The theory that postulates that Aymara and Quechua share a common origin, that they spring from the same parent language is now losing validity. R. Cerron Palomino and M.J. Hardman among others point out that the fundamental error incurred in by supporters of Quechumara (Orr and Longacre), as is called this supposedly parent language, is that their arguments in support of this theory are based only, on the comparison between the Aymara spoken in the Andean plateau, and the variety of Bolivian-Cuzco Quechua, and not on the comparison and study of all languages that belong to these families. It would be reasonable to make the conjecture, that any theory put forth regarding the origin of these languages, must be the result of the in-depth and thorough study of both families of languages, such as could be the study of Quechua I (Huayhuash) and Quechua II (Huampuy); and of the study of all their sub-families scattered across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina; as well as the study of the Jaqi, also labelled the Aru or Aymara family, with its languages and dialects, namely: Plateau Aymara, Kawki and Jaqaru. This takes us to a hypothetical reconstruction of Proto-Quechua and Proto-Aymara, languages which seem far from sharing a common origin.

The Italian jesuit Ludovico Bertonio compiled the first grammatical and lexical study of the Aymara language towards the end of the 16th. century, while as a missionary in Juli (Chucuito, Puno). Bertonio conducted his study of Aymara using Latin as his point of reference. During the four centuries following Bertonio other studies of the Aymara language were carried out, which continued taking Indo-European grammatical models as frame of reference. The work of Ellen Ross in 1963, is considered to be the first study of the Aymara language that applies concepts of modern linguistics, and is shaken of the defects of previous studies. Following Ross, there appeared the team of linguists of the School of Florida, under the guidance of M.J. Hardman. The results of their studies are considered by all researchers of the Aymara language to rank amongst the most important up to date.

The alphabetical representation of the Aymara language has attracted over thirty different proposed systems, beginning with that of Bertonio. A large part of these systems however, were inadequate in their representation of the phonemic framework of the Aymara language. In the 60s Bolivian professor Juan de Dios Yapita, speaker of Aymara and a member of the School of Florida, put forward the alphabet which was to be the basis for what is our present Unified Aymara alphabet or 'alfabeto unico'. This alphabet has been officially recognized by the Bolivian government, by decree of the Supreme Court (DS-20227), May 9th., 1984, an also by the Peruvian government, by Ministerial Ruling (RM-1218), November 18th., 1985. In Chile this alphabet is recognized as 'Grafemario Aymara'. This is a phonemic alphabet consisting of twenty-six consonants and three vowels. We make use of this alphabet in all documents that belong to this website, with the exception of some isolated instances.

According to the traditional system of classification of languages, which divides them as inflecting, agglutinative and isolating languages, Aymara belongs to the agglutinative group, while within the modern classification which places languages within a continuum, ranging from analytical to synthetic languages, Aymara appears as synthetic, to the extent that it could be considered poly-synthetic, and the same could be said of Quechua. One other peculiarity shared by both Quechua and Aymara is the pattern of four grammatical persons, unlike Indo-European languages which have three persons. Aymara owes its agglutinative character to the inherent properties of its two basic morphological groups: roots, (nouns, verbs and adjectives) and suffixes. Verb roots and suffixes are morphological units devoid of lexical meaning, but combining these elements appropriately, we can express any range of ideas. Bolivian professor Ivan Guzman de Rojas believes that underlying the rules that govern this combination of roots and suffixes, there appear two independent structures: a logical and an algebraic structure. The logical structure is represented by the proposed 'estructura trivalente', put forth by J.Lukasiewicz during the first decades of the 20th. century. The algebraic structure is specifically the one labelled anillos de enteros modulo-3(Z3). It has been ascertained that Aymara has over two hundred suffixes, both, properly Aymara and borrowings. M.J. Hardman believes that the appropriate combination of roots and suffixes can give as much as 363.394.720 different verb-forms.

