# Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua

The High Academy of the Quechua Language (Spanish: Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua; Quechua: Qheswa Simi Hamut'ana Kuraq Suntur/Qhichwa Simi Hamut'ana Kuraq Suntur), or AMLQ, is a Peruvian organization whose purpose is stated as the teaching, promotion, and dissemination of the Quechua language.
Although the institution has subsidiary associations in different regions of Peru and in several cities around the world, it mainly operates in the department of Cuzco. Its publications and Quechua as a second language courses also specialize in the Cuzco dialect. The institution is controversial because of its particularist linguistic ideologies and its defense of a 5-vowel alphabet. There is no consensus about whether the organization is a private or a public institution.

## History

According to Alan Durston, on November 8, 1953, Faustino Espinoza Navarro[es] ("El Inca"), working with other Quechua-speaking artists Santiago Astete Chocano, Father Jorge A. Lira and Andrés Alencastre Gutiérrez (Killku Warak'a), founded the Academia de la Lengua Quechua (Sp: 'Academy of the Quechua Language'). Gutiérrez became its first president. Its first statutes were approved in January 1954. On December 10, 1958, the government of Manuel Prado Ugarteche enacted Law 13059, which formally recognized the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language. The institution was established with its headquarters in the city of Cuzco.
The academy argued that Qhapaq Simi (Lit. 'the great language'), translated as Cusco Quechua, "Imperial Quechua", or "Inka Quechua", was the purest form of Quechua and should be taught in Quechua language schools; they rejected the Runa Simi that was spoken in everyday life. This variety was advocated to be taught in specialized schools known as Yachay Wasi. On December 10, 1958, the government of Manuel Prado Ugarteche officially recognized the organization, under the name Academia Peruana de la Lengua Quechua (Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language).
On May 27, 1975, the government of Juan Velasco Alvarado made Quechua an official language of Peru. The law establishing its official status prescribed a phonological alphabet that retained Spanish five-vowel characters. In 1983, professional Quechua and Aymara experts from all over Peru decided to implement an orthography with just three vowels, under phonemic considerations: a for /a/, i for /ɪ/, and u for /ʊ/. This decision was controversial, with factions of linguists, teachers, and activists both supporting it and opposing it. The academy did not approve of the shift, and continues to use the five-vowel system. Because of this, it writes Qosqo and not Qusqu for "Cusco".

