Quechua Language Research Articles

Psychometric analysis and adaptation of the generalized anxiety questionnaire (GAD-7) to the Collao Quechua language in Peru.

To adapt the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire (GAD-7) from English to the cultural and linguistic context of Quechua Collao and to analyze its psychometric properties in Puno, Peru. The GAD-7 in its original version was translated into the Collao Quechua variety and its psychometric properties were analyzed. The participants were bilingual (Spanish and Quechua), over 18 years of age and of both sexes. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was evaluated using parallel analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and goodness-of-fit indices; reliability was also analyzed using McDonald's classic alpha and Omega. Judges and focus group participants conducted the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the GAD-7 to Quechua Collao; the EFA reported the presence of a single factor (KMO=0.88, p=0.01); while the CFA confirmed adequate adjustments in the unifactorial model (CFI=0.994; TLI=0.991; SRMR=0.027; RMSEA=0.092), good reliability (α=0.896; ω=0.894) and was also invariant across age groups, sex, marital status and educational level. The questionnaire showed validity for a unidimensional model of the GAD-7 adapted to the Collao Quechua, as well as optimal reliability and invariance by the evaluated groups. Its use could benefit anxiety research and care.

Criterios y parámetros de evaluación de competencias comunicativas e interculturales en estudiantes universitarios quechua hablantes de Perú

The present research is qualitative in nature and its objective is to determine the criteria and parameters for the evaluation of oral and intercultural communicative competence in the Quechua language in order to propose an instrument and a rubric to measure the level of oral competence of these mutually interrelated competencies. This instrument was submitted to the judgment of experts and subsequently applied to Quechua-speaking university students of social sciences and humanities at Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal. These students were selected through the application of a diagnostic file card. The result of the study was that, in order to evaluate oral and intercultural communicative competences in Quechua and other indigenous languages of the country, it is necessary to consider the linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic dimensions of such knowledge, as well as the cognitive, affective and attitudinal aspects, in a holistic way and having interculturality as the transverse axis.

Cáncer de cérvico uterino en la pandemia de COVID-19 en comunidades rurales de Ayacucho

Introduction: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable rural women faced significant challenges. Objective: To explore the situation of cervical cancer during the pandemic from an intercultural perspective among rural women in Ayacucho in 2021. Methodology: Mixed-method research with a concurrent triangulation design. Sample: Healthcare providers and rural women. Purposeful and reasoned sampling. Techniques: Surveys, in-depth interviews. Data analysis: Data systematization using Excel, SPSS for quantitative data, and Atlas.ti for qualitative data. Level of validity and confidence: triangulation. Results: Information from surveys and interviews was contrasted, revealing that the problem may have alternative solutions within the knowledge of the same communities. Conclusion: Women reported lack of awareness, insufficient information in the Quechua language, and undervaluation of their traditional knowledge. Fear and contagion concerns prevented them from seeking healthcare services. Services were reduced, redirected, or discontinued, often due to budget constraints.

Translation and validation of the satisfaction with life scale in the native Quechua (Collao variant) language of southern Perú

Research on life satisfaction in indigenous populations is limited due to language barriers. Therefore, this paper aimed to translate and validate the Life Satisfaction Scale into the original Quechua language (collao variant) of southern Peru. The research was classified as instrumental and transversal and was conducted with the voluntary participation of 242 Quechua adults speaking the collao variant. The instrument that was translated was the 5-item SWLS, previously adapted to Peruvian Spanish. The internal structure was analyzed under an analytical-factorial approach, and the discrimination and difficulty of the items were evaluated from the item response theory (IRT). Expert judgment was favorable for all items (V > 0.70), confirming the 1-dimensional structure of the scale (χ2 = 8.972, df = 5, p = .000; CFI = 0.985; TLI = 0.970 and RMSEA = 0.057), with acceptable reliability (ω = 0.65). All the items of the scale presented adequate discrimination indices; in addition, the results of the evaluation of factorial invariance as a function of gender demonstrated configurational equivalence but an absence of metric invariance. In conclusion, the SWLS translated into Collao Quechua (collao variant) has a stable factorial structure and adequate internal consistency, although it was not possible to completely demonstrate the invariance by gender, it can be used for initial investigations to measure satisfaction with life of the Quechua-speaking indigenous population of southern Peru.