Publications in Aymara are scarce. In Bolivia, Peru and Chile, teaching of reading and writing is conducted in Spanish; what is more, considering that the teaching imparted in these states is not one of the best, we could hardly expect bilingual education Castilian/Aymara or Castilian/Quechua. There are however, some institutions and NGOs which work with great effort for the diffusion of written and oral Aymara language. Radio San Gabriel which belongs to the Bolivian archbishopric and is partly financed by Spanish sponsorship, stands out noticeably within this effort for the diffusion of the Aymara language. Their fifteen hour daily schedules are conducted only in Aymara and contain programs in literacy and for the dissemination of the Aymara culture. All this, besides the edition and publishing of texts on basic aspects of the Aymara language. Another of these centres and of more academic grounding, is the 'Instituto de la Lengua y Cultura Aymara' (ILCA), based in La Paz, headed by the renowned Aymara professor and linguist Juan de Dios Yapita. He has published papers of prominence on grammar, and the sociology of the Aymara community. Finally we must make mention of the 'Centro de Estudios Andinos Bartolome de las Casas', Cusco, which has large collections of publications, amongst them some dedicated to the Aymara language.

Basically there are three strands of theory which attempt to explain the geographical origin of Aymara; a) the Aymara language originated on the plateau that surrounds Lake Titicaca (Localist theory of the Plateau Aymara); b) it originated in the centre region of the Andes in today's Peru; c) to the north of today's Chile. Some of the most important accounts of the hypothetical localist stream of theory maintain that the origin of the Aymara language goes to the plateau round Lake Titicaca itself, together with Pukina, a language extinct by the beginning of the 20th. century, and the Uru/Chipaya, a language on the verge of extinction, spoken in reduced areas to the south of Bolivia. The Localist theory is connected to those other theories which maintain that in the Tiwanaku State, Aymara was spoken by farmers and agriculturers. While the Chuqilas were farmers, the Urus were the teachers and craftsmen of Lake Titicaca, and Pukina, the most prestigious language in the state was spoken by the elite of governors. The North American archaeologist Alan Kolata is the main exponent of this theory. The account of the debate on the linguistic, ethnic and historic origins of the builders of the City of Tiwanaku begins with Cieza de Leon, the first European to record his observations on the region, in the 16th. century. Cieza de Leon gathered accounts from the Aymara inhabitants of the time, who pointed out that Tiwanaku was a model city, and that its ruins were always a sacred place within the Inca State. In the 17th. century Bernabe Cobo observed and later published, that the Aymara name for Tiwanaku is 'Taypi Qala' (the stone at the centre). Later Tiwanaku was forgotten by scholars and chroniclers and possibly it was only looters that frequented the site. With the coming of the Republics the neglect reserved for Tiwanaku by the Bolivian government, to whom it belongs on grounds of its geographical position, is clamorously displayed on certain images dating to the 19th. century, on which the now famous 'Puerta del Sol' appears lying on its back, half buried and broken on its earthen bed.

Tiwanaku's enormous popularity is largely due to A. Posnansky, who during the first decades of the 20th. century, put forth the theory that Tiwanaku could be the cradle of all cultures in pre-columbian America. Posnansky however, believes that today's Aymara Indians cannot possibly be the descendants of the builders of Tiwanaku; an attitude full of preconceptions which nevertheless went to please Bolivian authorities, whose members were in the past, as they are today, the small white minority that rules this country. As a result of this, school texts make no consideration even as a small possibility, of the fact that the vast majority of Bolivian Amerindians are the proud descendants of the builders of Tiwanaku; the city that has later been restored although perhaps with too much ornament.

There is a debate as to whether Tiwanaku was either "restored" or "rebuilt". Kolata maintains that the main reason why the Tiwanaku State collapsed was climatic change. Possible droughts that would have lasted several years could have been the force that destroyed the state from the 'altiplano', the economy of which, as that of all Andean peoples of antiquity was based on agriculture. Kolata believes that the technology of the raised fields was created and skilfully mastered by this culture. Following Tiwanaku's decline, other Aymara societies appeared which were politically organized, being the most important of these, the Kingdom of Lupaqa and the Kingdom of Qulla. For some reason the Incas gave the Aymara speakers the denomination of Qullas, and all this territory together with the southernmost lands became the Qullasuyo. These names are all the more significant on account of Pedro Cieza de Leon, who identified the plateau of Collao with the plateau of Titicaca and who also gave the denomination Collas to all speakers of Aymara. (Chapter XCIX in "Cronica del Peru"). The way in which the conquest of Aymara territory by the Inca Empire must have happened is also under debate. Some claim that the Incas annexed the Aymaras to their Empire peaceful and respectfully and that Aymara culture was assimilated; an analogy to what the Greeks were to the Romans. Nonetheless others claim that there were bloody wars for the conquest of the territory and the Aymara States, and that there were quite a number of revolts during the period of Inca domination. Whatever the truth, for some reason, the Incas were never able to impose the Quechua language, at least not on the plateau of Lake Titicaca.

