Encyclopedia of the Incas

instance, huaca (sacred place/object) may be spelled in different sources as
guaca or waka. In this work, we have chosen to use the spellings that readers
will most commonly encounter in the Colonial sources; these are primarily
Hispanicized spellings of Quechua and Aymara words, the two principal source
languages of Inca studies. Spellings of terms found herein may occasionally
differ from those found in some recently published sources, particularly those
that have followed recent efforts to standardize spellings using a newer, more
linguistically and phonologically grounded orthography. We believe, however,
that the reader should be able to move between the different orthographies
without too much effort or confusion. In addition, the index provides alternative
spellings for many of the terms that one may encounter in different sources.