The Quechua alphabet ( qu, Achahala) is based on the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
. It is used to write the
Quechuan languages. The Quechua alphabet has been use in Peru since 1975, following the Officialization of Quechua by Decree Law in May 1975 that made Quechua co-equal with Spanish.
Current orthography
For native words
The number of letters employed in writing Quechua highly depends on the Quechua dialect. However, the following are the core letters generally used:
In Ecuador and Bolivia, however, J(j) is used instead of H(h) because and are used to express aspirated and ejective sounds:
In writing some dialects, the and variations are distinguished by using the letters and , respectively, resulting in the use of five vowel letters instead of three. In some dialects, vowel lengths are distinguished by doubling vowel letters to indicate that a vowel is long:
In yet other dialects, with additional sounds, additional letters are employed:
For loanwords
Quechua employs additional letters to write
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, mainly originating from
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
. In careful speech, the letters may represent a
Spanish sound, but generally the Spanish sound is replaced with a native sound.
For phonetic transcription
For phonetic transcription, four additional letters are used:
See also
*
Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua
The High Academy of the Quechua Language (Spanish: ''Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua''; Quechua: ''Qhichwa Simi Hamut'ana Kuraq Suntur'') or AMLQ is a Peruvian organization dedicated to the research, promotion, and dissemination of the Quech ...
References
{{Reflist
Latin alphabets
Quechuan languages