The general language of the former Inca Empire, Quechua is today the most widely spoken indigenous American language. It is used by over six million people in the Andean region of South America - an area that includes southern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and northwestern Argentina. Introduction to Quechua provides a uniquely accessible introduction to the language and culture of the Quechua speakers. This book is divided into three parts. Section I focuses on the spelling and pronunciation of the language. Section II consists of 494 Model Sentences in both Quechua and English, many in a helpful question-and-answer format that enables a person to communicate in situations typically encountered by the traveler. Literal translations are also included, to provide insight into the grammatical structures involved. These sentences cover a wide range of practical topics, from extending greetings and social courtesies to asking about transportation, describing things, expressing likes and dislikes, and requesting help. The models also show how to talk about time and past events and to express commands and conditional sentences. Many Model Sentences are followed by one or more Expansions to offer additional structures and/or vocabulary. Section III of the book offers important notes on the grammar of Quechua and includes model verb conjugations. This section is followed by extensive lists of practical vocabulary, going beyond the words used in the Model Sentences and their Expansions. Introduction to Quechua will prove to be an essential handbook and reference for any traveler, student, researcher, or businessperson who is interested in the Andean region and in communicating with Quechua speakers.

Quechua, the language of the great Inca Empire, is the most widely spoken Indian language of South America today with 7,000,000 speakers, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The book and audio kit provides the most thorough and accessible introduction to the language available. Travelers and anyone interested in indigenous language and culture will find: Fascinating facts about the land, people, and language Quechua sounds and sentences for everyday situations Clearly explained grammar and extensive word lists

In Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Introduction to Grammar, Ecology, and Discourse from Pastaza and Upper Napo, Janis B. Nuckolls and Tod D. Swanson discuss two varieties of Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Drawing on their linguistic and anthropological knowledge, extensive fieldwork, and personal relationships with generations of speakers from Pastaza and Napo communities, the authors open a door into worlds of intimate meaning that knowledge of Quichua makes accessible. Nuckolls and Swanson link grammatical lessons with examples of naturally occurring discourse, traditional narratives, conversations, songs, and personal experiences to teach readers about the languages’ structures and discourse patterns and speakers’ sensory depictions, ecological aesthetics, and emotional perspectives.

This is a comprehensive, nonformal description of a Quechua language of central Peru, incorporating both structural and functional insights. Topics include: the demographic situation, an introduction to the syntax, word and suffix classes, morphology, case relations, passives, substantive phrases, relative clauses, complements, adverbial clauses, reduplication, question formation, negation, conjunction, evidential suffixes, the topic marker, idioms and formulaic expressions, phonology, and loan processes.

Kawsay Vida is a course book and interactive multimedia program on DVD for the teaching and learning of the Quechua language from beginner to advanced levels. The course book is based on contemporary Bolivian Quechua, while the multimedia program contains a section on Bolivian Quechua (beginner to intermediate levels) and a section on southern Peruvian Quechua (advanced level). The book provides a practical introduction to spoken Quechua through the medium of English, while the multimedia program offers a choice of English or Spanish as the medium of instruction. The video clips introduce us to Quechua speakers in the valleys of Northern Potosí (Bolivia) and Cuzco (Peru), giving a sense of immediacy that the printed page cannot achieve, and highlighting the social and cultural settings in which the language is spoken. The DVD is available for both PC and Macintosh platforms. The book contains twenty-two units of study. As students work through these, cross-references take them to relevant sections of the DVD. The Bolivian and Peruvian Quechua sections of the multimedia program are divided into thematically and grammatically ordered modules, which introduce users to different aspects of Andean life, while progressing language learning in a structured way. Users engage with the audio, video, and visual material contained in the DVD through a range of interactive exercises, which reinforce listening and comprehension skills. Once familiarity with the language is acquired, the multimedia program may be used independently from the book.

This book presents a synchronic grammar of the southern dialects of Yauyos, an extremely endangered Quechuan language spoken in the Peruvian Andes. As the language is highly synthetic, the grammar focuses principally on morphology; a longer section is dedicated to the language's unusual evidential system. The grammar's 1400 examples are drawn from a 24-hour corpus of transcribed recordings collected in the course of the documentation of the language.

Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes is a dynamic, interdisciplinary study of how food's symbolic and pragmatic meanings influence access to power and the possibility of resistance in the Andes. In the Andes, cooking often provides Quechua women with a discursive space for achieving economic self-reliance, creative expression, and for maintaining socio-cultural identities and practices. This book explores the ways in which artistic representations of food and cooks often convey subversive meanings that resist attempts to locate indigenous Andeans-and Quechua women in particular-at the margins of power. In addition to providing an introduction to the meanings and symbolisms associated with various Andean foods, this book also includes the literary analysis of Andean poetry and prose, as well as several Quechua oral narratives collected and translated by the author during fieldwork carried out over a period of several years in the southern Peruvian Andes. By following the thematic thread of artistic representations of food, this book allows readers to explore a variety of Andean art forms created in both colonial and contemporary contexts. In genres such as the novel, Quechua oral narrative, historical chronicle, testimonies, photography, painting, and film, artists represent Quechua cooks who utilize their access to food preparation and distribution as a tactic for evading the attempts of a patriarchal hegemony to silence their voices, desires, values, and cultural expressions. Whether presented orally, visually, or in a print medium, each of these narratives represents food and cooking as a site where conflict ensues, symbolic meanings are negotiated, and identities are (re)constructed. Food, Power, and Resistance will be of interest to Andean Studies and Food Studies scholars, and to students of Anthropology and Latin American Studies.