2: Three Vowels or Five?
Before this section we recommend that you first read the earlier
sections, starting from: 1. Sounds and Spelling.
Doesn’t Quechua Have [e] and [o] Sounds Too?
[e] and [i] Sounds: How is Quechua Different to Spanish?
[e] and [i] Sounds: Spanish Letters Cause Problems in Quechua!
[e] and [i] Sounds: More Problems with Spanish Letters
But Don’t All Languages Use Five Vowels?
So What’s the Spelling Rule for Quechua <i> and <u>?
Reading and Pronunciation Rules for Quechua <i> and <u>
What About Spelling Spanish Loanwords in Quechua?
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Doesn’t Quechua Have [e] and [o] Sounds Too?
The biggest question of all is of course the one about whether Quechua and Aymara should be spelt either independently, with three vowels; or copying Spanish, with five vowels.
We’ve already seen that with consonants like <kh>, <k’>, <qh> and so on, it just doesn’t work to write Quechua like Spanish. And while it may not be so obvious at first, exactly the same goes for vowels, as we’ll soon see.
First though, let’s get one thing straight. Yes, most (but not all!) varieties of the Andean languages do have the sounds [e] and [o], the same ones that in Spanish would normally be spelt with the symbols <e> and <o>. Of course Quechua and Aymara have these sounds, there is no question about this. It is an absolute rule of these languages in most regions, not least Cuzco and Bolivia, that they do have these sounds in certain places in words, especially near a <q>. (Ecuador Quechua, in fact, is an exception because it no longer has the Original Quechua <q>, so it does not have [e] and [o] sounds either, in its own native words.)
Quechua does have the sounds [e] and [o], then. Everyone knows this, especially linguists, it’s their job! They’re not stupid, after all. So if they have proposed to spell with just three vowel letters, then it is precisely because there is actually a very good reason. Certainly, at first it can seem very odd to spell only with three vowel letters, but really it seems odd only if you’re too used to spelling only in Spanish.
If you approach this question with an open mind, however, you will soon see and understand aspects about your Quechua or Aymara that you didn’t even realise before. In fact for many people, when they finally understand about this, it is a bit like ‘seeing the light’ or being ‘converted’: many people switch from spelling with five vowels to three, and soon realise how well it works, and how many problems it solves at a stroke. And once they have, they never go back to spelling with five vowels! So if you’re still in doubt, read on!
So, the question is not about whether the [e] and [o] sounds exist in Quechua, of course they do. It’s a completely different issue. It’s only about whether it is practical or impractical in Quechua to spell that sound difference with different letters.
Now of course in Spanish it is absolutely essential to use different letters for these different sounds. The reasons are simple:
• In Spanish, the difference between the sounds [e] and [i] is very important, because it changes the meaning of a word completely: <mesa> is not <misa>. You must write them with different letters, because if you didn’t, nobody could tell which word you mean, <mesa> or <misa>.
• What’s more, this means that in Spanish the use of <i> and <e> is completely constant in different words: <mesa> always has <e>, never <i>; while <misa> always has <i>, never <e>. There are certainly no regional accents in which some people pronounce <mesa> like <misa>, nor <misa> like <mesa>.
• This means that everyone can agree on how to spell each sound in every word, with either <i> or <e>, there is never any confusion and disagreement between people about this in Spanish.
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[e] and [i] Sounds: How is Quechua Different to Spanish?
With Quechua and Aymara, though, things might seem a bit similar at first, but if you think about it you soon see that actually things are completely different. Quechua and Aymara do have the sounds [e] and [o], yes, but they use them in very different ways to Spanish.
We’ve just seen above three crucial things about these sounds in Spanish: none of these things apply to [e] and [o] in Quechua or Aymara. (From now on for simplicity we’ll talk about Quechua only, though all of this applies to Aymara too.)
• In Quechua, the difference between the sounds [e] and [i] is never really important, because it never changes the meaning of a word. Some people pronounce a word more like [puriq], some pronounce it more like [pureq], but it’s still the same word traveller, just spoken with slightly different accents. The difference between [e] and [i] just does not matter so much in Quechua. Yes, one of these pronunciations may sound a little strange to you, or from a different region, but whatever, it still cannot be any other word and meaning in Quechua than traveller.
