Indigenous languages of the AmericasOver a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large number of language isolates), as well as a number of extinct languages that are unclassified because of a lack of data. Many proposals have been made to relate some or all of these languages to each other, with varying degrees of success.
Quechua peopleQuechua people (ˈkɛtʃuə, ˈkɛtʃwɑː; ˈketʃwa) or Quichua people may refer to any of the indigenous peoples of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there are some significant populations in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina. The most common Quechua dialect is Southern Quechua. The Kichwa people of Ecuador speak the Kichwa dialect; in Colombia, the Inga people speak Inga Kichwa.
Quechuan languagesQuechua (ˈkɛtʃuə, ˈkɛtʃwɑː; ˈketʃwa), usually called Runasimi ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers as of 2004. Approximately 25% (7.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechuan language. Quechua was the main language family of the Inca Empire.
EcuadorEcuador (ˈɛkwədɔːr ; ekwaˈðoɾ; Quechua: Ikwayur; Shuar: Ecuador or Ekuatur), officially the Republic of Ecuador (República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: Ikwayur Ripuwlika; Shuar: Ekuatur Nunka), is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about west of the mainland. The country's capital and largest city is Quito.
