Quechua alphabet

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

Current orthography

For native words

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

UppercaseAChHIKLLlMNÑPQSTUWY
lowercaseachhiklllmnñpqstuwy
IPAæɑtʃhɪɛklʎmnɲpqstʊɔwj

In Ecuador and Bolivia, however, J(j) is used instead of H(h) because ⟨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 writing some dialects, the [ɪ ɛ] and [ʊ ɔ] variations are distinguished by using the letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩, respectively, resulting in the use of five vowel letters instead of three. In some dialects, vowel lengths are distinguished by doubling vowel letters to indicate that a vowel is long:

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

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