Chapter · Ecuador · Language
Three vowels and eight countries
Ecuadorian Kichwa, from its name to its spelling
This language is written three ways, quechua, quichua, kichwa, and each names something else: a family across eight countries, the varieties of one country, and the language naming itself. The path rests on a Kichwa linguist writing about his own language, in Quito, open access. It starts with the name and ends with the spelling.
Context first
A lesson to read before the others, to set the scene.
- The place
- The era
- The people
The lessons in this chapter
- 1Three vowels, and a scholarly insultThree vowels, and a nineteenth-century author concluding the language is primitive. The reconstructions turn the argument around: the common ancestor had three too. Ecuador lost nothing, it kept.9 min
- 2Did the language arrive with the Incas?Did Kichwa come with the Inca armies or before them, through trade? The dispute is open, and by about 1530 the language already reached from central Chile to Ecuador, before any Spaniard arrived.9 min
- 3Fixing the spelling of a language with no schoolA living language nobody was taught to write at school, and five sub-dialects in a single province. The national directorate dates from 1988: three and a half centuries after the Académie française.9 min
How these lessons are written
Each lesson starts from first-hand sources: Wikisource, Gallica, Persée, archives, museums and institutes. A fact without a source does not get written, and every lesson lists its own as direct links.
The rhythm
A lesson is five minutes of cards and four questions. Those questions then come back the next day, then at 3, 7, 21 and 60 days, and that return is what makes it stick. One a day is enough, and you can do several in a row.