Quechua, which was the language of the Inca empire, is an Amerindian language still spoken today by more than eight million people in the Andean region. The number of speakers declined dramatically in the centuries following the Spanish conquest, but in more recent years there have been official attempts to promote the language. As with the Aztec language Náhuatl, many Quechua words passed into Spanish, and on to many other languages. For example, in English we find “condor”, “jerky” and “quinine”.