Aymara: The Indigenous Language of the Andes Before the Inca Empire

By Sarah-Claire Jordan

Most of what we learn about certain indigenous groups in the Americas has to do with the huge and successful empires that were established in some regions, like the Aztec and Maya in Mexico and neighboring countries. We have to remember, though, that despite these empires being conquered themselves by Europeans who went on to colonize their lands, there were native groups there that the indigenous empires had to deal with first.

One such example of this is the Aymara people of Bolivia, Peru, and parts of Argentina and Chile. In Bolivia and Peru, their language, Aymara, is an official language along with Spanish and Quechua. One of the places you may hear them speak it is on the Uros Islands, which are man-made floating islands where some of the Aymara still live. Otherwise, you might have to travel around a bit to find speakers of it. If you can imagine how much Quechua has suffered since the introduction of Spanish, you can probably get an idea of what speakers of Aymara have to deal with on a regular basis.

To further complicate things, some linguists have stipulated that Quechua and Aymara were related. This is disputed among linguists, but it should be noted that, since Quechua speakers (the Inca) were the conquerors of the Aymara speakers, some Aymara words were picked up and introduced into the Quechua language. This may be confusing when looking at the relationship between the two languages today, but they probably are not related and it was simply a case of the conquering language adopting bits and pieces of the conquered language.

Today, there are about two billion speakers of Aymara in Bolivia, half a million speakers in Peru, and maybe a few thousand speakers in parts of Chile and Argentina. Back in the 16th century, the dominant language of these areas was Aymara, but with the arrival of the Inca and later the Spanish, the number of speakers has gone down significantly. Many communities that spoke primarily Aymara now speak Quechua, and of course those communities are not as common as they were before.

Still, there are enough communities speaking the language that linguists are able to recognize and classify three different dialects: Northern Aymara, Intermediate Aymara, and Southern Aymara. Northern Aymara is spoken in the departments of Puno in Peru and La Paz in Bolivia. Southern Aymara is found in the eastern part of the Iquique province in Chile, the department of Oruro in Bolivia, and parts of Potosí and Cochabamba. Intermediate Aymara is spoken in parts of southern Peru and northeastern Chile. It shares characteristics with both Northern and Southern Aymara.

Luckily, there has been some progress in keeping the Aymara language alive and kicking. Bilingual education programs have been introduced in some areas, and the general number of people learning the language, both locally and abroad, has increased. A new way to keep the language from dying out is being tried out in the form of online Aymara classes. Hopefully all of this works, as, besides being a link to the past, Aymara may have a unique take on time in general. The concept of time in Aymara is arranged so that the past is in front of someone, and the future behind. Let’s hope speakers of Aymara can look backward to a bright future for themselves.

 

Category: Foreign Language