhabited by indigenous peoples. The population converged on the mining centers to perform mining labor for the colonialists. This engendered increased mobility among peasant populations. Migration phenomena were noted and an economic upheaval occurred. These trends brought about a phenomenon of linguistic homogenization, which saw Quechua take precedence over other languages.	00:02:57
	Structure of Quechua Languages	The differences between Quecha I and Quecha II are mainly lexical and phonologic. The grammatical and syntactical systems are rather similar. Quechua is a language that is primarily agglutinate, meaning it is formed by juxtaposing suffixes according to both a verbal and nominal logic. These suffixes express either grammatical values or semantic values. As an example, Quechua of Cuzco contains a hundred or so suffixes. Most of these suffixes only have one linguistic signifier, which renders the language rather transparent. As Georges Dumézil pointed out, Quechua is structurally close to Turkish. Quechua II dialects (spoken in the north and the south) have obviously been influenced by a substrate language (massive amount of Aymara vocabulary in Cuzconian Quechua), which has generated both significant lexical and phonological changes. The same goes for Ecuadorian Quechua, which retains remnants of the languages that replaced it. Generally speaking, according to recent research it appears that Quechua dialects are closer to the protolanguage than originally thought. A phenomenon of simplification has also occurred in Quechua II due to the fact that this dialect is mostly a lingua franca.	00:05:32
	Representation of Time and Space in Quechua Language	Quechua language is particularly rich in verbal morphology (suffix placed with a verbal word). Quechua puts little importance on tenses: there is no present and the past tense is rarely used. Rather Quechua relies on describing the orientation of processes through space. For this, Quechua uses a set of suffixes to express the orientation and place of agents in space. All types of rapports between individuals can be expressed by situating them in a specific conception of space. This is what makes learning the language particularly difficult. It requires learners to look at processes from another perspective.	00:05:11
	Narrating Quechua Tales	Questions related to the characteristics of representation in space are particularly visible in the narration of tales. It is important that the narrator pay close attention to “overall being.” The narrator places him/herself in the story and is hence a real observer of the plot. The characters are literally right in front of the auditors. The teller is not, however, an omniscient narrator. He does not know the thoughts of characters. He can only guess at them. This is why Quechua contains a large number of modal suffixes, which qualify the information conveyed. When the teller wants to speak about what a character thinks, he can only do so by using a specific modal suffix. In doing this, he adopts a very subjective viewpoint: he is an onlooker, an observer of the plot. The narrator’s role is hence very different from the one used in the European oral tradition.	00:03:06
	The Difficulty of Translating Tales from the Quechua Oral Tradition	When translating Quechua, it is impossible to render the spatialization that exists in the source texts. In fact, the translator must add whole series of words to say in translation what the Quechua source does not say about time. This means that translators must dance around successions of events, which is no easy task. Several translations could be made depending on the text’s intended use. For example, there can be translated versions adapted to French so the reader can follow the story, but there are also translators who seek to convey the structure of the language and the way of speaking, which is so important for understanding certain semantic aspects. These translation difficulties are the reason why one finds so few translated tales. Moreover, ethnologists have collected very few tales from the oral tradition. There are only a handful of linguists capable of undertaking translating tales from the Quechua oral tradition.	00:03:30
	Evolution of the Quechua Languages	Even with 10 million speakers, the percentage of the population speaking Quechua is decreasing. This can be attributed to rural migration into cities (to Lima in Peru, for example), which began in the middle of the 20th century. Previously, one-third of Cuzco’s population were monolingual Quechuaphones. Migrants from rural areas were forced to overcome the stigmata surrounding their social origins by refusing to pass Quechua on to their children. In many cases, migrants would even deny that they spoke the language. The shame of speaking Quechua is beginning die off for two key reasons: a) some migrants were able to receive an education, which increased their cultural awareness and b) globalization and its attempt to learn about local heritage. Yet, intergenerational transmission of the language is still problematic in cities. Many people believe that speaking Quechua could make it difficult for their children to integrate civic life.	00:05:24
	Bilingual Education Policies	Starting in the late 1990s, bilingual education began a trial phase in Peru. But, at this early stage, it is still hard to assess the impact on speakers. This type of education has encountered many difficulties because the textbooks are “thought” in Spanish, are difficult for children to understand, and are loaded with neologisms. In general, teachers have a negative attitude towards the initiative. Bilingual education has made progress, but is also facing many challenges. Bilingual education should especially be developed in rural regions where bilingualism is very common. Many parents of students think that this system is not really “intercultural” in that students in cities are not really learning Quechua.	00:03:43