## Operation Since 1990
### Organization and Relationship with the Peruvian State

In 1990, Law Number 25260 established a "high" (mayor) Quechua language academy in Cusco, as opposed to many regional Quechua Academies. Although the law did not mention the name "High Academy of the Quecha Language", the law marked the beginning of the AMLQ's transition to its modern form, culminating in the creation of its guiding statutes in 2009. The commission to establish the statutes was not created until 2009, although it had been recognized as a decentralized organization in 2007.
The Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua operates independently of the Peruvian State, though it considers itself an integral part of it. This affiliation is declared on its official website.
   The Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, is a Decentralized Public Organization of the Education Sector, with legal status of internal public law; with administrative, academic, economic and regulatory autonomy. It is headquartered in the city of Cusco (QOSQO). It was founded as the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language by Law No. 13059 of November 8, 1953 and promoted to the rank of ACADEMIA MAYOR DE LA LENGUA QUECHUA by Law No. 25260 of June 19, 1990.
Amid the foundation of several departmental Quechua Academies during the 1980s, Law No. 25260, enacted on June 6, 1990, mandated the establishment of a "Major" Quechua Academy in Cusco. This new institution was intended to be composed of representatives from all Quechua academies across the country, assuming a leadership role over them. However, the provisions of this law were never regulated or implemented. Consequently, other regional Quechua academies, such as those in Cajamarca and Ancash, have continued to operate independently of the academy in Cusco. In 2007, a regulatory amendment reclassified the legal status of the entity created by the 1990 law from a "decentralized public institution of the Education Sector" to a "decentralized public agency" (OPD).
There is ongoing debate regarding whether the currently operating Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) is the legal entity under public law as established by the regulations. It was not until 2009 that the Ministry of Education formed a commission tasked with defining the statutes for the entity created by the 1990 law. The preamble of the ministerial resolution on this issue articulates what remains the official legal stance of the State regarding the AMLQ.
   [...] that the Major Academy of the Quechua Language was never implemented despite the fact that 19 years have passed since the Law of its creation and that the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language has expired, for which reason it is not possible to comply with the requirement established in the final part of Article 7 of the aforementioned Law No. 25260, regarding the majority representation of the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language in the formation of the Commission that will prepare the Statute of the Major Academy of the Quechua Language. [...] That, in this sense, it is necessary to designate the members of the Commission that will elaborate the Statute of the Major Academy of the Quechua Language; [...].
In November 2009, Juan Incaroca, the then president of the Academy, reported that a group of former directors forcibly entered the Academy's premises by breaking the locks and stole a significant amount of administrative documents.
In 2010, four members of the Academy initiated a hunger strike lasting two weeks as a protest against the lack of budget and the absence of regulation of their statutes, which they also claimed were outdated. The strike concluded with the Ministry of Education promising to allocate a budget for the Academy. However, these efforts ultimately did not materialize.
In 2016, an arbitration commission of Indecopi determined that the existing Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) was not the public entity as defined by current regulations.
   From the aforementioned information, it can be noticed that the institution that uses the name of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, does not have a statute approved by the Ministry of Culture; since it only has an internal statute where the designation as president of the board of directors of the accused is stated, as observed in the inspection report of May 14, 2015. Likewise, it is noted that the law of creation of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua is not in accordance with the current regulations in force.
   It follows that said institution de facto develops activities without having authorization from the Ministry of Culture; as well as it lacks existence, due to the fact that it does not have legal status in force, therefore, the Commission agrees to specify that the accused insofar as he directs said establishment and uses the denomination of Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, through two signs, with the purpose of attracting users, becomes a beneficiary of the publicity disseminated. Consequently, the accused has the quality of advertiser, with responsibility for the alleged infringement.
During the 2018-2019 annual session, the Committee on Culture and Cultural Heritage of the Peruvian Congress reviewed a bill that proposed, among other measures, the "institutionalization of the Academy of the Quechua Language." Ultimately, the bill was not approved.
In practice, the Academy has been managed as a private association. In 2023, during the celebrations marking its "70th anniversary", the then-president Fernando Hermoza stated that the institution is self-financed, clarifying that it does not receive any budget from the Peruvian State. Concurrently, during the same series of events, the foundation stone for the construction of its new premises was laid in the city.
Tim Marr has characterized the management and functioning of the AMLQ as occurring "neither with the State nor with the social bases." Although the institution's official portal includes a section about it, its current Statute is not publicly available. Additionally, the list of "full members" is not public, though it is known that new members are elected by the current academy members, who are predominantly professionals from Cusco. As of December 2023, the board of directors included Fernando Hermoza, David Quispe Orosco, Miguel Sánchez Andia, Julia Qquenaya Apaza, and Ronal Cjuyro Mescco.