Screening through silence: The representation of queerness in Retablo (2017)

Retablo is a feature-length film, mostly shot in Quechua language, centred on an Indigenous family who lives in the Peruvian Andes and makes a living as artisans of the eponymous folk art. The main storyline is about Segundo, a 14-year-old only-child and apprentice, whose close relationship with his father and master, Noé, is drastically altered when it is revealed that the latter has sexual relationships with other men. Drawing from decolonial queer theory (Gomes-Pereira, Miskolci, Pelúcio), in this article I rehearse an analysis of Retablo as a case study to reconsider the notion of queer cinema and the representation of queer experiences on the continent. First, I review the use of ‘queer’ in Latin American film scholarship and argue for an understanding of the category not focused on issues such as identity, homophobia and machismo, but on the cinematic formal strategies used to portray local queer practices. Following this line of thought, I engage with Schoonover and Galt’s argument that film is a ‘queerly inflected medium’ to probe how Retablo’s attempt to incite a queer spectatorship using an Indigenous aesthetic grammar illustrates the intertwining between global queer cinema and local elaborations of sexual difference. Lastly, I use the category of ‘silence’ (Sifuentes-Jaúregui) to study Retablo’s alternative representation of queer sexuality. I suggest that the film’s depiction of queer desires resorting to unnaming and concealing is an example of an alternative figuration of queer subjectivity in Latin American cinema, one distanced from the Anglo-American narratives of ‘coming out’.

Myth and Identity: A Compilation of Oral Traditions in a University Context from Peru

ABSTRACT Peru is a multicultural country, with a wide wealth of languages and traditions. However, most of the contributions from the Andean and Amazon areas have suffered segregation by members of the majority culture, represented by the Spanish language and centralised in the coastal cities. For this reason, migration to these territories has included the concealment of the mother tongue, cultural mimicry and the loss of identity values. For this reason, this study seeks to achieve the opposite effect: to revalue the Quechua language through the presentation and compilation of oral myths from different Andean localities, thanks to the conception, performance and style of a group of students of the Beca 18 program at a private university from Lima. This means revaluing the cultural elements that are part of the identity of these students, specifying the activity as a form of cultural strengthening, and recovering the myth as a manifestation of oral literature in the Peruvian environment, as well as in the official spaces of culture majority.

Development and evaluation of a didactic tool with augmented reality for Quechua language learning in preschoolers

It is important to preserve our cultural identity through the preservation of our mother tongue, contributing to its dissemination. Augmented reality (AR) is a great ally of education that provides efficiency, and productivity and increases the interest of students in their academic activities. An AR application was developed for learning Quechua in preschool children, thus improving their learning, satisfaction, and preference compared to traditional teaching. Previously, learning styles were identified for better coverage of the application; the design thinking methodology was applied for the development of the application, then the respective tests were conducted where it was obtained that the children's performance improved by 28.3% more compared to traditional teaching, with an average satisfaction of 89% of the classrooms, and 81% of students' preference. It was concluded that the proposed application considerably favors the written and audiovisual learning of the Quechua language in preschool students.

Quechua Language Revitalization Policies and Planning in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador

Quechua Language Revitalization Policies and Planning in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador

Migrant bilingual youth, family, and school language policy: ethnographic insights for urban Quechua education

Abstract In this paper, I draw on the ethnography of language planning and policy to consider how urban Indigenous language education might benefit from understanding the meanings and processes behind other language planning and policy activities migrant youth participate in, specifically, family language policymaking activities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in the region of Cusco, Perú I examine the experiences of two youth from rural hometowns and of their families. My analysis discusses how family language policies influenced youth’s shifting repertoires towards and away from Quechua, how youth drew on their Quechua–Spanish bilingualism to act as family language policy agents guided by local crianza and raciolinguistic ideologies, and how youth experienced Quechua language education in urban high schools. I argue that urban Quechua education efforts need to consider how migrant youth experience and shape their bilingualism and that of their families across rural-urban continua in order to craft safe and meaningful spaces where youth can participate in the strengthening of their Quechua language practices and identities.

Hemispheric Quechua: language education and reclamation within diasporic communities in the United States

Abstract Over the last two decades, the United States has increasingly become a site of Quechua language use and reclamation. Reclamation programs have emerged, both promoting the language and fostering community empowerment, particularly among Latinx youth. In this essay, we draw on our experiences as U.S.-based Quechua-language educators and organizers to explore the participation of diasporic Quechua reclamation movements in the global advance of the language. We frame these U.S.-based projects not as discrete entities, but as initiatives in constant connection with their counterparts in the Andes. This reflection piece provides a timeline of academic and community organizations in New York City, a global urban center with one of the largest bilingual Quechua-Spanish communities outside of the Andes. We conclude that these diasporic bottom-up language policy and planning (LPP) efforts are natural agents of dialogue on Quechua-language education and an integral part of the international Quechua reclamation movement.