	The Khipus: a Unique Writing System	It is said that Peruvian societies did not develop out of written civilizations (such as the Mayas for example). Yet, ancient Peruvians did use an ancient writing system: Khipus (fine cords tied together with which various types of knots were made, with different colors, etc.). These Khipus have not really been decrypted. Gary Urton recently analyzed the construction process of Khipus and demonstrated that the writing was done by making a series of successive binary choices. We know that there were numerical and narrative Khipus and certain of these numerical Khipus were used until the early 19th century. The colonial State encouraged their use for bookkeeping purposes and the Jesuits also kept them alive. But apparently no Spaniard ever learned how to decode them. Could this perhaps be due to the Spanish mode of verbal/linguistic representation? “Reading” Khipu is done by touching the cords and it takes more time than reading a written text. Although certain societies still have Khipus, they do not know how to interpret them and use them only for ritual purposes.	00:08:06
	Transcribing Quechua	Quechua is now written in the Latin alphabet despite the fact that its phonological system is very different from Indo-European languages. The transcription system therefore requires considerable work. Starting in 1580, a graphic system was put into place for speakers of the language, a system that remained valid until the middle of the 18th century. Other systems were later elaborated but were not very consistent. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that a genuine unification and simplification of systems was created. This phonologically based system is still currently used in Peru and Bolivia.	00:05:29
	Reading and Writing the Quechua Language	Quechua readers are few and far between. Protestants have translated the bible into Quechua and hand it out in communities. Many foreign Quechua speakers have this type of religious motivation. Literary production is highly limited: poetry is almost always edited in bilingual versions, and there are very few stories and tales. Narrative prose has developed to a certain extent with authors like Porfirio Meneses, Jose Oregon Morales, and Socrates Sonana in Peru, but it remains very marginal because the publications are poorly diffused. Rendering Quechua in contemporary writing has stylistic consequences due to the difficulty modern readers have in conceiving the type of spatial relationship used in Quechua. However, some of these texts have remained loyal to the notion of imagining a common space to visualize events.	00:03:42
	Quechua in the Media	Ecuadorians have developed a standard Quechua for published material. It is called “Quechua Unificado.” In the 1970s, Peru’s daily newspaper "Crónica" began publishing a supplement that it called "Crónicawan." Bolivia had a daily newspaper called "La Prensa" which published weekly articles in Aymara, Quechua, and Guarani. Unfortunately, this supplement no longer exists in Aymara. Bolivia also broadcasts a few television shows in Quechua. In Peru, however, the political situation is not favorable to enhancing the language’s media presence. There are, however, lots of radio stations in Quechua language. Currently, there seems to be a growing interest in the language that did not exist before. Accordingly, many are trying to learn the language and write literature. It is possible that we are seeing a new dynamic emerge that could be reversing the trend of not transmitting the language.	00:06:22
	The "Real" Face of Quecha	The folklorization process that we are presently seeing is detrimental to the language in that it tends to encourage young people to see Quechua as a relic from the past with little use in the modern world. Created in 1953, the Peruvian Academy of Quechua Language, which has several branches in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, is a remnant of the Incan nationalism of the 19th century. The Academy continues repeating that the peasants do not speak Quechua but rather a form of Quechuagnole (a corrupted form of the language). The Academy claims to be the sole depositary of the Incas’ language. Unfortunately, since they have lots of resources, this argument is heard by far too many speakers and the people often say “Sure, I speak Quechua, but not the true Quechua …” This belief contributes to halting intergenerational transmission of the language and situates it in a out-dated logic. That said, we know that Quechua can still develop new modes of expression.	00:06:28
	Andean Theater	Theater in the Andes is an imported genre that has been highly successful and has mixed with the Andean tradition. From the 17th century until the 1950-60s, there was a tradition of putting on plays in Quechua in an urban context. Some of them were of great literary quality. In parallel, there was a village/rural tradition that consisted of integrating plays into festivals dealing with the theme of capturing and executing Atahualpa, the last Incan king. The origin can be found in representations of "moros y cristianos" from Spain combined with indigenous elements. This resulted in a highly original cultural product. In cities, there was one theater that integrated lyric elements, stylistic elements (imagery, metaphor, etc.) from “high” theater in producing an original cultural element. Some have been very successful. For centuries, theater companies contributed to cultural transmission by going from village to village. Unfortunately, this type of play no longer exists.	00:06:46