The Sounds of the Andean Languages
Welcome!
To see this welcome
page in a
Listen to Quechua and Aymara!
For people in the Andes who speak Quechua or Aymara today, every time they talk in their mother tongue they are continuing an authentic, unbroken link back to the great native civilisations of the Andes. They are keeping alive their most direct human connection with their own ancestors who built those civilisations that spread their Quechua and Aymara all over the Andes, especially throughout Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
So vast is this area, however, that both Quechua and Aymara have come to be spoken in many different ways from one region to the next. With this cd-rom and website you will be able to hear exactly how people in each region pronounce words differently to how you say them in your region. You can also learn more about how and why these differences arose, and where your language comes from.
So to listen to how people
in different places in the Andes say the Quechua and Aymara words for the
number one, for example, just move your
mouse over any of these
region names in
here (or if necessary, click on them). Try it now! (If the sound doesn’t work and you can’t hear
anything on your computer,
• Listen here to how the Quechua word for one is pronounced in, for example, the region in the highlands of Ecuador, in northern Peru, in Ancash in North-Central Peru, in Southern Peru, and the region in Southern Bolivia.
• Now listen to how one is said in Aymara: for example in the Central Aymara of in Central Peru, and the Altiplano Aymara of in Bolivia.
• You can also listen to how these words for one were probably pronounced many, many centuries ago in the and languages.
On this cd-rom and website there are fifty common words that you can listen to in this way (in later editions this will be expanded to one hundred words). For each word, you can hear how it is pronounced in each of the nineteen regions of the Andes that we cover in Sounds of the Andean Languages. To hear all of these recordings for the numbers one and five, click here on the number names one or five, and then please wait for the sound files to load into your computer (it may take a minute or so).
How to Use Sounds of the Andean Languages
The fact that Quechua and Aymara are not the same in the different regions is not a shame – not at all, it is part of the rich diversity of Andean culture. In fact, it actually helps us understand much more about where Quechua and Aymara originated, and answer some important questions about the distant ancestors of the people who speak those languages today: Where did they come from? When did they arrive in each different region, bringing with them their old form of their Quechua or Aymara language? What did their Original Quechua and Original Aymara sound like in the past?
Sounds of the Andean Languages
is available as both a cd‑rom,
and an online website, with exactly the same content, divided into several
different parts. To choose any of them, just click on the green links in the top section of
the column on the left of your screen.
Can You Help Us?
Can you help us improve Sounds of the Andean Languages?
• We would like to add more recordings of the Quechua and Aymara spoken in many more regions (including other countries like Argentina and Colombia). If you would like people to be able to hear how each of our fifty words are pronounced in your own region too, then just send us a recording and we will include your voice in later editions of Sounds of the Andean Languages.
• Although this welcome page is available in various languages, for the moment the full range of pages is available only in Spanish and English, though we do hope to make later editions written entirely in the Quechua and Aymara of various regions. You may be able to help us if you have experience of translating into your region’s way of speaking Quechua or Aymara.
If you would like to help us in either of these ways, then to find
out more about who produced Sounds of the
Andean Languages and how to contact us,
Quechua: |
Ecuador |
Ancash |
Quechua: |
Huancayo |
Cuzco |
Aymara:
|
Jaqaru |
Altiplano Aymara |
You
can also read this welcome page, and use the rest of the website, in either