South Bolivian Quechua is spoken by roughly 2 million people (Ethnologue 2022) in the southern part of Perú, the central and southern parts of Bolivia and in the nothern part of Argentina. The main research supported for this language at the University of Freiburg has been done by Dr. Mario Soto Rodríguez and Laura Schleicher. Data for this project was collected specifically at Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Language family

South Bolivian Quechua is a Quechuan language. In the following website you can find its detailed phylogenetic tree.

Linguistics Structures

Concept of time:

For the Quechua people, the past is in front, because you can see it, and the future exists as being behind you, as there’s no way to know what’s yet to come.

Time and space are tightly coupled as can be seen from the vocabulary. Ñawpaq has the meaning of ‘(spatially) in front, past, before’ while the word for the future (qhepa) is also the word for the space behind something or someone.

Some Examples of the Language

1.  Rimasqay warmiqa ñawpaqniypim kan.

   Rima-sqa-y warmi-qa ñawpaq-ni-y-pi-m ka-n.

   talk-PART-1SG woman-TOP in.front-euph-1SG-LOC-TOP to.be-3SG.PRS

   “The woman I am talking to is in front of me.”

    

2.  Ñawpaqqa manas wakchakuna kasqachu.

   ñawpaq-qa manas wakcha-kuna ka-sqa-chu.

   past-TOP NEG poor.people-PL to.be-TEST-NEG

   “They say that before there have been no poor people.”

   (Ministry for Education Peru)

These recordings stem from a series of interviews conducted with the members of a local association of Arani, Bolivia, regarding the meaning of the well Pozo Flores for their lives.