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Distribution of Jaqaru (orange)

Jaqaru/Kawki is a language that belongs to the Aymaran family of languages (also known as Jaqi or Aru), to which Altiplano Aymara also belongs. It is spoken in the districts of Tupe and Catahuasi in the province of Yauyos, within the Peruvian department of Lima.

Jaqaru [= jaqi aru] means "people's speech"; Kawki (oddly) means "where?". The speakers of Jaqaru/Kawki tend to refer to their own language indiscriminately with either term, though by convention linguists have used them to distinguish the slightly different speech of two communities:

• Jaqaru is spoken in Tupe and surrounding villages (Aisa and Colca), and has at most some 3,000 native speakers, nearly all of them Spanish bilinguals and many of whom have now migrated to Lima.

• Kawki is spoken in the nearby communities of Cachuy, Canchán, Caipán and Chavín, by a very small number of mostly elderly individuals (9 surviving in early 2005) and is a dying language.

It was originally proposed by Dr Martha Hardman that Jaqaru and Kawki should be classified as separate languages quite distinct from each other, but other more recent research suggests that this is an exaggeration and classifies them as two very closely related varieties of the same mutually intelligible 'Jaqaru/Kawki' language. See the external links below for a comparison of vocabulary and pronunciations in the two varieties.

Jaqaru/Kawki is little documented: the main works available are Martha Hardman's grammar, Neli Belleza's dictionary, and a small amount of educational material.

Jaqaru/Kawki is related to the language normally known as 'Aymara', as spoken far to the south around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northern Bolivia. Terminology for the wider language family that brings these two branches together is not yet well established. Dr Hardman has proposed the name 'Jaqi', while other widely respected Peruvian linguists have proposed alternative names for the same language family. Alfredo Torero uses the term 'Aru' ('speech'); Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino, meanwhile, has proposed that the term 'Aymara' should be used for the whole family, distinguished into two branches, Southern (or Altiplano) Aymara and Central Aymara (i.e. Jaqaru and Kawki). Each of these three proposals has its followers in Andean linguistics. In English usage, some linguists use the term Aymaran for the family, reserving 'Aymara' for the Altiplano branch.

Its ISO 639-3 code is jqr.

• Aymara language
• Aymaran
• Quechua language

• The Sounds of the Andean Languages listen online to pronunciations of Jaqaru and Kawki words, see photos of speakers and their home region, learn about the origins of Jaqaru and its relationship to the Aymara language.
• Ethnologue report for Jaqaru
• Jaqmashi Association a small NGO set up to support the Jaqaru people, culture and language.

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