• Because this difference between [e] and [i] is not important in Quechua, this also means that speakers do not have to be particularly consistent in exactly how they pronounce them. Some people can say [puriq], others more [pureq]. And some words that normally have an [i] sound sometimes change it into [e] in some cases. So you say [wasi] with [i], but if you add <-qa> it can change to sound a bit more like [waseqa].
• What this means that different speakers have different opinions on which words to spell with <i> and which with <e>, and however much they try, they won’t necessarily be able to agree.
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[e] and [i] Sounds: Spanish Letters Cause Problems in Quechua!
So, these sounds are used in very different ways in Spanish and Quechua. What happens, then, if you try to spell Quechua or Aymara with the same five vowel letters as in Spanish? Well the result is that as soon as you try to, big problems very soon appear.
So while at first it might look easier to use both <e> and <i> letters in Quechua, it actually causes endless complications if you try. For a start, why write <wasi> with <i> but ☒<waseqa> with <e>, when it is exactly the same word, house? Why write <michini> with <i> but ☒<micheq kani> with <e>?
When people try to spell Quechua words with both <e> and <i>, they always end up disagreeing about how to write the same word. In fact often the same person ends up confused and writes the same word in different ways! Even dictionaries do this if they try to use <e>!
• For the word shepherd, for example, some people want to write <michiq>, others ☒<micheq>. But is the second vowel in this word an [i] sound, or an [e] sound? Well the problem is, the sound is really somewhere between the two, but we have no letter for this. And anyway, Quechua-speakers can say the word both ways, without any big problem.
• The same goes for [u] and [o] too. If we try to use both letters, we end up with an incoherent mess again. What about the word for new: some people want to write <musuq>, others ☒<musoq>, others ☒<mosoq>… Oh dear…
There is only one coherent solution that works: everybody sticks to just one letter, and always writes that. But in each different region you can all have your own different reading and pronouncing rules. So if your region’s rule is to read and pronounce this as [musuq] or as [musoq] or as [mosoq], go ahead! But in writing, please, use only the letters <u> and <i>: <musuq>, and <michiq>. When you read them, of course, you pronounce them with whatever [i], [e], [u] and [o] sounds you want in your home region.
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[e] and [i] Sounds: More Problems with Spanish Letters
There’s yet another problem caused by trying to use the letters <e> and <o> in Quechua too. Now if you know Spanish, then at least for you it is easy to tell and make the difference between the [o] and [e] sounds, because this one is a very important difference in Spanish. You will have noticed, though, that people who speak Quechua as their mother tongue and who do not know much Spanish can have big problems using the [o] and [e] sounds like in Spanish. Why? It’s all the same reason: precisely because the differences between [i] and [e], and between [u] and [o], are not truly important in the language they are most used to, Quechua.
This is even more proof that Quechua itself does not use these sounds like Spanish, and that the difference between them does not matter so much in Quechua. Obviously then, you do not need to spell this difference in Quechua; indeed it actually makes it harder for these people to write their own native language with five vowel letters. Why? Just because Spanish happens to use them? That is not a good reason for deciding whether to use them in a very different language like Quechua...
If you’re a Spanish-speaker, how would you feel if people tried to force you to spell your language using letters like English <th>, just because English uses them? English has the sound [d] in words like <day>, and the quite different sound [ð] in <they>, always pronounced differently. Spanish too uses these two different sounds – and they really are different, if you listen hard enough – [d] at the start and [ð] in the middle of a word like <dedo> finger. Both languages have both different sounds, but while in English this difference is very important and makes different words, in Spanish it is simply not very important. So with the same two sounds, in English you do spell them with different letters <d> and <th>, but in Spanish you do not, and just spell both different sounds as <d>. Obviously, because, nobody wants to force Spanish-speakers to use certain spellings just because English needs them.
It is just the same for Quechua and Spanish. We should not force Quechua, and particularly people who speak only Quechua, to use certain spellings just because Spanish uses them. Different language, different spelling! In Quechua, you do not need to use different letters for [i] and [e], even if Spanish does. And if you don’t need to, it’s always much better not to even try – this is the experience of spelling in all languages in the world. (It’s what’s called the ‘phonological spelling’ principle.) For Quechua this means that it is much better just to write <i> for both, and in any case you’ll know automatically exactly how to pronounce them in any word.
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But Don’t All Languages Use Five Vowels?
