World Language Map

Where is South Bolivian Quechua spoken?

South Bolivian Quechua (Qullasuyu qhichwa simi) is a Quechuan language, spoken in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The outlined area on the map shows where.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

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  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where South Bolivian Quechua is spoken

South Bolivian Quechua is spoken in 3 countries: Argentina, Bolivia and Chile.

Country
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile

On the map, South Bolivian Quechua is drawn as an area from Vuillermet 2012 (Bolivian Amazonia). The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18643875), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks South Bolivian Quechua.

How many people speak South Bolivian Quechua?

Wikidata gives about 1.6 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2004). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where South Bolivian Quechua sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies South Bolivian Quechua as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Quechuan
  2. Southern Quechua
  3. Bolivian-Argentinian Quechua
  4. South Bolivian-Argentinian Quechua
  5. South Bolivian Quechua

Related languages

Other languages in the South Bolivian-Argentinian Quechua group:

More about South Bolivian Quechua

Codes: ISO 639-3 quh, Glottolog sout2991. Glottolog macroarea: South America.

Questions about South Bolivian Quechua

Where is South Bolivian Quechua spoken?

South Bolivian Quechua is spoken in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. On the map it is shown as an area from Vuillermet 2012 (Bolivian Amazonia).

How many people speak South Bolivian Quechua?

Wikidata gives about 1.6 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2004). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is South Bolivian Quechua in?

Glottolog places South Bolivian Quechua in the Quechuan family, in the branch Southern Quechua, Bolivian-Argentinian Quechua and South Bolivian-Argentinian Quechua.

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