Quechua language attitudes and maintenance in Cuzco, Peru

Abstract

This article qualitatively and quantitatively investigates the Quechua language attitudes and maintenance practices of the members of two non-profit, non-governmental agencies in Cuzco, Peru. Within their respective agency/community contexts, the members of both groups claim to have significantly more positive attitudes toward Quechua and exhibit more successful Quechua maintenance practices than have been reported for other Quechua speakers in past research. To account for this sharp contrast between the findings of this work and those of other researchers, it is argued that membership in the two agencies plays a role. Furthermore, it is suggested that the two communities described here may serve as models for the creation of other planned home/community environments for Quechua speakers undergoing language shift as well as for the speakers of other endangered languages in general. As such, this work provides two examples of micro-prestige-planning.