The High Academy of the Quechua Language (Spanish: Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua; Quechua: Qheswa Simi Hamut'ana Kuraq Suntur/Qhichwa Simi Hamut'ana Kuraq Suntur), or AMLQ, is a Peruvian organization dedicated to the teaching, promotion, and dissemination of the Quechua language.

Although the institution has subsidiary associations in different regions of Peru and in several cities around the world, its main area of action is the department of Cuzco. Its publications and Quechua as a second language courses also specialize in the Cuzco dialect. The institution is controversial because of its particularist linguistic ideologies and its defense of a 5-vowel alphabet. There is also no consensus about whether the organization is a private or a public institution.^[1]

History

In 1954, Faustino Espinoza Navarro[es], working with other Quechua-speaking artists, founded the Academia de la Lengua Quechua (Sp: 'Academy of the Quechua Language'). The academy argued that Qhapaq Simi (Lit. 'the great language'), translated as Cusco Quechua, "Imperial Quechua," or "Inka Quechua,"^[2] was the purest form of Quechua and should be taught in Quechua language schools; they rejected the Runa Simi that was spoken in everyday life. On December 10, 1958, the government of Manuel Prado Ugarteche officially recognized the organization, under the name Academia Peruana de la Lengua Quechua (Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language).^[3]

On May 27, 1975, the government of Juan Velasco Alvarado made Quechua the official language of Peru.^[4] The law establishing its official status prescribed a phonological alphabet that retained Spanish five-vowel characters. In 1983, professional Quechua and Aymara experts from all over Peru decided to implement an orthography with just three vowels, under phonemic considerations: a for /a/, i for /ɪ/, and u for /ʊ/. This decision was controversial, with factions of linguists, teachers, and activists both supporting it and opposing it.^[5] The academy did not approve of the shift, and continues to use the five-vowel system.^[6] Because of this, it writes Qosqo and not Qusqu for "Cusco."

In 1990, Law Number 25260 established a "high" (mayor) Quechua language academy in Cusco, as opposed to many regional Quechua Academies.^[7] Although the law did not mention the name "High Academy of the Quecha Language," the law marked the beginning of the AMLQ's transition to its modern form, culminating in the creation of its guiding statutes in 2009.^[8][9] The commission to establish the statutes was not created until 2009, although it had been recognized as a decentralized organization in 2007.

Institutional activities

The mission of the institution is, in theory, to ensure the so-called 'purity' of the Quechua language and to stimulate the development of literature in this language and linguistic study. In practice, their main activity is offering Quechua as a second language and organizing cultural events about Andean culture. As such, AMLQ is one of the major cultural organization within Cuzco city civil society. They also organize symposia called 'Quechua World Congresses' with participants coming from different departments and countries.

The Third World Congress of Quechua, Yuyayyaku Wawakuna, was held in Salta in October 2004. At the convention, decisions included tasks of the academy and its affiliates, such as putting in place the original phonetics and phonology of Quechua phytonyms, zoonyms, anthroponyms and toponyms, coordinating with political and tourist authorities; recommending that its affiliates share publications related to the language so that the institution can archive all works as part of its heritage; and recommending that the academy should have an organizational characteristic of Andean culture. The institution sought to avoid using models of foreign academies and instead wanted to create their own organizational model.^[10]

In November 2020, the Fourth World Congress of Quechua, called "Pachakutip K'anchaynin" ("New times of prosperity and change are shining on us") was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia.^{[citation needed]}

Language Ideologies and Policies

AMLQ has emerged as the main diffusor and enforcer of a series of linguistic ideologies and policies. Within the first group, there are several ideas about the special characteristics of Cuzco Quechua vis-à-vis other Quechua varieties as well as other languages. AMLQ members refer to the Cuzco variety by means of a series of glossonyms: Inka Rimay (Qu: 'language of the Inca'), Quechua Inka/ Runasimi Inka (Sp: 'Inca Quechua'), Quechua Imperial (Sp: 'Imperial Quechua'), Qhapaq simi (Qu: 'the great language'), Qhapaq Runasimi (Qu: 'the great Quechua'), Qosqo simi (Qu: 'language of Cuzco') or Misk’i Simi (Qu: 'the sweet language').^[11]

They have reinforced old ideas about Quechua origins and expansion, now considered disproved by linguistic and historical evidence. For example, chairwoman Juana Rodríguez Torres affirms that it was the Cuzco variety that was diffused northward by the Inca Pachacutec and who was the main responsible for its diffussion within the Andean world.^[12] David Samanez Florez from the AMLQ to this day tries to demonstrate the cusqueño origins of the Quechua language even though, according to investigations by Parker (1963) and Torero (1964), the Quechua languages originated in the Central Sierra of Peru.^[13]

