Simeon Floyd

The historical linguistics of the Quechuan languages: history and some new findings

This talk will present a general overview of the historical linguistics of the Quechuan languages, historically associated with the Inca Empire, and today spoken in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. After reviewing the major proposals for the internal historical development of the family, including both studies of lexical similarity and studies applying the comparative method, a few new findings from recent work based on both modern primary data and historical Spanish colonial documentation will be presented.