Microsoft unveils Inca Windows patch

In Peru, there are thought to be 3m to 4.5m speakers, with others in Bolivia and Ecuador. The language has long been in slow decline, chiefly because the children of migrants to the cities rarely speak it. But it is now getting a lot more attention. In recent months, Google has launched a version of its search engine in Quechua while Microsoft unveiled Quechua translations of Windows and Office.

For a great number of users of the IICD supported projects in Bolivia and Ecuador the Quechua translations of Windows and Office are a positive development. Quechua is by law only officially used in highland areas where it is predominant. With these translations, the importance of the indigenous culture of the Quechua is recognized. These communities will certainly benefit from increased access to computer applications and the World Wide Web.

ABC News states:

By DAN KEANE
SUCRE, Bolivia Aug 25, 2006 (AP)— Just click "Qallariy" to begin. The word pronounced "KAH-lyah-ree" replaces "Start" on Microsoft Windows' familiar taskbar in a new Quechua translation of the program, which got its Bolivian debut Friday.
Microsoft Corp.'s chief of Bolivia operations, Nelson Cuentas, tried out a little of his own Quechua at the launch event, where translations of both Windows and Office were demonstrated on a large screen before a gathering of Quechua Indians in striped red and black ponchos and colorful hats.

"Anchay agradeseiki ('Thank you' in Quechua) for trusting us," Cuentas said. "Microsoft Bolivia wants indigenous culture to form a part of the information age."

Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, himself an Aymara Indian, said the translated software marked a new era of inclusion after centuries of prejudice faced by speakers of indigenous languages.

"It was not so many years ago that speaking Quechua was considered backward," he said, "but in these last few years our people are in a full process of emergence, and the world knows we are individuals."

First launched in Peru in June and now freely available for download online, the software is a simple patch that translates the familiar Microsoft menus and commands. Microsoft teamed up with several universities in Peru's Quechua-speaking south to create the translation program, joining 47 other versions of Windows in such languages as Kazakh, Maori and Zulu.
And while relatively few of South America's estimated 10 to 13 million Quechua speakers have regular access to a computer, the project is already paying dividends for Microsoft: The company recently won a contract from the Peruvian government for 5,000 Quechua-equipped computers.

The Quechua translation balances traditional words with some newly minted terms.

For "file," they chose "kipu" (KEE-poo), borrowing the name of an ancient Inca practice of recording information in an intricate system of knotted strings. "Internet" became "Llika" (LEE-ka), the Quechua word for spider web.

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