Southern Quechua , or simply
Quechua, 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. It is also the most widely spoken indigenous language in the entire New World. The term
Southern Quechua refers to the forms of
Quechua 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,
Cuzco and
Puno in Peru, in much of
Bolivia and parts of north-west
Argentina. The most widely spoken varieties are South Bolivian, Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Puno (Collao).