The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire starts when a hundred and fifty Spanish adventurers supposedly by invitation of Inca Atawalpa, snared him and took him hostage. Theocratic Inca society attributed divine powers to the head of state, and other leaders in the Empire were slow to understand the critical situation their monarch found himself in. This lack of awareness of the situation, is all that can possibly explain the reason why the powerful and large imperial army was not promptly called to arms as befitted the situation, as they were, on the verge of delivering Atawalpa from its captors. During an interval of several months, in between the capture and death of the Inca, the Spaniards came to understand the conflicts amongst the diversity of peoples under Inca domination, and this allowed them to forge alliances in amongst these nations, who regarded the Spaniards as their liberators. After killing the Inca the Spaniards, counting on the militar and logistic support of thousands of the natives who were rebellious to Inca domination, became practically invincible in the decisive moments of this war of conquest. Not many years later, the native allies came to regret their fatal mistake. It was too late however; the Empire had been destroyed and its people, including the allies, were brought down to living in sub-human conditions. During the time of the colony, the condition of the Aymaras and that of all the other natives was worse even than that of the African slaves; since the latter were at least attributed some value in money, while the Indians ('la indiada'), could be obtained for free. Millions of Aymaras and other indigenous people died, abused by the 'encomenderos', who acted with consent of Spain's political and ecclesiastical authorities. The slaughter reached the highest point at the mines of Potosi; and the wealth of silver coming from the mines was squandered, among other things, in the so-called 'invincible army'. This was a real genocide for which the descendants of the ancient race of the Andes demand to this day a formal apology and a declaration of repentance, such as happened in Brazil in April 2000.

After the battle of Ayacucho in 1824, which was the last battle of the war of independence, all territories inhabited by Aymara people were located at the heart of Peruvian territory. But a year later in 1825, leaders of the region of 'Alto Peru', tired of the centralism exercised from Lima, decided that 'Alto Peru' should become a new republic, and be given the name Bolivia. It was in this way that the plateau of Titicaca, and therefore also the Aymara people with it, were divided between the two nations. Years later the Pacific War broke out, which was to cause Chile to confront Peru and Bolivia. The decisive battles in this war were fought in the old territories of the Lupaqas and Collas, so we can infer that many lives were lost among the Aymara people, to a war that had no significance for them at all. Chile won the war and so took over territories in Bolivia and Peru, valuable for their reserves in saltpetre and copper, which were mainly inhabited by Aymara people. The Aymara people then, were split in between the three republics because of interests beyond their care.

The fact that South American countries won independence from Spain, did little or nothing to improve the condition of the Aymara and other native peoples; and what is more, there are historians who claim that their situation became even worse. Until recently the practice of 'pongaje', domestic service that Indian tenants were supposed to provide voluntarily, was a subtle form of slavery inside the homes of the rich 'caciques' of Peru and Bolivia. Recent estimates tell us that 80% of the 1.6 million Aymaras today, are living in the cities and employ themselves in informal and non-mainstream economic activities. The remaining 20% live in rural areas labouring in small scale farming in the worst conditions of squalor and poverty. Spanish speakers in urban areas are intolerant of the native languages, and the speaker of Aymara finds himself cornered into learning Spanish and in consequence, he feels the need to hide his mother tongue even from his own children, who in general tend to speak only Spanish. The result of this is that numbers of speakers of Aymara are decreasing at a high rate, and this threatens with the extinction of Aymara as a living language.

