Kichwa language in the context of "Pichincha (volcano)"

Quechua (/ˈkɛtʃuə/, Spanish: [ˈketʃwa]), also called Runa simi (Quechua: [ˈɾʊna ˈsɪmɪ], 'people's language') in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral "Proto-Quechua" language, it is the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers in 2004, and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011. Approximately 13.9% (3.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechua language.

Although Quechua began expanding many centuries before the Incas, that previous expansion also meant that it was the primary language family within the Inca Empire. The Spanish tolerated its use until the Peruvian struggle for independence in the 1780s. As a result, various Quechua languages are still widely spoken, being the majority language in a number of regions of Peru, the most-spoken or co-official language in many others, and, as the Kichwa language, the second most-spoken language of Ecuador, after Spanish.

Quechua people (/ˈkɛtʃuə/, US also /ˈkɛtʃwɑː/; Spanish: [ˈketʃwa]) , Quichua people or Kichwa people are Indigenous peoples of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there are some significant populations in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina.

The most common Quechua dialect is Southern Quechua. The Kichwa people of Ecuador speak the Kichwa dialect; in Colombia, the Inga people speak Inga Kichwa.

Southern Quechua (Quechua: Urin qhichwa, Spanish: quechua sureño), or simply Quechua (Qichwa or Qhichwa), is the most widely spoken of the major regional groupings of mutually intelligible dialects within the Quechua language family, with about 6.9 million speakers. Besides Guaraní, it is the only indigenous language of America with more than 5 million speakers. The term Southern Quechua refers to the Quechuan varieties spoken in regions of the Andes south of a line roughly east–west between the cities of Huancayo and Huancavelica in central Peru. It includes the Quechua varieties spoken in the regions of Ayacucho, Cusco and Puno in Peru, in much of Bolivia and parts of north-west Argentina. The most widely spoken varieties are Cusco, Ayacucho, Puno (Collao), and South Bolivian.

In the traditional classification of the Quechua language family by Alfredo Torero, Southern Quechua is equivalent to Torero's 'Quechua IIc' (or just 'QIIc'). It thus stands in contrast to its many sister varieties within the wider Quechuan family that are spoken in areas north of the Huancayo–Huancavelica line: Central Quechua (Torero's QI) spoken from Huancayo northwards to the Ancash Region; North Peruvian Quechua around Cajamarca and Incahuasi (Torero's IIa); and Kichwa (part of Torero's Quechua IIb).

There are a total of 14 languages of Ecuador. Spanish in Ecuador is very rich and consists of several dialects that have been creating regional identities within this country. On the other hand, of the original languages, both Kichwa and Shuar are spoken within the corresponding indigenous communities and are legally considered as official languages of intercultural relationship within those communities. The rest of the indigenous languages do not have this recognition. Spanish is the official and most commonly spoken language in Ecuador with (97.0%; 2022 census), of the population speaking Spanish.

In total, according to the most recent census of 2022, up to 3.2% of the population speak an indigenous language. This amounts to 645.821 people that are distributed in the following way: