ABSTRACT
This language may be related to Aymará. The term Quechua covers a broad continuum of dialects spoken over a very wide area, and with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. The original habitat of the Quechua people seems to have been in the Apurímac–Ayacucho area of what is now Peru. Here arose the Inca Empire, which was known up to the Spanish Conquest as Tahuaninsuyu ‘the four regions’ (tahua ‘four’, suyu ‘region’). Quechua, the predominant language of the empire, was spoken in two versions: the ruling caste spoke Inca Simi, which was presumably a high-caste register, 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.
