Quechua was the language of the Inca Empire and is still spoken by about 9 million people in the Andes, mainly in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, where the local form is called Kichwa. It is not a single uniform language but a family of related varieties. Quechua is an official language in Peru and Bolivia alongside Spanish.
Quechua is written in Latin letters and has only three basic vowels, a, i and u, though e and o are heard next to some consonants. Words are built by adding suffixes, so a single word can carry a whole phrase. Spellings differ between countries and between older and newer systems, which is why place names like Cusco also appear as Qosqo. English words from Quechua include llama, condor and jerky.
| Family | Quechuan |
|---|---|
| Native speakers | about 9 million (2007) |
| Official in | Peru, Bolivia |
| Script | Latin alphabet |
| Codes | qu (ISO 639-1), que (ISO 639-3) |
Speaker number: Nationalencyklopedin (2007), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.
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