Quechua alphabet

The Quechua alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. It is used to write Quechua languages.

Current orthography

For native words

The number of letters employed in the Quechua alphabet highly depends on the Quechua dialect. However, in general, the following are the core letters used:

UppercaseAChHIKLLlMNÑPQSTUWY
lowercaseachhiklllmnñpqstuwy
IPAæɑtʃhɪɛklʎmnɲpqstʊɔwj

In Ecuador and Bolivia, though, J(j) is used instead of H(h), as ⟨h⟩ and ⟨ʼ⟩ are used to express affricate and ejective sounds:

UppercaseChhCh'KhK'PhP'QhQ'ShSh'ThT'
lowercasechhch'khk'php'qhq'shsh'tht'
IPAtʃʰtʃʼkʰkʼpʰpʼqʰqʼʃʂtʰtʼ

In some dialects, the [ɪ ɛ] and [ʊ ɔ] variations are distinguished with the use of ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩, respectively, resulting in the use of five vowel letters instead of three. In some dialects, the vowel lengths are distinguished by doubling the vowel letter to indicate it as a long vowel:

UppercaseAaIiUuEeOo
lowercaseaaiiuueeoo
IPAæːɑːɪːɛːʊːɔːɛːɔː

In yet other dialects, with additional sounds, additional letters are employed:

UppercaseTr'TsZ
lowercasetr'tsz
IPAtʂtsz

For loanwords

Quechua employs additional letters to write loanwords, mainly originating from Spanish. In careful speech, the letters may represent a Spanish sound, but generally are substituted with a native sound.

UppercaseBDØEFPhGIKwORRrTrUVWY
lowercasebdØefphgikworrrtruvwy
IPA/b//d//d//e̞/[ɛ][ɪ]/f//f//ɡ//i//ɪ//kw//o̞/[ɔ][ʊ]/d/~/ɾ//r//tɾ//u//ʊ//b/~/w//b//ɡ/

For phonetic transcription

For phonetic transcription, four additional letters are used:

UppercaseČĈŠŽ
lowercasečĉšž
IPAtʃtʂʃʒ

See also

External links

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