Aymara

Aymara, natively called Aymar aru, is the main language of the Aymaran family, spoken across the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca. The family's homeland probably lay on the southern Peruvian coast; Aymaran speakers took part in the Huari empire and spread onto the Altiplano after the fall of Tiwanaku.

At the Spanish conquest Aymara dominated much of the highlands south of Cusco, before losing ground to Quechua and Spanish. Once called the language of the Colla, it was already known as Aymara when Garci Díez de San Miguel inspected Chucuito in 1567.

The Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio printed its first grammar in 1603 and dictionary in 1612 at the Juli mission, fixing it in Latin script. In 1816 the declaration of independence of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata appeared in an Aymara version by Vicente Pazos Kanki, alongside Quechua and Spanish texts.