On top of that, AMLQ members often diffuse hierarchical and discriminatory judgements that consider the Cuzco Quechua as "better" or "more evolved" than other Quechuas. Such ideas have roots in Inca Garcilaso's conception of Cuzco as the imperial capital and Cuzco Quechua as courtier tongue. Researcher Serafín Coronel-Molina quotes Spanish interviews with AMLQ members in which they state Cuzco Quechua pretended superiority:

The jungle languages are dialects, they are not languages. [. . .] Quechua does not have dialects. Being a language, it doesn’t have a dialect. Of course now there are different forms of conversing according to regions, the coast, the highlands, even in the north of the country or other countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. That does not mean that they are dialects, they are ways of conversing, not uniform but rather in different ways, right? For me, there are no dialects of the Quechua language.(F. Requena)

The best variety of Quechua, people from Ayacucho will say is Ayacucho Quechua, our brothers in Bolivia will say Bolivian Quechua, our brothers from Santiago del Estero in northern Argentina will say Argentine Quechua. We cuzqueños also have heart and we have to say Cuzco Quechua. But opposing those realities, the most evolved, most scientific Quechua that does not have exceptions in its writing is Inca Quechua. The Inca Quechua that has been spread from Cuzco to the majority of the communities of Tawantinsuyu.(E. Roque)^[14]

Ideas singularizing Quechua, or Cuzco Quechua, in relation to other world languages include a topic of Quechua as "sweet" and as better-suited for human reasoning (so that they call it lengua universal, Sp. 'universal language'):

To speak of Quechua is to speak of a scientific language, an academic language, a technical language. To speak of Quechua is not only a medium of communication, in Quechua itself is its technology, its science, its philosophy, its mathematics, a whole set of human knowledge. The person who knows Quechua and wants to write or discover things about the past, truly with Quechua he will contrast his different hypotheses with his different variables to arrive at scientific law. [...] Consequently, the Quechua language is not only sweet, but it also allows all human sentiments to be spoken with unique feeling. In general, that would be the importance of the Quechua language, that it is much more profound than the Spanish understanding, than the English understanding, than the German understanding, than the Japanese understanding. Incredibly, philosophy, technology, science, linguistics, semantics are not dissociated [in Quechua]. Engineering is there, medicine is there, astronomy is there, astrology, philosophy is there, everything is there.(E. Mamani)

We cuzqueños are universal. If you know Quechua, you learn to speak another language better than a native speaker of that language (P. Barriga)^[15]

Finally, the organization has remained the major opponent to the official phoneme-oriented 3-vowels alphabet, so that they use in texts and second language courses the pre-existing 5-vowel one. According to the AMLQ, Presidential Resolution No. 001 from the 12th of October in 1990 "ratifies the Basic Imperial Quechua Alphabet of 1975, composed of 31 graphemes: five vowels and 26 consonants from Qosqo Puno." Though both alphabets are pretty functional for the Cuzco variety, the debate has become ideologically tainted. AMLQ defends Cuzco Quechua is "essentially" pentavocálico (Sp: '5-voweled'). In that context, many AMLQ members and alumni have equated writing with three vowel letters as using a non-Cuzco variety of Quechua (usually labeled as "Chanka" or "ayacuchano").

Criticism

• The AMLQ is often criticized for its tendency towards linguistic purism.^[16]
• In 2006, a group of people linked to the institution vandalized a Wikipedia page about Southern Quechua, insulting its editors and defacing its title page.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2010, four workers of the institution began a hunger strike, claiming the statutes were outdated and the budget was too low. While the budget was initially granted, the Ministry of Education never followed through due to the AMLQ's own issues within self-regulation.^[17]
• According to Godenzzi, the intent of the academy is to create a "norm" among the languages. According to Tim Marr, the extensive setbacks over time have been result of Andean fascism.^[18]
• Several Quechua scholars have highlighted the multiple inconsistencies and errors within the AMLQ, the supposedly official Quechua dictionary.^[19] There have been noted orthographic and methological inconstencies, as well as etymological mistakes. However, main problems refer to its pretension of pan-Quechua value, while information about non-Cuzco Quechua varieties is poor and ancillary, and to the systematic erasure of usual Quechua words of Spanish origin as a result of linguistic purism.^{[20][21][22][23]}