During the course of this century and nearly every year at that, there have appeared organizations which put forth the claim that they were representatives of the Aymara people. These organizations tend to meet with little trust and enthusiasm because in the past, their leaders nearly always abandoned their representees once they had obtained a personal gain. What is really remarkable is that some notable personalities from Bolivia and Peru are of Aymara origin, and they came to be in their posts not for taking the Aymara people as their cause. It is to be expected that they bring forth some sort of action for the preservation of Aymara cultural values, especially their language, which is due to them.

During the period of government 1993-1998 and for the first time in Bolivia, a native Aymara also speaker of the language, Victor Hugo Cardenas, was elected Vice-President to the Republic. At the 1998 local election in Puno capital city, for the first time, also an Aymara speaker of the language, was elected mayor of the province of Puno. In September 2000, the Aymara leader Felipe Quispe, el Mallku, won the nation 's attention in Bolivia, following a successful plan of action in support of the Bolivian Aymaras. At the 2002 elections the Aymara from Collacachi (Qullaqachi) Paulina Arpasi was elected Member of Congress to the Republic of Peru with the highest number of votes in the department of Puno.

Possibly the main cultural contribution of the ancient Aymara culture to humanity, was the cultivation/domestication of the potato (papa). When the Inca Empire was subdued by the Spanish conquerors, they found the potato cultivated and consumed throughout Inca territory. But on the plateau of Lake Titicaca as in no other place, they found over two hundred different varieties. The ancient Aymaras, were also pioneers in the invention of the technique for dehydrating the potato, for storage purposes. Dehydrated potato has been, and still it is, an obtainable product, consumed on a massive scale up to the present day, and is known as Ch'unu (Chuno). Depending on the process of its manufacture, the dehydrated potato is given various names, as Tunta, Muraya, etc. The technique for dehydrating the potato was thought of, so as to take advantage of the climatic conditions found at an altitude of four thousand metres, on the Titicaca plateau. The potato is alternate and constantly exposed to the burning diurnal solar rays and to the freezing night temperatures for a space of two weeks. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the potato was rejected as food by the Spaniards for about two centuries. In parts of Europe it was used as a decorative plant. It was in Ireland, where the variety of foodstuffs was limited , that the potato was quickly adopted as main part of the diet. This dependence on the potato became dramatically obvious, when whole crops of potato in Ireland were destroyed by blight. This calamity is remembered to this day as the Irish Famine. Once the Irish had adopted the potato, the English followed their example, and it was later accepted throughout the rest of the world as a first class foodstuff. The word 'potato' and its derivatives: patata, batata etc., is of Caribbean origin and was later borrowed by the English. The Aymara societies of antiquity worshipped the dead, and believed that each person, once dead, became a God, and each was given its own Chullpa. The workmanship employed in the finish of these 'Chullpas', depended on the status of the deceased within the social hierarchy; the higher the status of the deceased, the more elaborately that the Chullpa was built. The sites of Sillustani and Cutimbo are examples of the tombs of the ancient elite among Lupaqas and Collas. Thanks to these remains, we can establish that the Aymaras of antiquity, independently developed the great stone architecture, of stylish finish and colossal dimensions. Building Chullpas for the elite demanded great skill and workmanship, and we can easily deduce that the ancient Collas and Lupaqas dextrously mastered the manufacture and use of instruments made of metal alloys such as bronze; as well, that is, as the manufacture and use of pure elements such as copper, gold etc.

Obviously the art of music was always cultivated in the Andes. Since recent times we have come to know Andean music as that music performed by the four basic instruments: siqu (siku), charango, bombo, and quena. The siqu is of Aymara origin, and the players of this instrument, as a group, or those who dance this music, are known as Siquris. This is because in Aymara the suffix -iri, designates and actor or doer, so siquri in Aymara means, player, performer of Siqu. The charango is a later creation, following the Spanish conquest, as string instruments were originally unknown in the Andes. In ancient times the charango was made with the carapace of the armadillo, known in Aymara as Khirkhinchu. The majority of historians claim that the Khirkhinchu first originated in Aymara territory (Potosi) in the 17th century.

