Aymara

Aymara refers to an indigenous people of the central Andes and to the language they speak. The Aymara people live mainly in the Andean Altiplano, with large communities in Bolivia, Peru, and northern Chile; smaller populations are found in Argentina and other countries through diaspora. Aymara is one of the region’s major indigenous languages and remains central to local culture, identity, and daily life.

The Aymaran language family includes Aymara and related varieties such as Jaqaru, and it is part of the wider Andean linguistic area. Aymara is primarily agglutinative, using suffixes to encode person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and evidentiality. Its verb forms can carry complex information about arguments and events, and its phonology includes uvular consonants and ejective stops. It is typically written in a Latin-based alphabet.

Historically, Aymara predates the Inca and survived Spanish colonization through communities that preserved the language and culture. In modern states, Aymara has institutional support: in Bolivia it is an official language alongside Spanish and other languages; in Peru it is officially recognized in areas where it is spoken, and in Chile it has regional recognition as a minority language. Ongoing revitalization and education programs seek to sustain the language for future generations.