### Ideology and Linguistic Policies

The institution's mission is to preserve the "purity" of the Quechua language, promote the development of Quechua literature, and encourage linguistic research. Its documents and events often use various honorific terms in both Quechua and Spanish to refer to Cuzco Quechua, such as "qhapaq simi", "pure Quechua", "classical Quechua", "imperial Quechua", "legitimate Quechua", "Runas Quechua", as well as "Inka runasimi", "Inka rimay", "imperial language", "authentic national language", "language of the Andean gods", "mother tongue", "qhapaq runasimi", "universal language", and "misk'i simi".
Members of the AMLQ maintain views on the origins and spread of the Quechua language that are considered outdated by specialists, given dialectological and historical evidence. For example, in 2020, then-president Juana Rodríguez Torres claimed that Cuzco Quechua was the variety spread northward by the Inca Pachacútec, who, according to her, was primarily responsible for the Quechuization of the Andean region. David Samanez Flórez, another member of the Academy, has continued to assert that Quechua originated in the Cuzco area, where he believes it has been present since the preceramic period—an idea refuted by specialists since the 1960s.
Samanez also promotes a classification of Quechua languages that contradicts accepted linguistic models, claiming the primary division is between the Cuzco-Bolivian variety and a branch that includes all other Quechua languages. Until the 1980s, the Academy's president at the time maintained that all other Quechua dialects "derived" from the Cuzco dialect. Additionally, it has been reported that AMLQ members perpetuate biases that regard other Quechua varieties as "degenerate" or "coarser".
   The Qheswa Simi of Qosqo is the mother language [sic], which is why the headquarters of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua en America is located in that city.
   The qheswa simi or runa simi [...]. This language is metropolitan. Its birth and flourishing took place in Qosqo; that is why we say Imperial Quechua. It is the mother tongue [sic] or general language from which the dialectal and subdialectal Quechua languages have come, such as Ancash-Huaylas, Ayacucho-Chanca, Cajamarca-Cañaris, Collao, Huanca-Junín, San Martín, etc., as well as those of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil. At the present time it is spoken just as it was spoken, with sweetness and integration, with slight modifications, so natural and necessary in diachronic linguistics; but its greater purity and diction are preserved. It is one of the most expressive and accurate in the world; it is the heritage of a culture not surpassed by any other.
The Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) continues to use the 1976 version of the official Peruvian Quechua alphabet, which includes five vowels. As a result, it writes Qosqo instead of Qusqu for "Cusco". According to the AMLQ, Presidential Resolution No. 001 of October 12, 1990, "ratifies the 1975 Basic Alphabet of Imperial Quechua," which consists of 31 graphemes: five vowels and 26 consonants for the Qosqo-Puno region.
While the Academy previously published several magazines, including Inka Rimay, its main publication today is the dictionary Simi Taqe, first published in 1995 and reissued several times. In addition to offering Quechua as a second language courses to the public, the AMLQ regularly organizes free short training sessions for local professionals on Quechua literacy.
Members of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) frequently refer disparagingly to language policymakers within the Ministries of Education and Culture, as well as to academics specializing in the Andean region. Andean language expert Paul Heggarty summarized the AMLQ's relationship with linguists a few years ago, stating:
   Many people who work with Quechua end up seeing their "we speak real and pure Inka [sic] Quechua" attitude as actually harming in many ways the resurgence of Quechua rather than helping it. [The result of all this is that most professional linguists working on Quechua have a rather dim, if not hopeless, view of the Academy, and not surprisingly their relations with linguists are generally poor. The Academy has a BIG problem with linguistics. [...] While it makes little sense to approach the Academy to study Quechua linguistics, I repeat what I said above. If you want to find an interesting group of professionals who speak clear and careful Quechua, this is a place to visit. Stay away from linguistics and its members are generally friendly, hospitable and generous, and I do recommend getting to know some of them. [...] Academia desperately needs to gain some respect. For better or worse, it has the name and could be very useful in helping the status of Quechua, but at the moment it is completely overlooked by professional linguists, and the work that [the AMLQ] does do is often counterproductive because it is so linguistically uninformed.

### Quechua World Congresses

The Third World Congress of Quechua, Yuyayyaku Wawakuna, was held in Salta in October 2004. Key conclusions included tasks for the Academy and its affiliates, such as promoting "the original phonetics and phonology" of Quechua plant names, animal names, personal names, and place names, and coordinating efforts with political and tourism authorities. Recommendations also included encouraging affiliates to distribute language-related publications so that the institution could archive all works as part of its heritage. Additionally, the Congress advocated for the Academy to adopt an organizational structure reflecting Andean cultural principles, rather than models used by foreign academies, to establish its own unique structure.
In November 2010, the VI World Congress of Quechua, titled Pachakutip K'anchaynin ("New times of prosperity and change are shining on us"), was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

### Impact on local and regional legislation

The AMLQ has influenced various local and regional regulations, often receiving support from Cuzco authorities who viewed its pentavocal system as a regionalist stance. Consequently, the 1991 law establishing the Inka Region made the AMLQ’s Quechua alphabet official. Similarly, its widely criticized official dictionary was sponsored by the Provincial Municipality in 1995 and by the Regional Government in 2005.
On November 4, 2003, the Regional Council of Cusco enacted Regional Ordinance No. 011-2003-CRC/GRC, based on the Organic Law of Regional Governments No. 27867, its amendment Law No. 27902, and the Internal Regulation of Organization and Functions of the Regional Council of Cusco. This ordinance declares November 8 of each year as the "Day of the Quechua Language" or "Runasimi Inca" in the department of Cusco, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, which was established on November 8, 1953.
Furthermore, the ordinance mandates the compulsory teaching and learning of the Quechua language at all levels of initial, primary, secondary, and non-university higher education, especially in predominantly Quechua-speaking areas of the Cusco department. It also assigns the regulation of the Regional Ordinance to the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua.
In 2016, the Regional Government of Cusco issued an ordinance declaring the Quechua language as a "complete and pentavocal" language and established its compulsory teaching in the region. Although the ordinance does not mention the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ), it reflects the institution's influence on regional language policies.
   Article One. RECOGNIZE for all purposes, the Quechua Language or Runa Simi as a complete [sic] and pentavocal language, by the articulatory nature of its sounds [sic], according to the recitals and the academic and historical support of the Linguistic Report of the Academic Department of Linguistics of the Faculty of Social Communication and Languages of the National University San Antonio Abad del Cusco, the same that is adopted for the purposes and objectives of this Regional Ordinance and in observance of the provisions of the rules and laws in force on the matter. Article Two.- TO PROVIDE that the use, oral, written management and compulsory teaching of the Quechua Language variety Qosqo - Qollao pentavocal in all levels and educational modalities (initial, primary, secondary, higher university and non-university) of the Department of Cusco, according to the linguistic cultural identity that corresponds to the Andean and Amazonian inhabitants of the Department of Cusco, using it indistinctly with other languages such as Spanish, be incorporated into the regional educational curriculum in a mandatory manner.
One of the objectives of this regulation was to establish that intercultural bilingual education in the region would use the AMLQ orthography. The ordinance cited a technical report from the Department of Linguistics at the National University San Antonio Abad of Cusco as support. However, educational authorities were unsuccessful in obtaining this report from the regional government. In 2019, after requesting another technical-linguistic report from the same university—which was provided by its Department of Linguistics on November 8, 2021—the educational authorities decided not to implement the pentavocalism mandated by the ordinance.

