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Kichwa
Kichwa is a Quechuan language including all Quechua varieties spoken in Ecuador and Colombia (Inga) by approximately 2,500,000 people. Kichwa belongs to the Northern Quechua group of Quechua II (according to Alfredo Torero).
Kichwa syntax has undergone some essential changes and therefore holds a special position within Quechua.
A unified orthography has been developed.
Particularities
As in all varieties of Quechua, the words for 'brother' and 'sister' differ depending on who is using them. A woman must say nana for her sister and turi for her brother. On the other hand, a man must say pani for his sister and wawki for his brother. A woman reading "Nuka wawki Pedromi kan" would therefore read aloud "Nuka turi Pedromi kan".
External links
Map of the regional varieties of Kichwa in Ecuador (quichua.net / FEDEPI.org)
Otavalos Online: Basic Kichwa Course for Beginners, in Spanish (PDF)
KU Kechwa Resource Center: Learning Salasaka Kechwa (by Nina Kinti-Moss)
[https://www.degruyter.de/journals/linguistics/2000/pdf/38_973.pdf Pieter Muysken: Semantic transparency in Lowland Ecuadorian Quechua morphosyntax (PDF file)]
Openoffice v3.2+ Kichwa Spellchecker
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Kichwa
