THE QUICIIUA LANGUAGE. 131 



that the Pr3,krits, or dialects of modern India, do to the literaiy and 

 sacred Sanskrit. Thus the people of Quito spoke a dialect which 

 differed scarcely at all from that at the capital ; no greater difference 

 subsisting between them than subsists between the Queen's English 

 and the dialect of Yorkshire, if indeed there was so much. In the 

 northern and central parts of the sierra of Peru the Chinchay-Suyu 

 was spoken. The Yunca was the language of the Peruvian coast, 

 the Lama of the tribes near the great River Huallaga and the Cauqui 

 of the people of Tauyos in Central Peru. Round the shores of Lake 

 Titticcaca the Aymara language is still S[)oken, from the city of Puno 

 to the south of Bolivia. Aymara is certainly very different from 

 Quichua in pronunciation, but not more than Lowland Scotch from 

 English south of Tweed, the vocabulary being on the whole the same, 

 and the gi-ammatical construction is identical with that of Quichua. 

 Further south, in Tucuman, in the Argentine Republic, the Calchaqui, 

 a variety of Aymara, is spoken. With the exception of the Lama, 

 which is a branch of the great Tupi family of languages, all these 

 dialects, and a large number more, are from one common stock, and 

 Quichua is to be considered the elder sister and representative of the 

 group, even if we do not regard it as the parent of them all. Dui-ing 

 the period of Inca ascendancy, Quichiia superseded all the other 

 dialects as the language of the governing race ; it was the language 

 of a people far advanced in civilization ; it was assiduously cultivated 

 by learned men for several centuries ; and it may therefore be selected 

 as the most perfect of the extensive American group of langnao-es. 

 Hence its importance to the philologist. Through the rapid diminu- 

 tion of the aboriginal population, and the constantly increasing cor- 

 ruption of their ancient tongue, through the substitution of Spanish 

 for Quichua words, the introduction of Spanish idioms and the loss 

 of all purity of style, this language, once so flourishing, which was 

 used by a polished — and we might even say splendid court — and a 

 well-established Government, which was once spoken throughout a 

 vast empire, is fast disappeai^ing. Ere long, perhaps, it will entirely 

 fade away from the memory of living generations. With it will dis- 

 appear the richest form of the great American group of languages 



no small loss to the student of philology. With it will be lost all the 

 traditions which yet remain of the old glory of the Incas — all the 

 poems, elegies and love songs which stamp the character of a once 



