Aymara

Where it’s spoken

Aymara (Aymar aru) is spoken across the Andean Altiplano, mostly in Bolivia (where about 1.5 million speak it), southern Peru, and northern Chile. It is one of 37 official languages of Bolivia under the 2009 constitution. Significant Aymara-speaking communities live in La Paz, El Alto, and Puno. The language is part of the small Aymaran family, sometimes grouped with Quechuan as Quechumaran but the relationship is debated.

What it sounds like

Aymara has three vowels (a, i, u) with phonemic length and a rich stop system that contrasts plain, aspirated, and glottalized (ejective) series: p/pʰ/p’, t/tʰ/t’, k/kʰ/k’, q/qʰ/q’. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable. The language uses extensive suffixation to mark grammatical relations.

How it’s written

Aymara uses the Latin alphabet. Several orthographies have been used historically; the modern unified Aymara alphabet, codified in 1985, uses 26 letters including digraphs for ejectives (p’, t’, k’, q’, ch’, tx’).

History

Aymara was the language of the pre-Inca Tiwanaku civilization (c. 200–1000 CE) at the southern end of Lake Titicaca. The Inca conquest spread Quechua but Aymara survived in the Lake Titicaca region. Modern Bolivian political movements led by Aymara figures (Evo Morales) have elevated the language’s public profile.