Aymara Alphabet

Aymara (in the language itself aymar aru) is written with the unified alphabet that Bolivia made official in 1984 and Peru in 1985. In alphabetical order it runs a, ch, chh, ch’, i, j, k, kh, k’, l, ll, m, n, ñ, p, ph, p’, q, qh, q’, r, s, t, th, t’, u, w, x, y. Letters such as b, d, e, f, g, o and v are not part of it; they turn up only in Spanish names and loanwords, and c and h appear only inside ch and the aspirated consonants. That is why the grid on this page holds just the letters that native Aymara words use.

There are only three vowels, a, i and u. Next to the back consonants q and x, i and u are pronounced lower, so qullu (mountain) sounds roughly like "qollo"; the spelling still writes u, because the difference never tells two Aymara words apart. Vowel length does, and it is written with the diaeresis: ä ï ü (capitals Ä Ï Ü) mark long vowels, as in mä, the everyday form of maya (one). Long vowels often come from a dropped syllable or a grammatical ending, so leaving the two dots off can change the meaning of a sentence.

The consonants are the heart of the alphabet. The stops p, t, ch, k and q come in three series: plain (p), aspirated with a puff of air written with h (ph, as in phisqa, five), and ejective, a sharp popped sound written with an apostrophe (p’, t’, ch’, k’, q’, as in jach’a, big, and t’ant’a, bread). j sounds like English h, x is a rougher sound from far back in the throat, like German "ach", q is a k made further back, ll is the "lli" of million and ñ the "ny" of canyon, as in jikisiñkama (see you). Stress normally falls on the second-to-last syllable, so Aymara needs no written accent marks.

Which apostrophe Aymara uses

The apostrophe in t’ant’a is part of the letter, not punctuation: t and t’ are different consonants. Three characters are used for it. The plain keyboard apostrophe ' (U+0027) is what most people type and is common on Aymara websites and in schoolbooks. Word processors and phones often turn it into the curly ’ (U+2019), the closing single quotation mark, which looks the same in print. Unicode's own recommendation for a letter-apostrophe is ʼ (U+02BC, modifier letter apostrophe), which software treats as part of the word, so double-clicking jach’a selects the whole word.

For texting and everyday writing any of the three is fine. For dictionaries, databases and search, pick one and use it throughout, because to a computer t'ant'a, t’ant’a and tʼantʼa are three different words. All three are in the grid so you can copy the one your text already uses.

How to type ä, ï, ü, ñ and the apostrophe

On a phone, long-press a, i, u or n to get ä, ï, ü or ñ; the apostrophe is on the symbols layer. Spanish and Latin American keyboards, the usual ones in Bolivia and Peru, have an Ñ key, and the ¨ dead key sits on the accent key with Shift: press Shift and that key, then the vowel.

On Windows with a numeric keypad, hold Alt and type 0228 for ä, 0239 for ï, 0252 for ü and 0241 for ñ (0196 Ä, 0207 Ï, 0220 Ü, 0209 Ñ). With the US-International layout, type " then the vowel for ä ï ü and ~ then n for ñ. Watch out there: ' is a dead key on that layout, and Aymara puts the apostrophe right before a vowel, so t'a comes out as tá. Type ' and then Space to get a plain apostrophe before the vowel.

On a Mac, press Option+U and then the vowel for ä ï ü, and Option+N and then n for ñ. In HTML, write ä, ï, ü and ñ, and ʼ for the modifier apostrophe ʼ.

Where Aymara is spoken

Aymara is the language of the Altiplano, the high plain around Lake Titicaca (Titiqaqa quta). Unicode's CLDR estimates about 3 million speakers in all: roughly 2.5 million in Bolivia, where it is spoken across La Paz, El Alto, Oruro and the countryside around them, and about half a million in Peru, mostly in the Puno region on the lake's western shore and further south in Tacna and Moquegua. Smaller communities live in northern Chile, around Arica and in the Tarapacá highlands. These are estimates; censuses that count only people who speak it at home give lower numbers.

Bolivia's 2009 constitution makes Aymara one of the country's official languages alongside Spanish and Quechua, and names suma qamaña, "living well", among the principles of the state. Peru's constitution makes Aymara official in the areas where it predominates. Money is written Bs for the Bolivian boliviano (Bs 50) and S/ for the Peruvian sol (S/ 20); neither has a character of its own.

Aymara is the largest of the Aymaran or Jaqi languages; its closest relatives, Jaqaru and Kawki, are spoken by small communities in the Yauyos highlands of Peru. Centuries of life side by side with Quechua have given the two languages many shared words and very similar sound systems, with the same h and apostrophe consonants, so the Quechua collection looks much like this one. Spanish, with its ¡ ¿ and accented vowels, is the other language most Aymara speakers also use and write; see the Spanish, Bolivia, Peru and Chile collections for those letters, flags and emoji.