The Inca Connection: A Quechua Word Game

Gather round and I’ll show you a magic trick. Watch my hands, but first look at Table 1 below. It is based on a 200-word Swadesh list for Southern Quechua and the Tower of Babel “Eurasiatic” etymologies:

Table 1

	Proto-Eurasiatic	Meaning	Quechua	Meaning
1	*ma, *ʔVnV	not	mana... chu ama... chu	not (negation) not (prohibition)
2	*ḳV	this	kay	this
3	*mV	what (interr.)	ma	what (interr.)
4	*mV[c]V	old	machu	old
5	*ʔVmV	mother	mama	mother
6	*ḳerV	bark (of a tree)	qara	bark (of a tree)
7	*gwVrV	bark, skin	qara	bark, skin
8	*ḲaĺV	skin	qara	skin
9	*ḲorV	worm	kuru	worm
10	*ḳurV	short	kuru	short
11	*ḳUlV	far, next	karu	far
12	*lVKV	thick, dense	raku	thick
13	*Ḳa[lH]ä	tongue, speak	qallu	tongue
14	*ṗVĺV	feather, tail	puru	feather
15	*ʕeḳu	water	yaku	water
16	*ḳuc`u	cut	kuchuy	cut
17	*[č]orwV	(a kind of) fish	challwa	fish
18	*bongä	thick, swell	punkiy	swell
19	*ṗuɣV	blow	phukuy	blow
20	*külV	cold	chiri	cold
21	*w[e]ṭV	year	wata	year
22	*ḳVlV	grass	qura	grass

There are only twenty-two matches because I got bored too soon, but it’s an easy game. One can even formulate some preliminary “regular correspondences” (supported by a few cognate pairs each!). For example, Eurasiatic liquids (laterals and rhotics) generally merge in Quechua, yielding /r/ (8, 11, 12, 14, 20, 22), but before certain consonants (laryngeals and semivowels) liquids are reflected as palatal /ʎ/, spelt ll (13, 17). Eurasiatic affricates are generally preserved as such, yielding Quechua ch /tʃ/ (4, 16, 17), but we also have one example of a velar stop palatalised and affricated before a front vowel (20) and possibly one more (1) if chu is related to PIE *kʷe (but I can’t say at this stage why the *e is reflected as /u/). Before the low vowel /a/ Eurasiatic dorsals become velar /q/ in Quechua (6, 7, 8, 13). There are sporadic exceptions (2, 11) and one occurrence of a uvular before /u/ (22), but come on, folks, you can’t expect me to solve all problems in one fell swoop with so little material.

No comment (Aaarrrrrgh!)

I think I have already demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the Quechua people are a lost Nostratic tribe. Note that the semantic matches are impeccable and the similarity of the words is quite obvious to any open-minded observer. Indeed, the matches are much better than many of those in the LWED. The quality of examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, in particular, is guaranteed by the fact that they represent statistically certified ultraconserved Eurasiatic vocabulary (Pagel et al. 2013). The famous items ‘mother’, ‘bark’, and ‘worm’ are among them. In many Eurasiatic languages the words for ‘bark’ and ‘skin’ are the same or look related (6, 7). This seems to be true of Quechua as well, but just in order to probe every possibility, I can offer an alternative etymology of qara ‘skin’ (8, from a different Eurasiatic root), in which case its homophony with qara ‘bark’ must be accidental. A nice match either way.

But there is more to Quechua than just its Eurasiatic affinities. It seems to be particularly close to Proto-Indo-European. Compare the Quechua numerals pichqa ‘5’ and suqta ‘6’ = PIE *penkʷe, *sweḱs, clearly a common Indo-Quechuan innovation not shared with any other Eurasiatic group. I can’t reveal too much at present, but mark my words: you’ll read about it in Nature one day – or Science, perhaps, or PNAS.

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