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Language code: qu

Technical information about ISO 639 language code qu

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Quechua language, designated by the qu code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

qu

Name

Official

Quechua

Native

Runa Simi

Family
Quechuan
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Central Quechua (Quechua I)Northern Quechua (Quechua II-A)Southern Quechua (Quechua II-B)Bolivian Quechua (Quechua II-C)
Related languages
AymaraJaqaruKawkiChipaya
Key facts
Agglutinative structure builds long words from stacked suffixesobligatory evidential markers show whether information is witnessed, hearsay, or inferredphoneme inventory has only three contrastive vowels /a i u/ that surface with many allophonesvocabulary contributed internationally known words like “condor,” “quinoa,” and “puma”served as the lingua franca of the Inca realm, spreading far beyond its original heartland.
Sample phrase

Rimaykullayki, allillanchu?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Quechua belongs to the Quechuan language family. It is an indigenous language of the Quechua people, primarily used in the Andes region of South America, especially in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It is written using the Latin script. It is estimated that there are more than 7 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

Peru

4.5M

Bolivia

2.5M

Ecuador

500K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Quechua speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

qu-BO – Quechua (Bolivia)

qu-EC – Quechua (Ecuador)

qu-PE – Quechua (Peru)

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