This week’s edition of Diverse Collections features a (mostly handwritten) glossary of Quechua, Spanish, and English languages from 1940. According to the Penn Language Center, “Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire and still spoken by approximately 8 million people throughout the Andes, is the most spoken indigenous language in the Americas. Quechua varieties are spoken in Colombia (where the language is called Inga), Ecuador (where it is called kichwa or runa shimi), Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina (where it is usually spelled Quechua and called, by its speakers, runa simi).”1
Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly how, when, or from who this glossary came to our repository.