In Star Wars 4: A New Hope, one of the characters, Greedo, uses a simplified version of Quechua to talk with Han Solo, another character. In The Seven Crystal Balls and in Prisoners of the Sun, which are books which are part of the Tin Tin series, various Quechua characters are used to facilitate the capture of Professor Calculus. The Quechua language has also been used in other TV programs such as The Sentinel, which is a series that ran in the 1990s and in The Emperors New School, which is a cartoon series where the characters have Quechua names. This includes Kuzco, which means navel of the world, Chicha, which means beer and Pacha, which means ground.
Quechua was the language of the Inca empire, otherwise known as Tawantinsuyo. The Inca empire existed for about one century before the Spaniards arrived. Tawantinsuyo was a multilingual empire, with individuals speaking up to 7 or 8 languages. The Spanish language turned out to be the most popular language spoken by most Incas at that time. The Quechua language exists in various forms. These language variants are mainly spoken in 5 different countries. This includes in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. The largest number of speakers can be found in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Various attempts have been made to standardize the language. Currently, the language is viewed as the language of the poor, Indians and the uneducated therefore, most people are no longer interested in learning it. In any case, most Quechua speakers are being pressured to learn Spanish. Approximately 13 to 14 million people speak the language.
Other names for Quechua include Quichua, Keshua, Qheshwa, Keswa, Ingano, Runa-simi, and Napenio. Quechua refers more to a language rather than to an ethnic group. The Quechua language has only 3 vowels, a, i and u. the Quechua written language has a written form, even though it is largely viewed as an oral language. The major challenge of oral languages is that it is quite difficult to use western alphabets to fully represent the various sounds that the language has. One of the most popular ways of preserving and promoting the Quechua language is the use of traditional song and dance.