clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> And still this did not wipe out the entire population of the former Inca
> empire; they lived on as subjects of the Spanish crown, and still
> constitute part of the Argentinian, Bolivian, Chilenian, Colombian,
> Ecuadorian and Peruvian population, together with their old language,
> Quechua.

Aymara, the main language that predated the Incas, is still spoken by about 1/5
of Bolivian people.  It is the major language of La Paz, other than Spanish.
(Try to picture an American near-monoglot like me, trying to communicate with a
saleslady who speaks Aymara/Quechua, but no Spanish, via her granddaughter who
speaks Spanish, but no English.  BTW, 8-year-old kids there know the English
word for "dinero," and they know the exchange rate!)  Bolivia has 37 official
languages (according to Wikipedia; I was told 38 when I visited there), all
except one of which are indigenous languages.

(Our tour guide was a German expat, BTW.)

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