Quechua people
 |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (10,000,000–11,000,000 10–11 million) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Peru Bolivia Ecuador
|
|
|
Peru
|
3,500,000 |
|
Bolivia
|
2,910,000 |
|
Ecuador
|
2,568,000 |
 Argentina
|
55,493 (2010) |
 Spain
|
50,000 (2010) |
| Languages | |
| Quechua languages, Spanish | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism, traditional Andean religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Aymaras | |
The Quechua people are the indigenous peoples of South America who speak any of the Quechua languages. Most Quechua speakers live in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Colombia.
The most common Quechua dialect is Southern Quechua. The Kichwa people of Ecuador speak the Kichwa dialect; in Colombia, the Inga people speak Inga Kichwa.
The Quechua word for a Quechua speaker is runa or nuna ("person"); the plural is runakuna or nunakuna ("people").
Some historical Quechua peoples are:
The speakers of Quechua, who total some 4.4 million people in Peru, 1.6 million in Bolivia, 2.2 million in Ecuador (Hornberger and King, 2001), and according to Ethnologue (2006) 8,200 in Chile, 60,000 in Argentina, and a few hundred in Brazil. have an only slight sense of common identity. The various Quechua dialects are in some cases so different that no mutual understanding is possible. Quechua was not only spoken by the Incas, but in some cases also by long-term enemies of the Inca Empire. These include the Huanca (Wanka is a Quechua dialect spoken today in the Huancayo area) and the Chanka (the Chanca dialect of Ayacucho) of Peru, and the Kañari (Cañar) in Ecuador. Quechua was spoken by some of these people, for example, the Wanka, before the Incas of Cusco, while other people, especially in Bolivia but also in Ecuador, adopted Quechua only in Inca times or afterward.
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