About the name qinti
“Creative Commons” por Andy Morffew licencia bajo BY CC 2.0.
QINTI (Quechua Innovation and Teaching Initiative) is an acronym inspired by the Andean hummingbird, a bird that knows no physical boundaries within the Andes. Qinti, q’inti, kindi are varieties of the same basic name for the Andean hummingbird. Our approach to cross-institutional collaboration and incorporating dialectal variation crosses traditional boundaries.
Ayni (‘collaboration’), the title of our textbook in development, is a Pan-Andean cultural value that, just like qinti is easily recognizable in any Andean community.
Our motivation and methodology is based on the overt diversity and intrinsic commonality that Quechua languages and people bring to the Andean region.
The Quechua Innovation and Teaching Initiative (QINTI) was founded by Carlos Molina-Vital in 2018 and is housed at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Encouragement and support during the initial development of this project came from former and current CLACS Directors, Dr. Anna María Escobar, Dr. Andrew Orta, and Dr. Gisela Sin, as well as from Dr. Kasia Szremski, current Associate Director.
Initially, QINTI’s creation was a response to the significant growth of Quechua programs and courses in the US. Over the past decade, Quechua languages have become the most commonly taught indigenous languages of the Americas. Currently, at least 15 universities provide some type of Quechua instruction, whether as tutoring, courses, or language programs.
Historically, it has been common for Quechua instructors and programs to work in isolation, using their own materials and following a self-made curriculum. Why can’t the teaching of Quechua be more like that of French, Spanish, or German, which are frequently taught at the college level? This question spurred QINTI’s efforts to cultivate collaboration and common standards to benefit the already significant presence of Quechua instruction in the US. Specifically, the Southern Quechua variety seemed best suited for this type of collaborative approach as it is most commonly taught at the college level in the US. This specific variety is an international language, spoken by 4-5 million speakers living across Peru, Bolivia, Northern Argentina, and in diasporic communities globally.
For these reasons, QINTI developed a shared curriculum for the basic levels of instruction. Course materials must be capable of bridging the dialectal diversity among Southern Quechua subvarieties. At the same time, these materials should also highlight the distinctive features of the different subvarieties. Finally, a modern approach to Quechua teaching must move beyond common stereotypes that focus on rurality, poverty, provinciality, and strict regional boundaries, thus limiting the ways in which Quechua language and culture have been presented to students.
QINTI also works to articulate cultural contents that achieve a balance between the rural and urban worlds in which contemporary Quechua people thrive. Furthermore, Quechua courses must include content that represents diasporic and heritage speakers, both in Andean nations and in the US. By doing this, QINTI’s approach is innovative in that, through collaboration, it offers a common pedagogical foundation, high-quality materials, and a focus on commonality and diversity across Southern Quechua varieties. Perhaps more importantly, QINTI offers an up-to-date perspective on Quechua speakers of the 21st century to Quechua instructors, students, activists, and enthusiasts.