Puquina language

Puquina (or Pukina) is an extinct language once spoken in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia) and in the north of Chile. It is often associated with the culture that built Tiwanaku.

A Puquina substrate can be found in the Quechuan and Spanish languages spoken in the south of Peru, mainly in Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna, as well as in Bolivia. There also seem to be remnants in the Kallawaya language, which may be a mixed language formed from Quechuan languages and Puquina.^[1]

Sometimes the term Puquina is used for the Uru language, which is completely unrelated.

Classification

Puquina has been considered an unclassified language, since it has not been proven to be firmly related to any other language in the Andean region.^{[citation needed]} A relationship with the Arawakan languages has long been suggested, based solely on the possessive paradigm (1st no-, 2nd pi-, 3rd ču-), which is similar to the proto-Arawakan subject forms (1st * nu-, 2nd * pi-, 3ª * tʰu-). Further possible lexical cognates between Puquina and the Arawakan languages have recently been found that could support placing the language within a putative Macro-Arawakan family, along with the Candoshi and the Munichi languages.^{[2]: 310–317} However, such a hypothesis still lacks conclusive evidence.

In this regard, Adelaar and van de Kerke (2009: 126) have pointed out that if in fact the Puquina language is genetically related to the Arawakan languages, its separation from this family must have occurred at a relatively early date; the authors further suggest that in such a case the location of the Puquina speakers should be taken into account in the debate over the geographic origin of the Arawakan family. Such consideration was taken up by Jolkesky (op. cit., 611–616) in his archaeo-ecolinguistic model of diversification of the Macro-Arawakan languages. According to this author, the proto-Macro-Arawakan language would have been spoken in the Middle Ucayali River Basin during the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE and its speakers would have produced in this region the Tutishcainyo pottery.

Proposed Inca affiliation

The linguist Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino proposed that "Qhapaq Simi", the cryptic language of the nobility of the Inca Empire, was closely related to Puquina, and that Runa Simi (Quechuan languages) were spoken by commoners; this proposal is known as the "Puquinist Hypothesis"^[3] Alfredo Torero, a scholar of the Puquina language, has refuted the "Puquinist hypothesis", arguing that Qhapaq Simi was a variant of the Aru or Aymara language family.^[4]

Moulian et al. (2015) argue that Puquina influenced Mapudungun of southern Chile long before the rise of the Inca Empire.^[5] This areal linguistic influence may have started with a migratory wave arising from the collapse of the Tiwanaku empire around 1000 CE.^[5][6]

Phonology

Consonants

• /h/ may also be heard as a uvular fricative [χ].
• /ʎ/ may also be heard as a voiced palatal affricate [dʒ].

Vowels

• /o/ and /u/ may not be contrastive, though there are some minimal pairs (e.g. no 'my' and nu 'who'.).^[7]

Vocabulary

Numerals

Pronouns

Sample text

The Lord's Prayer in Puquina:^[9]

Señ yqui, hanigopacas cunana ascheno, po mana vpallisuhanra: po capaca aschano señ guta huachonta, po hatano callacaso hanta, quiguri hanigopa casna ehe eahu cohuacasna hamp: Kaa gamenque ehehesuma. Señ guta camen señ tanta, señ hochaghe pampache sumao, quiguiri señ señ guta huchachasqueno gata pampachanganch cagu. Ama èhe acrosuma huchaguta señ hotonouà enahata entoriana quespina sumau. Amen.

References

1. ^ Willem Adelaar & Simon van de Kerke. "The Puquina and Leko languages". Symposium: Advances in Native South American Historical Linguistics, July 17–18, 2006, at the 52nd International Congress of Americanists, Seville, Spain. Retrieved 2007-09-19.
2. ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery (4 November 2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais Sul-Americanas (PhD) (in Brazilian Portuguese). Universidade de Brasília. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
3. ^ "Las lenguas de los incas: el puquina, el aimara y el quechua (The languages of the Incas: Puquina, Aymara and Quechua) [1 ed.] 3631630948, 9783631630945". dokumen.pub. Retrieved 2025-11-27.
4. ^ Torero, Alfredo (2002). Idiomas de los Andes: lingüística e historia (in Spanish). IFEA, Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos. ISBN 978-9972-699-27-6.
5. ^ Moulian, Rodrígo; Catrileo, María; Landeo, Pablo (2015). "Afines quechua en el vocabulario mapuche de Luis de Valdivia" [Akins Quechua words in the Mapuche vocabulary of Luis de Valdivia] (in Spanish). Revista de lingüística teórica y aplicada. 53 (2): 73–96. doi:10.4067/S0718-48832015000200004. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
6. ^ Dillehay, Tom D.; Pino Quivira, Mario; Bonzani, Renée; Silva, Claudia; Wallner, Johannes; Le Quesne, Carlos (2007) Cultivated wetlands and emerging complexity in south-central Chile and long distance effects of climate change. Antiquity 81 (2007): 949–960
7. ^ Adelaar, Willem & van de Kerke, Simon (2009). "Puquina". Lenguas de Bolivia, vol. I (in Spanish). Mily Crevels and Pieter Muysken (ed.). La Paz: Plural editores. pp. 125–146.
8. ^ Aguiló, Federico. 2000. El Idioma del Pueblo Puquina: Un enigma que va aclarándose. Quito, Ecuador: Intercultural de las Nacionalidades Pueblos Indígenas/Fondo Ecuatoriano Populorum Progressio. 116pp.
9. ^ de Oré, Luis Jerónimo (1607). Rituale, seu Manuale Peruanum, et forma breuis administrandi apud Indos sacrosancta Baptismi, Poenitentiae, Eucharistiae, Matrimonij, & Extremae vnctionis sacramenta. Iuxta ordinem Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae. Per R.P.F. Ludouicum Hieronymum Orerium, ordinis Minorum concionatorem, & sacrae theologiae lectorem accuratum: et quae indigent versione, vulgaribus idiomatibus Indicis, secundum diuersos situs omnium prouinciarum noui orbis Perù, aut per ipsum translata, aut eius industria elaborata (in Latin, Spanish, qu, ay). Naples: apud Io. Iacobum Carlinum, & Costantinum Vitalem.