Perú

=Peru= "Heart of the [|Inca Empire]" By Brandie Jones

**Brief History**

[[image:http://everseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/Machu_Picchu_Peru-Peru.jpg width="561" height="419" align="right" caption="Machu Pichu"]]
Like any country, Peru has a long history of political, economical and social ups and downs. Beginning primarily in 1000 BC, when Peru began developing into a number of organized cultures, including the Chavin and the Sechin. But around 500 BC, the Chavin and the Sechin cultures began to decline, giving rise to several more distinctive cultures such as the Saliner and the Paracas. The Saliner and the Paracas are to thank for their advancement in art and technology in Peruvian culture. These cultures paved the way to the pre-Columbian civilization of the Inca. The great Inca empire is most widely known for its brevity. Qosqo, the Inca empire was the richest city among all the Americas. When the Inca empire was at it's prime in 1532, it was driven by a war of succession. The Incas fought for several years, through demolition from the Spanish conquis-tadors but could not prevail. Spanish rule had begun.

Since these pre-Culumbian times, Peruvian people have been divided by nature. The country is not like America, in that it is more culturally divided, versus economically or socially. For instance, the highlands of Peru only sustain a quarter of its territory but is home to about half of the country's population. Therefore, because of distance and whatnot, the lifestyle here compared to how those live on the coast is very different, making it even more difficult for many groups to integrate, let alone interact with people from other regions. Some say Peru is divided more culturally than any country in the world, due to its strong diverse native heritage.

Language
Peru is considered a bilingual country. Quechua is the language spoken by most Peruvians as it was originally spoken by the Incas. However, Spanish and Quechua are both recognized as official languages. Spanish is typically the standard enforced by the government and education system, a Castilian tongue combined with many native Quechua and Arymaya words.

Here is Rosa Vallijos Yopan, a Peruvian linguist, to tell us more about her personal background and linguistic features within Peru. media type="file" key="rosa2.mov"

Although Quechua was the lingua franca of the Inca colonization, it later expanded as the lingua franca of Christianization in colonial times. The language spread so much that many original languages of the Andean region disappeared. In fact, Quechua is a term used in reference to about 17 different emergent languages that upheld 3-5 centuries of diversification. It is also spoken in parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador, but Peru is one of the most historically bilingual nations.

Modern Peru
Peru is currently the third largest country in South America, behind Argentina and Brazil. Despite it's size and infamous architecture, ruins, arrays of wildlife and location, Peru is actually not a large tourist place, only accommodating nearly 1,000,000 visitors each year. Reasons for this may be that the weather isn't tropical year round or that the culture of Peru is still rather traditional. The people of Peru strive to maintain their ancestral Inca ways as opposed to working every day to bring in more toursits.





Sources:  http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Peru.html__  http://www.peru-travel-adventures.com/people-culture.html____ http://www.geographia.com/peru/peruhistory.htm__ Copyright Durham: Duke University Press 1995 Copyright 1998-2007 Interknowledge Corp. Lenore A. Grenoble Lindsay J. Whaley Copyright Cambridge University Press 1998
 * Culture of Peru**
 * Peru: Peru People and Preserved Cultur**e
 * Peru: History and Culture**
 * The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics**
 * Peru History and Culture**
 * Endangered Languages**