ABSTRACT
Q uechua belongs to the Quechuam aran branch of the Andean Equatorial grouping. The original habitat of the Quechua people seems to have been in the A purim ac-Ayacucho area of what is now Peru. H ere arose the Inca Em pire, which was known up to the Spanish Conquest as Tahuaninsuyu ‘the four regions’ (tahua ‘four5, suyu ‘region’). Q uechua, the predom inant language of the em pire, was spoken in two versions: the ruling caste spoke Inca Simi, which was presumably a high-caste register of the Krama type (see Javanese), although some authorities believe it to have been a secret language; the ordinary people spoke Runa Simi, or ‘popular language’. From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, the tribal name Kechwa/Quechua came to be used to designate Runa Simi.