Youth, Quechua and neoliberalism in contemporary Perú

AbstractFramed within a critical and ethnographic approach to language policy, my study addresses the phenomenon of language commodification and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in contemporary Perú. Specifically, I address a project of Quechua teaching in the city of Lima called Quechua para Todos, or Quechua for All, promoted by young Quechua activists developing interventions to change historically established imaginaries. Taking this project as a starting point, I analyze what is behind the extremely high demand these Quechua courses are having among youth in the capital city, where Quechua has been historically silenced. My argument is that a significant group of the young students from the courses have begun to integrate the Quechua language to the figure of the entrepreneurial subject for whom both personal and national branding is central. While speaking Quechua has historically indexed ‘indianness’ linked to backwardness, rurality, ancestrality and ignorance, it is now being associated with other linguistic and non-linguistic signs (such as being a professional and knowing English) to enregister a multicultural citizenship within a context of neoliberal economic growth and state policies of cultural branding. Although the demand to study Quechua in Lima is shifting the meanings and values of Quechua, at least within a domain of speakers, it may also be erasing ongoing processes of racialization of indigenous peoples in Peruvian society and fundamental gaps in access to education and economic resources.

Bringing the language forward: engagements with Quechua language planning and policy

Bringing the language forward: engagements with Quechua language planning and policy

Augmented Reality for Quechua Language Teaching-Learning: A Systematic Review

As time goes by, it is evident that technology advances, Augmented Reality (AR) is an innovative technological tool that has emerged and has been highly attractive to users, allowing sharing information in a dynamic and realistic way. In the present systematic literature review (SLR), a search was conducted for manuscripts published in 6 databases between the years 2017 to 2022, related to the implementation of AR to improve the teaching-learning (TL) process of the Quechua language, which were analyzed and systematized using the prism methodology, obtaining as a result 56 manuscripts that supported to answer the research questions, where the various factors that allow improving the TL process of the Quechua language and the various benefits generated by its implementation were identified. It is concluded that, according to the results, the application of RA in the TL of the Quechua language is an efficient and productive tool; however, it can also be a source of distraction in the study, so it is necessary to have a good management of this methodology and of the study environment to obtain better achievements. For this reason, a model is proposed to serve as a basis for the proper management in the implementation of RA to improve the process of Quechua language TL.

La independencia del Perú y la Biblia

Among its texts in indigenous languages the British Library owns two manuscript volumes of the New Testament in Quechua, translated in 1824, not long after the Peruvian declaration of independence. It was commissioned by James or Diego Thomson, an influential Scottish Baptist minister who initiated the Protestant mission, together with general education, on the Latin American continent. These texts are part of the very scarce documentation in indigenous languages from the beginning of the 19th century. I will present the context of the origin of these texts (initiator and translators) (first part of this contribution, in this issue). In a linguistic analysis I will compare examples from the two versions in terms of orthography/phonology, vocabulary, morphology and syntax (second part of this contribution, to be published in Anthropos 118.2023.2). The samples analysed here show, with respect to vocabulary and orthography, that the translators operate mainly within a colonial tradition of the general missionary language. As Cuzco citizens, who probably belonged to the social elite of the city, they were well familiarised with the Quechua language, which can be seen in their knowledge of its morphology and syntax. At the same time the texts show the discussions which they must have had whilst translating them; this is particularly evident in the frequent crossing out of words and passages in order to emend them, especially with respect to sentence and discourse structure. It is in this ‘linguistic laboratory’ that the translators show their close collaboration, their knowledge of the language and of the conventions established in it since colonial times, as well as their innovative spirit. [Bible translation, Quechua, Peru, James Thomson, 19th century, historical context, linguistic analysis]

A speech corpus of Quechua Collao for automatic dimensional emotion recognition

Automatic speech emotion recognition is an important research topic for human-computer interaction and affective computing. Over ten million people speak the Quechua language throughout South America, and one of the most known variants is the Quechua Collao one. However, this language can be considered a low resource for machine emotion recognition, creating a barrier for Quechua speakers who want to use this technology. Therefore, the contribution of this work is a 15 hours speech corpus in Quechua Collao, which is made publicly available to the research community. The corpus was created from a set of words and sentences explicitly collected for this task, divided into nine categorical emotions: happy, sad, bored, fear, sleepy, calm, excited, angry, and neutral. The annotation was performed on a 5-value discrete scale according to 3 dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. To demonstrate the usefulness of the corpus, we have performed speech emotion recognition using machine learning methods and neural networks.