Simple answer: no! The Greek alphabet, for example, needs six: α, ε, ι, ο, υ, ω. Russian even has ten: а, е, з, о, у, ы, э, ю, я. Other languages use the five Latin letters, but then make more than five by adding other symbols too: German has the five Latin vowels plus also ä, ö, ü, Swedish has ö and å, Portuguese has ã, ê, and so on. In fact very, very few languages have exactly five vowel symbols like Spanish and Latin!
But isn’t it still really unusual to write a language with just three vowel letters? Well actually, again the answer is no. Quite on the contrary, three vowel letters only is not strange at all either! Hundreds of languages around the world need only three distinctive vowel letters, among them many native languages of North and South America. Indeed it is well known in linguistics that the most fundamental, ‘purest’ vowel system has just <i>, <u> and <a>.
Let’s have a look at one very important language that has exactly the same situation as Quechua, not only with the vowels but also with [k] and [q]: Arabic. The Arabs themselves, in their own script, have always spelt the difference between [k] and [q], but not the difference between [i] and [e] sounds. The only people who cannot spell properly the Arabic difference between [k] and [q], and who do write the difference between [u] and [o] when they should not, are non-Arabs … who try to write Arabic words in their own, different alphabets inappropriate for Arabic. Think of the Muslim holy book: it is only non-Arabs like the Spanish or English who spell this Corán, with a <c> and an <o>. In their own script, the Arabs themselves use the same letter for both [u] and [o]. And when they do write in Latin letters, they spell this word <Qur’an> with <q> not <k>, and with <u> not <o>.
In Arabic, <qu> is always written <qu>, and pronounced [qo], exactly the same reading rule as Quechua needs. This is not because anyone wants to write Arabic like Quechua, or Quechua like Arabic! It just shows, though, that it is not at all unusual to write languages with just three vowel letters, even if they have five or more vowel sounds. Not only is it not unusual, it is actually often the only good solution, just as it is in Arabic.
It’s important here not to get confused by examples like singer <takiq>, pronounced [takiq], as opposed to collector/storer <taqiq>, pronounced [taqeq]. In Quechua the important difference in sound between these words is not the one between the vowels. You can tell this because the second one in particular can be pronounced with various different sounds, slightly more like [i] or slightly more like [e], but whichever you use the word still means the same thing, and it is still different from the first one. In fact even if you pronounce the vowels almost the same in both words, there’s still an important difference between them…
For Quechua the real important difference between these words is between the different consonants: <k> in singer, <takiq>, but <q> in storer <taqiq>. This difference is very important in Quechua because it makes for different words, as it does here. So it is always important to remember to spell <k> and <q> properly like this. So long as you do, though, it will always be perfectly clear which word is which, even if you always spell with <i>: <takiq> with <k> is a singer, but <taqiq> with <q> is a collector.
There are plenty of languages in the world, then, that have had similar questions to Quechua when people were trying to work out the best spelling system to use for that language. And in every case the best solution is very well known: all languages around the world use a type of spelling called ‘phonemic spelling’. This means using spelling appropriate for the sound system (the ‘phonemics’) of that language, and not of any other language. Quechua should be spelt according to the sound system of Quechua, not that of Spanish. For Quechua, this means a written alphabet with three vowels, not five.
Here is not the place to go into the technical linguistic details, but one point is very important: no language in the world spells all different sounds with different letters. This may seem surprising at first, but in fact it is true, if you listen to sounds exactly. In all the world’s languages, different sounds are spelt with different letters only if the difference between them is important in that language for distinguishing different words. Each language needs its own spelling rules.
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Spelling and Reading Rules
So the best spelling system for Quechua is not necessarily the same as the best one for Spanish. Spanish does not need to distinguish in the spelling between [q] and [k], but it does need to spell the difference between [i] and [e]. Quechua is the reverse: it does need to spell the difference between [q] and [k], but not the difference between [i] and [e].
Spelling a language is not about the exact pronunciation, then. This is also because exact pronunciations are different from one region to another, as with our example word llámame. Nonetheless, even if people may pronounce a bit differently from one region to the next, it is clearly much better if everyone, whatever region they come from, at least spells the same word in the same way (just as everyone does for Spanish).
But how can it work to have a single spelling for everyone, if pronunciations are different from region to region? Well, it’s simple. It works because all spelling systems are based on certain rules for spelling and reading. Here are two examples from Spanish.