## Institutional activities

The mission of the institution is, in theory, to ensure the so-called 'purity' of the Quechua language and to stimulate the development of literature in this language and linguistic study. In practice, their main activity is offering Quechua as a second language and organizing cultural events about Andean culture. As such, AMLQ is one of the major cultural organizations within Cuzco city civil society. They also organize symposia called 'Quechua World Congresses' with participants coming from different departments and countries.

## Language Ideologies and Policies

AMLQ has emerged as the main diffusor and enforcer of a series of linguistic ideologies and policies. Within the first group, there are several ideas about the special characteristics of Cuzco Quechua vis-à-vis other Quechua varieties as well as other languages. AMLQ members refer to the Cuzco variety by means of a series of glossonyms: Inka Rimay (Qu: 'language of the Inca'), Quechua Inka/ Runasimi Inka (Sp: 'Inca Quechua'), Quechua Imperial (Sp: 'Imperial Quechua'), Qhapaq simi (Qu: 'the great language'), Qhapaq Runasimi (Qu: 'the great Quechua'), Qosqo simi (Qu: 'language of Cuzco') or Misk’i Simi (Qu: 'the sweet language').
They have reinforced old ideas about Quechua origins and expansion, now considered disproved by linguistic and historical evidence. For example, chairwoman Juana Rodríguez Torres affirms that it was the Cuzco variety that was diffused northward by the Inca Pachacutec and who was the main responsible for its diffussion within the Andean world. David Samanez Florez from the AMLQ to this day tries to demonstrate the cusqueño origins of the Quechua language even though, according to investigations by Parker (1963) and Torero (1964), the Quechua languages originated in the Central Sierra of Peru.
On top of that, AMLQ members often diffuse hierarchical and discriminatory judgements that consider the Cuzco Quechua as "better" or "more evolved" than other Quechuas. Such ideas have roots in Inca Garcilaso's conception of Cuzco as the imperial capital and Cuzco Quechua as courtier tongue. Researcher Serafín Coronel-Molina quotes Spanish interviews with AMLQ members in which they state Cuzco Quechua pretended superiority:
   The jungle languages are dialects, they are not languages. [. . .] Quechua does not have dialects. Being a language, it doesn’t have a dialect. Of course now there are different forms of conversing according to regions, the coast, the highlands, even in the north of the country or other countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. That does not mean that they are dialects, they are ways of conversing, not uniform but rather in different ways, right? For me, there are no dialects of the Quechua language.(F. Requena) The best variety of Quechua, people from Ayacucho will say is Ayacucho Quechua, our brothers in Bolivia will say Bolivian Quechua, our brothers from Santiago del Estero in northern Argentina will say Argentine Quechua. We cuzqueños also have heart and we have to say Cuzco Quechua. But opposing those realities, the most evolved, most scientific Quechua that does not have exceptions in its writing is Inca Quechua. The Inca Quechua that has been spread from Cuzco to the majority of the communities of Tawantinsuyu.(E. Roque)
Ideas singularizing Quechua, or Cuzco Quechua, in relation to other world languages include a topic of Quechua as "sweet" and as better-suited for human reasoning (so that they call it lengua universal, Sp. 'universal language'):
   To speak of Quechua is to speak of a scientific language, an academic language, a technical language. To speak of Quechua is not only a medium of communication, in Quechua itself is its technology, its science, its philosophy, its mathematics, a whole set of human knowledge. The person who knows Quechua and wants to write or discover things about the past, truly with Quechua he will contrast his different hypotheses with his different variables to arrive at scientific law. [...] Consequently, the Quechua language is not only sweet, but it also allows all human sentiments to be spoken with unique feeling. In general, that would be the importance of the Quechua language, that it is much more profound than the Spanish understanding, than the English understanding, than the German understanding, than the Japanese understanding. Incredibly, philosophy, technology, science, linguistics, semantics are not dissociated [in Quechua]. Engineering is there, medicine is there, astronomy is there, astrology, philosophy is there, everything is there.(E. Mamani) We cuzqueños are universal. If you know Quechua, you learn to speak another language better than a native speaker of that language (P. Barriga)
Finally, the organization has remained the major opponent to the official phoneme-oriented 3-vowels alphabet, so that they use in texts and second language courses the pre-existing 5-vowel one. According to the AMLQ, Presidential Resolution No. 001 from the 12th of October in 1990 "ratifies the Basic Imperial Quechua Alphabet of 1975, composed of 31 graphemes: five vowels and 26 consonants from Qosqo Puno." Though both alphabets are pretty functional for the Cuzco variety, the debate has become ideologically tainted. AMLQ defends Cuzco Quechua is "essentially" pentavocálico (Sp: '5-voweled'). In that context, many AMLQ members and alumni have equated writing with three vowel letters as using a non-Cuzco variety of Quechua (usually labeled as "Chanka" or "ayacuchano").

