Aymara language
| Aymara | |
|---|---|
| Aymar aru | |
| Native to | Bolivia, Peru and Chile |
| Ethnicity | Aymara people |
|
Native speakers
|
2.8 million (2000–2006) |
|
Aymaran
|
|
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
Bolivia Peru |
|
Recognised minority
language in |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ay |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 |
Individual codes: ayr – Central Aymara ayc – Southern Aymara |
| Glottolog | nucl1667 |
Geographic Distribution of the Aymara language
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Aymara /aɪməˈrɑː/ (Aymar aru) is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over one million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Bolivia and Peru. It is also spoken, to a much lesser extent, by some communities in northern Chile, where it is a recognized minority language.
Some linguists have claimed that Aymara is related to its more widely spoken neighbor, Quechua. That claim, however, is disputed. Although there are indeed similarities, like the nearly-identical phonologies, the majority position among linguists today is that the similarities are better explained as areal features resulting from prolonged interaction between the two languages, and they are not demonstrably related.
Aymara is an agglutinating and, to a certain extent, a polysynthetic language. It has a subject–object–verb word order.
The ethnonym "Aymara" may be ultimately derived from the name of some group occupying the southern part of what is now the Quechua speaking area of Apurímac . Regardless, the use of the word "Aymara" as a label for this people was standard practice as early as 1567, as evident from Garci Diez de San Miguel's report of his inspection of the province of Chucuito (1567, 14; cited in Lafaye 1964). In this document, he uses the term aymaraes to refer to the people. The language was then called Colla. It is believed that Colla was the name of an Aymara nation at the time of conquest, and later was the southernmost region of the Inca empire Collasuyu. However, Cerron-Palomino disputes this claim and asserts that Colla were in fact Puquina speakers who were the rulers of Tiwanaku in the first and third centuries (2008:246). This hypothesis suggests that the linguistically-diverse area ruled by the Puquina came to adopt Aymara languages in their southern region.
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