Beginning fall ’07, Quechua to fulfill IU undergraduate language requirement

IU will soon be offering a new language to fulfill undergraduate requirements. Professor Francisco Tandioy, a native speaker, will teach Quechua, the second most-spoken language in South America. \nBeginning Fall ’07, Tandioy will teach Quechua for four semesters. At that time, these classes will be offered in a quantity large enough to fulfill foreign language requirements, and will also fulfill the language part of the international studies major. \nTandioy said Quechua is in high demand, but is only taught at a handful of American universities, including University of California, Los Angeles, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, Florida State University and IU. \nTandioy said he was offered a job at the University of Texas but turned it down because IU is the only college to offer Quechua year-round.\nTandioy, creator of the first Quechua-Spanish dictionary, said that Quechua is spoken by more than 10 million people in South and Central America. The language is most popular in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru and is currently in strong competition with Spanish in many areas, Tandioy said.\nTandioy’s concern for the health of his native language motivated him to begin working on Quechuan grammar. One of his concerns is that, until recently, Quechua was only spoken, and was therefore difficult to teach to someone who didn’t grow up learning it.\nQuechua is losing ground to Spanish in more developed areas and larger cities in Columbia, Tandioy said. However, it is spreading in more remote locations at the same time, so it will remain an important language for quite a while, he said. He hopes by polishing the written form of Quechua, he will ensure its survival in the future.\nTandioy grew up in Santiago, Columbia and is working on his doctorate in folklore, so he incorporates a great amount of culture into his classes. \n“He not only teaches the language but he really incorporates the culture,” said Eduardo Wolf, IU graduate student. Wolf is an ethnomusicology student who studies areas like the Sibundoy Valley in Columbia where Quechua is the prevalent language of natives.\nTandioy said that Quechua is currently taught to children by elders, but the decreasing number of elders concerns him. Tandioy hopes to work with children and university students, in Bloomington and in Colombia, to spread knowledge of Quechua.\nTandioy also hopes to build a stronger identity for Quechua.\n“People don’t really think Quechua when they think of South America,” Wolf said. “It has many possible uses for me. It helps me to have familiarity with the spoken language.”\nWolf is working with Tandioy to make a Quechua textbook.\n“The neat thing about his dialect is it falls in between the two extremes of Quechua,” Wolf said. “It’s a good dialect to learn to help you wherever you go, I think it’s a great opportunity for people who are interested in South America,” Wolf said.\nQuechua classes are offered in the College of Arts and Sciences. More information on Quechua can be found at the \n“Why Quechua?” page, on the COAS Foreign Language Opportunities Web site.