The Aymara culture has a wealthy repertoire of folk dance and music. The Aymara folk dance has been classified as Native and Mestizo dance. The origin of the native dance goes back to times before the conquest, and has therefore little European influence. Unfortunately this type of dance has found minimal acceptance in urban centres, and is performed only by Aymaras from the rural areas. Examples of this type of dance are: Sikuris, Pinkillus, Chaqallus, Lawa k'umus, Chuqilas, K'usillos etc. On the other hand 'mestizo' dancing is later to the Spanish conquest. The most notorious of these dances such as 'La Diablada', 'El Caporal', and 'La Morenada' have their birth place at Oruro. This type of dance is then a balanced mixture of Aymara dance and European influences. It is very popular in urban centres of the Titicaca plateau during local festivities, especially the catholic celebrations of patron saints. The dress worn by the dancers, called 'traje de luces', like the dress used by Spanish bullfighters, is richly ornamented with imitation jewellery, so that it can only be acquired at a high cost. One interesting thing is that these dances were unknown in Puno until the 50's of the past XX century. Before such time, the Virgen de la Candelaria festivity was celebrated only with native dances.

a) Ancient Religiosity[Pre-Christian](?-1550)

The old Aymara God Thunupa, is the central icon found on the stone sculpture known as 'Puerta del Sol' in Tiwanaku, and is the personification of certain agents in nature such as: the sun and wind, rain and hail; which can affect agricultural yield for better or for worse. One other aspect of this manifestation of faith was, as it still is today, the Goddes Pachamama (mother earth), provider of food and pastures. This Mother and Goddes demanded sacrifices, the foetus of the llama being her favourite request. Worship to the ancestors on the other hand, was made manifest materially, in the construction of shrines, which served also as tombs, and which varied in complexity depending on the status of the deceased. The Chullpas of Sillustani and Cutimbo in Puno, are the vestiges of the spiritual expression of the Aymaras.

The Aymara people thought of their Gods as their protectors, and they identified them with the hills roundabout (Awki, Achachila). This expression of faith has prevailed to the present day, in that each hill found locally is given an individual name, and is always invoked as the local guardian. The Anchanchu or Saxra were evil Gods of the underground. Minor Gods were thought to dwell in water springs (Phuju). Another important aspect connected to Aymara spirituality was the practice of ritual medicine and the use of natural healing remedies by the Yatiris (sages). Since times immemorial to the 21st century, the most skilled and prestigious Yatiris came originally from the village of Kallawaya, in the Cordillera Charazani, Bolivia.

b) Modern Christian Religion (1550 to the present).

During those earliest years of intolerance, in the modern Andean Republics, the syncretic worship of the Aymaras was a clandestine practice. But from the second half of the 20th century onwards, it has been practised openly, counting even with the approval of the Catholic Church. The Protestant Church has remained intolerant, even banning traditional ritual medicine; what has caused great argument, as it is well known that traditional medicine, largely obtains positive practical results, and especially with the renowned Kallawayas. The converted Yatiri, adherent to one of the Protestant Churches, is barred from putting to practice his/her knowledge of healing. On the other hand the Aymara ritual Ch'alla, which is an expression of thanksgiving to the land (Pachamama), coexists pacifically with the local Catholic religious celebrations.

An interesting aspect of the syncretic character of the Aymaras' religious beliefs, is the fact that Christmas, the most important celebration in the Catholic religion, never had the same importance for the rural Christian Aymaras. Much more important for the rural Aymaras is the Carnival (Mara Anata), when the crops ripen; it is a favourable time for the Ch'alla, to help the flowers turn to good fruit. It is clear that in the last few years, with emigration of Aymaras to the urban centres happening on a massive scale, at an estimated rate of 70 to 80 per cent, the Christmas fairylights, and the Father Christmas masks, have caused the urban Aymaras to assimilate this celebration; although in their case, the Christmas festivity is in no way different to the celebrations of the non-Aymara people, so that it would be meaningless to talk of an Aymara Christmas tradition, as some, seem to think that there is.