Argonautica Polaris

Quechua Culture

Chapare boy at Consejo Yuqui.
Posted by Picasa

In "The clash of civilisations and the remaking of a new world order", a book by Samuel P. Huntington civilisations are defined as parts of the world which share a religion and a written language. The civilisations most commonly referred to as clashing are most often "The West" and "The East". According to Huntington also large parts of South America and Africa are not parts of any civilization at all, since they are classified as "primitive" and have neither a common religion nor literature. But what if the whole idea of clashing civilisations are too simplified a model and instead of civilisations we ought to study cultures? It would certainly be a much more pluralistic approach. Here is a guide to Latin American languages to start with.

"There are some 56 language families and 73 isolates (a language with no known relatives) in Latin America (Kaufman, 1994a&b). For comparison, there are only two language families in Europe - Indo-European and Finno-Ugric - and one isolate, Basque." (The quote is from the site, linked abowe.)


The headline-link is to a site with quechua vocabulaire, jokes, music, images. In short: Some glimpses of the quechua culture. And here is another which suggest quechua is actually a lingua franca, thought all over the world...almost!

posted by "Amira" @ 11:03 AM