Home-Based Respiratory Physiotherapy and Telephone-Based Psychological Support for COVID-19 Survivors in Peru: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundBoth pulmonary and mental health are affected following hospitalization for COVID-19 pneumonia. Pulmonary rehabilitation therapy has demonstrated benefits in improving mental health, but no validated combined programs that include mental health have been proposed.ObjectiveThis article presents the design of a trial that aimed to assess whether the participation in a combined rehabilitation program that includes home-based respiratory physiotherapy and telephone-based psychological support is associated with a greater improvement of pulmonary and mental health outcomes 7-12 weeks after COVID-19 hospitalization discharge compared with posthospital usual care provided by a public Peruvian hospital.MethodsWAYRA (the word for air in the Quechua language) was an open-label, unblinded, two-arm randomized controlled trial. We recruited 108 participants aged 18-75 years who were discharged from the hospital after COVID-19 pneumonia that required >6 liters/minute of supplemental oxygen during treatment. Participants were randomly assigned at a 1:1 ratio to receive the combined rehabilitation program or usual posthospital care provided by a public Peruvian hospital. The intervention consisted of 12 at-home respiratory rehabilitation sessions and 6 telephone-based psychological sessions. The primary outcome was the 6-minute walk distance. Secondary outcomes included lung function, mental health status (depression, anxiety, and trauma), and quality of life. Outcomes were assessed at baseline (before randomization) and at 7 and 12 weeks after hospital discharge to assess the difference between arms.ResultsThis study was funded by the Peruvian National Council of Science Technology and Technology Innovation in July 2020. Ethics approval was obtained on September 2, 2020. Recruitment and data collection occurred between October 2020 and June 2021. Results are expected to be published by the end of 2022.ConclusionsWAYRA was the first randomized controlled trial evaluating combined pulmonary-mental health rehabilitation for hospitalized COVID-19 survivors in resource-limited settings, potentially providing a foundation for the cost-effective scale-up of similar multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04649736; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04649736International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR1-10.2196/36001

An Approach to the Anthropology of Clothing: The case of the Chopcca Nation

This article aims to propose some preliminary ideas about the origin of the Chopcca people, from the Huancavelica region. This research used the ethnographic method, due to its purpose was exploratory, with a descriptive design. To collect the information, an observation sheet, a bibliographic review sheet and an interview form were used. The results obtained were processed and translated from the Quechua language into Spanish for a better understanding, in the same way, they showed that the origin of the “Chopcca Nation” could go back to the eighteenth century of our era and have a syncretic nuance which would evoke a fusion between European fashion and its adaptation to the Andean scenario, a conclusion that we reach thanks to an anthropological perspective of clothing, which, until now, has not been studied. Finally, we point out that this initial approach will allow to generate a new methodological approach to approach the history of this “nation” from another angle.

Es un mal castellano cuando decimos ‘su’: Language instruction, raciolinguistic ideologies and study abroad in Peru

This article explores how two Quechua language teachers negotiated and reproduced raciolinguistic ideologies in the classroom during a Spanish immersion study abroad program that focused on indigenous communities in Peru. Specifically, it examines the ways that they conveyed the sociolinguistic appropriateness of racialized “double-possessive” constructions from the local variety of Spanish to a cohort of U.S. undergraduate students in Cuzco. An analysis of ethnographic data reveals that both instructors drew learners’ attention to these constructions, depicted them as signs of an incompetent Quechua-speaking identity, and affirmed the normative appropriateness of racially-unmarked sociolinguistic variants within the host society. These findings suggest that racialized language attitudes can underlie the ways that learners are taught appropriate target language practices during study abroad. This study illustrates how language instructors and study abroad programs can foster racialized ideologies of language that students may internalize as part of their development of sociolinguistic competence.

Exploring the Role of Ecolinguistics in the Highlands of Peru: A study on the relationship between the Quechua language and local agrobiodiversity

Exploring the Role of Ecolinguistics in the Highlands of Peru: A study on the relationship between the Quechua language and local agrobiodiversity

Learning and understanding Quechua to reduce linguistic distance in oral care in Latin America: A narrative review

Aim: It has been proven that the linguistic differences between patients and health professionals make access to health care difficult in Latin American countries with a Quechua-speaking population. Therefore, this review focusses on the importance of learning the Quechua language as a useful tool for increasing health access. Materials and Methods: Electronic databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed were searched from January 2010 until December 2020 using the Quechua terms for rural population, language barriers, health, and services. Results: This narrative review is based on the importance of learning the Quechua language to reduce the linguistic barrier in medical–dental care and was classified as: (1) Quechua and access to health, (2) the importance of learning Quechua in dental clinical practice, (3) teaching Quechua in universities, and finally, (4) a vocabulary in Quechua is proposed for its application in dental practice. Conclusion: Knowledge of the Quechua language is key to improving medical and dental care in Andean countries; therefore, training in this language should start from undergraduate studies.