“Angles Make Things Difficult”: Teachers’ Interpretations of Language Policy and Quechua Revitalization in Peru

This chapter explores bilingual teachers’ interpretations of indigenous language revitalization in the Bilingual Intercultural Education (BIE) policy through their uses and teaching of the Quechua language in the context of the Peruvian rural classroom. A pre-Incan language traditionally developed as an oral language, Quechua survived three centuries of Spanish colonization,1 where it was first designated lingua franca for part of the South American Andes (including territories in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru) and later condemned to systemic elimination.