Aymara

The Aymara or Aimara is an indigenous ethnic group in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America; about 2 million Aymara live in Bolivia, Peru and Chile. They lived in the region for many centuries before becoming associates with the Inca, and later with the Spanish speakers in the 16th century. The Aymara have existed in the Andes, in what is now western Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile, for time immemorial. Their language has undergone several marked transformations. The region where Tiwanaku and the modern Aymara are located, the Altiplano, was led by the Incas under Huayna Capac, who reigned between 1483&1523. It is likely that the Inca had a strong influence over the Aymara region for many generations. The architecture, for which the Inca are best known, is clearly modelled on the mountain people’s school of architecture. Although it is possible Aymarans were led by the Incas, some degree of autonomy was retained, with the splendid Inca civilization. There were a number of ethnic groups, which were later to be called Aymara by the Spanish. These were grouped with different chieftains, which included the Charqa, the Qharaqhara, the Quillaca, the Asanaqui, the Carangas, the SivTaroyos, the Haracapi, the Pacajes, the Lupacas and the Soras, amongst more. Upon arrival of the Spanish speaking Europeans and South Americans, all these groups were spread in what today is Bolivia.


Considering the languages, however, rather than their current distribution, it is clear that Aymara was once spoken much further north, at least as far north as central Peru, where most Andean linguists argue that is where Aymara actually originated. In fact, the Inca nobility may themselves originally have been Aymara-speakers, who switched to Quechua only shortly before the Inca expansion. For example, the Cuzco area has many Aymara placenames, and the so-called 'secret language of the Incas' actually appears to be a form of Aymaran. Some have argued that the Inca were a civil engineering specialist group who actually broke free from the Aymaras and that the Incas never spoke, merely constructing the wonders in and near the Andean mountains, as a sign of the power of their actions, or as a way of writing to the world and it’s gods that they were the real lords of it, as with the Nazca lines.
Aymara (Aymar aru) is an Aymaran language spoken by many in and around the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Amerindian languages with over 2 million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia. It is also spoken to a much lesser extent in Chile and in northwest Argentina.


Some linguists have claimed that Aymara is related to its more widely-spoken neighbor, Quechua. This claim, however, is still sometimes disputed. Furthermore, there are indeed similarities such as the nearly identical phonologies. Aymara is an agglutinating language and to a certain extent it is also polysynthetic. It has a subject-object-verb word order, unlike English which is predominantly subject+verb+object sequenced. Can you draw similarities with more languages, which we speak and write in South America?

How's about some practical knowledge? If you ask for some food, instead of ‘grande’ you can say ‘jacha’ and if you’d like to fish your food you can ask where there are ‘jacha challwa’. If you’d like to pick some fruit from a tree to balance your nutrition you should search for or ask for ‘quqa achu’ or ‘achu quqa’ and then you should ‘manq’aña’ calmly to avoid indigestion. If you’d like to find somewhere to sleep you can point at someone and say ‘yatiña ikiña’, which could be interpreted as ‘tu conheçes algun lugar pra dormir’. Additionally, you can encourage better health by saying ‘tuyuña’ near rivers and lakes,etc. Furthermore, you can always try ‘saraña’ and if your stroll gets boring why not just say ‘anataña’ and see how much fun you’ll have! If it’s cold then why not suggest a small ‘nina’ and if you’d like less wind maybe ‘illawa’ will do the trick. If you want everything near perfect then it is well advized that you insist and stress ‘suma’. Every ‘aruma’ may be starlit and you can expect ‘inti’ every ‘uru’.

Aymara Weavings
Why not start your next best quest with Aymara. It is truly American and the core to your knowing South America better than ever.