## Criticism

* The AMLQ is often criticized for its tendency towards linguistic purism. The Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) has been criticized for allegedly diminishing the diversity of Quechua languages and attempting to promote the contemporary Quechua of Cusco—referred to by the AMLQ as "Inka Qheswa" or "Imperial Quechua"—as the official standard for all Quechua varieties. Critics argue that this approach overlooks the distinct dialectal features present in other Quechua-speaking regions.
The AMLQ's official website presents its dictionary of Cusco Quechua as the "official dictionary of the Quechua language." The organization has also opposed the use of the macro-dialectal category "Southern Quechua" in Peruvian state policies, such as in the development of intercultural bilingual education materials.
Several specialists have suggested that the AMLQ's policies and discourse aim to elevate the Quechua sociolect of urban bilingual mestizos in Cusco—often referred to by the glotonym "Qhapaq Simi"—while relegating rural Cusco Quechua to a secondary status.
* In 2006, a group of people linked to the institution vandalized a Wikipedia page about Southern Quechua, insulting its editors and defacing its title page.
* In 2010, four workers of the institution began a hunger strike, claiming the statutes were outdated and the budget was too low. While the budget was initially granted, the Ministry of Education never followed through due to the AMLQ's own issues within self-regulation.
* According to Godenzzi, the intent of the academy is to create a "norm" among the languages. According to Tim Marr, the extensive setbacks over time have been result of Andean fascism.
* Several Quechua scholars have highlighted the multiple inconsistencies and errors within the AMLQ, the supposedly official Quechua dictionary. There have been noted orthographic and methodological inconstencies, as well as etymological mistakes. However, main problems refer to its pretension of pan-Quechua value, while information about non-Cuzco Quechua varieties is poor and ancillary, and to the systematic erasure of usual Quechua words of Spanish origin as a result of linguistic purism.<
   The DAMLQ (1995) [AMLQ Dictionary] is neither a serious work nor a reference tool. [...] judging by its shortcomings, the work does not contribute to the achievement of the autonomy of the language learner, so it is not a thinking tool for encoding or decoding.
   Finally, if the DAMLQ (1995) is a kind of academic material, encyclopedic and tourism manual; then it is a hybrid and flawed lexicographic work. Therefore, it does not have sufficient normative solvency as a language dictionary to legitimize itself as a standardizing reference.
* Members of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua (AMLQ) have advocated for the use of an alphabet featuring five vowel letters. They argue that Cusco Quechua, or all Quechua dialects, possess five vowel phonemes: /i, e, a, o, u/. This perspective is exemplified in the Simi Taqe dictionary published by the AMLQ.
However, these phonological arguments have been subject to significant criticism from linguists and specialists. Critics describe the AMLQ's position as lacking technical rigor, not aligning with established phonological theory, and question the intellectual honesty of the arguments presented.
* In 2006, the Quechua Wikipedia experienced vandalism that involved defacing the main page and directing insults at editors. As a result, the main page became one of the few in endangered language Wikipedias that required protection.