• If you’re from the Andes, when you see the spelling <ll> you know the rule that you, in your region, pronounce it as ‘elle’, symbolised [λ]. But if you’re from Lima, you know the rule that that in your region you pronounce it just as [y]. And if you’re from Buenos Aires, you know that in your region you pronounce it [š]. And so on.
• Another example. When you see the spelling <z>, in Latin America you know the reading rule in your region is that this is normally pronounced [s]. But if you’re from Spain, you have a different rule that this is read as [θ]. This is why people in Latin America pronounce <casar> and <cazar> the same, but in Spain they pronounce them differently.
So even if the pronunciation is different in different regions, you don’t use different spellings. It’s simple: you all use the same spelling: what changes from region to region is not the letter, it’s just the reading and pronunciation rules that are special to each region’s own pronunciation.
As you can see for the two examples above, all regions in the world that speak Spanish use their own spelling and reading rules. It is this that makes it possible for all of them to use the same spellings, even though their respect and keep their own regional pronunciations. The unified spelling system for Quechua has been explicitly designed to make this possible for Quechua too.
Indeed this is how any unified spelling system works, for any language: everyone uses the same spelling, but in different regions they use different reading and pronouncing rules. You already accept this for Spanish. All that you are asked to do for Quechua is exactly the same. What is means to learn the unified spelling is to learn your region’s reading and pronunciation rules. That’s it! You’ve already done it for Spanish, and the Quechua ones are a lot simpler. So please try!
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So What’s the Spelling Rule for Quechua <i> and <u>?
So, there are certain spelling and reading rules in Quechua and Aymara that are different to the spelling and reading rules of Spanish. One of these is the famous one that in the Andean languages it is not necessary to use the letters <e> and <o>. So what is the rule exactly? Well, it is very, very simple:
• Never write ☒<e>, always write <i> instead.
• Never write ☒<o>, always write <u> instead.
Why this rule? Because it is the only simple system that can avoid people writing the same word in many different ways, even in the same region, and it also allows us to unify the spelling across all different regions. At a stroke this rule solves all the disagreements and hesitation about how to spell a word, <puriq> or ☒<pureq>? The rule is simple: always spell it with <i>, so <puriq>, just as you also spell <purini> I travel.
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Reading and Pronunciation Rules for Quechua <i> and <u>
There is one very important thing to remember about any spelling rule like this. The rule is only about the spelling, everyone continues to pronounce each word as they are used to in their own region! If you prefer to pronounce <puriq> more like [iq] or more like [eq], just do! If you prefer [pureq], then you have a reading and pronunciation rule in your region that says the spelling <iq> is actually pronounced more like [eq]. That’s it. Very simple, all you have to do is to get used to the rule, and anyone who already uses three vowels for Quechua will tell you, it’s actually pretty easy!
These spelling and reading rules for <i> and <u> work in almost all Quechua regions, including Ecuador, Bolivia, and most of Peru, including Cuzco, Puno, Ayacucho, and most Central and Northern areas. Only in some regions in Central Peru, especially parts of Ancash, is the rule a bit more complicated, because you should also spell <ay> instead of long <ee>, and <aw> instead of <oo>. This way you can write and read words like <kay> this exactly the same as in all other regions, even though in Ancash you may read and pronounce it [ke:]. And if you think this is a strange rule, think again: in English, the word <day> is spelt in this same way all over the world, even though most regions pronounce it [dey], some [de:], and only a few now still say [day].
Back to Contents – Last section on this page.
What About Spelling Spanish Loanwords in Quechua?
These spelling and reading rules for <i> and <u> apply to all native Quechua words: never spell any of them with <e> or <o>. Only if a word has been borrowed from Spanish do you have the option to spell it with the original <e> and <o> letters. Alternatively, you can make it more like Quechua if you like, which is often better: Spanish <en carro> ® Quechua <karrupi>.
This choice is left a bit optional, because in any language there is always a bit of a question about how to spell borrowed words. Look at what Spanish itself does when it borrows words from other languages. If you want, you can spell borrowed words like in native Spanish spelling, like <quilómetro> with <qu>, or you can use the spelling of the original language that the word came from, and write <kilómetro> with <k>. In fact, with a word like <whisky> most people keep the foreign spelling, even if by Spanish native spelling rules you would have to spell it <huisqui> or <güisqui>…
We recommend that you now click to go on to
section 3, on: How Can You Learn Unified Spelling?