Encyclopedia of the Incas

According to the tradition recorded by the Spaniards, however, the original
speakers of the language were the historical ethnic group known as the
Quechuas, whose language the Incas may have learned during the conquests that
took place during imperial expansion.
The birthplace of the Quechua language is traditionally considered to be the
Cuzco valley, and it was believed to be the native language of the founders of the
Inca Empire. Documentary evidence from the sixteenth century, however, as
well as early onomastic (mainly place names) and linguistic material contributed
by researchers in the second half of the twentieth century, not only ruled out that
possibility, but also showed that the language probably originated outside Cuzco.
Quechua, therefore, could not have been the native language of the Incas, let
alone of their legendary ancestors. The hypothesis most widely accepted today is
that the language originated in the central Andes, along Peru’s central highlands
and coast, an area with great dialectal fragmentation.
Once Quechua is ruled out as the primordial language of the Incas, two
questions remain: when did the rulers of Cuzco learn Quechua, and what might
their ancestral tongue have been? Answers to those questions must be based on
an examination and rereading of Colonial sources from the sixteenth century,
some of which only came to light in the last few decades of the twentieth
century. It appears that the Incas may have learned the language from the
Quechuas, their first allies in the war against the Chancas, as described in oral
tradition recorded by the Spaniards and retold in the chronicle of Cristóbal de
Albornoz in 1581 (see Myths, Origin). The language that the Incas adopted
after their victory over the Chancas and in their wars of conquest toward the
northwest (the region later called Chinchaysuyu) would gradually replace the
form of Aymara that until then had been the principal language of the fledgling
empire. The best evidence of this is the hymn that the Inca Pachacuti composed
to commemorate his victory over the Soras, one of the first groups subjugated in
the conquests launched by the Inca ruler. The piece is written entirely in Aymara,
although the chronicler Juan de Betanzos apparently did not realize that when
he recorded it in 1551 as if it were a Quechua text.
The Aymara spoken by the Incas was a specific variety, different from
altiplano Aymara, which would later disappear as it was replaced by Quechua.
Even that form of Aymara was not the Incas’ original language, however, or at
most it might have been the language of the Incas of the mythical period.
Linguistic and philological evidence suggests that their legendary ancestors may
have spoken Puquina as their native language. Colonial sources indicate that