Anne Marie Creighton

Using a variety of anthropological methods, this application proposes to investigate linguistic diversity in the Colca Valley, a region in what is now southern Peru, over the past five centuries. In the early sixteenth century, languages spoken in Colca included Quechua, Aymara, and Puquina. Today, Quechua is the most spoken language in Colca, followed by Spanish; Aymara is no longer spoken in Colca, and Puquina is extinct. Through ethnographic and archival research and a dialect survey of linguistic variation in Colca Quechua, this project will examine how that shift occurred and explore its social and cultural implications. This investigation is in dialogue with scholarly conversations about colonialism, language, and ideology; about ethnogenesis and ethnicity; and about the role of language variation as a resource for creating social meanings. Moreover, by showing the historical roots of social variation in the Andes, this project may help arguments about the complexity of Quechua gain more traction against homogenizing discourses that claim that there is just one Quechua language or culture.