Screenshot of Wilfred Villca's content on Tiktok against an image of Sucre, Bolivia. Collage by Melissa Vida for Global Voices.

Photo of Wilfredo Villca, used with his permission.

Wilfredo Villca is a native of the community of Totora in Potosí, Bolivia, and he currently lives in Sucre. His path as a content creator in Quechua started before he knew it as “digital activism” and grew out of a deep love for his language and a commitment to teaching it, both inside and outside the digital world. As he explains in an interview with Rising Voices:

Todo comenzó como auxiliar de la materia de quechua en la universidad. Me di cuenta que al dejar tarea al grupo, la hacían en la variante peruana del quechua, que no es lo mismo que la nuestra de Bolivia. Yo les decía “¿De dónde han sacado esto?” Y respondían “Pues de Internet, es así como dicen en Internet”.

It all started when I was an assistant in the Quechua course at university. I realized that when I gave homework to the group, they would do it in the Peruvian variety of Quechua, which is not the same as our Bolivian variant. I would say to them, “Where did you get this from?” And they would answer, “Well, from the internet, that's how they say it on the internet.”

Wilfredo took a look at the digital content that already existed in the Peruvian variant on the internet and in 2019 began his own journey with dynamic and interactive formats on his TikTok and YouTube channels to teach the variant of Quechua spoken in his context. And the fact is that when we talk about Quechua, we are really talking about a language family with various varieties distributed throughout Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. The Bolivian variant is one of 36 Indigenous languages of the country, and the most widely spoken, followed by Aymara. However, with almost two and a half million speakers, it is considered by UNESCO to be a vulnerable language.

From these self-taught origins, Wilfredo learned editing, photography, and design tools to create the content in Bolivian Quechua that he now shares on the internet. Today he has more than 110,000 followers on his TikTok account and almost 16,000 on his YouTube channel, through which he teaches the language accompanied by songs by Quechua artists like Luzmila Carpio and Los Kjarkas, as well as other forms of cultural expression which for him are part of the learning process. He explains:

Siempre enseño la lengua desde cómo se entiende en la cultura, porque hablamos de una cultura de reciprocidad. La cultura quechua es dulce, y tiene principios de ama llulla, ama quilla, ama suwa, es decir, “no seas mentiroso, no seas flojo, no seas ladrón”. Todo eso involucra cuestiones de respeto en los diálogos de la vida cotidiana.

I always teach the language from the standpoint of how it is understood in the culture, because we talk about a culture of reciprocity. Quechua culture is sweet, and it has principles of “ama llulla, ama quilla, ama suwa,” which is to say, “don't lie, don't be lazy, don't be a thief.” All this involves questions of respect in the dialogues of everyday life.

In the video below, Villca teaches how to use the verb “kay” (“to be”) with the help of songs in Quechua. For him, culture and language go hand in hand.

As a Quechua speaker, Wilfredo finds that in educational institutions, certain practices make teaching the language more difficult when it is taught separately from its cultural context. He seeks ways to improve teaching techniques in a creative and accessible manner using digital media. For example, he explains that some teachers who are not native Quechua speakers teach the language following the model of non-Indigenous languages like English.

Los estudiantes preguntan cómo pueden decir “hola” y el profesor dice imaynaya, pero aquí las personas quecha-hablantes sabemos que “hola” en quechua, pues no es parte de nuestra cultura. Cuando tú estás ahí y quieres saludar en la comunidad, dices Imaynalla tatay, imaynalla mamay. Tatay y mamay significa papá y mamá, y es finamente una cuestión cultural de respeto.

The students ask how they can say “hello” and the professor says “imaynaya,” but here Quechua speakers know that “hello” in Quechua is not part of our culture. When you are there and you want to greet someone in the community, you say “Imaynalla tatay, imaynalla mamay.” “Tatay” and “mamay” mean father and mother, and it's basically a cultural question of respect.

Wilfredo shares facts of his everyday life alongside the language because for him they go hand-in-hand. That, he explains, is also lost in the public policies that only consider a single “normalized” or institutionalized Bolivian Quechua, which turns out more academic or what some consider an elite Quechua.

La lengua para mí es parte de la vida cotidiana, no simplemente es cuestión de comunicación, sino que también tiene que ver con cuestión de la expresividad, y cómo es que hablas, el hecho de hablar con cierta persona y en cierto tono.

The language for me is part of everyday life. It's not simply a question of communication, it also has to do with questions of expressivity, and how you speak, the fact of speaking with a certain person or in a certain tone.

@wilfitu

¿Sabes qué dije al final? #parati #quechua #quechuaboliviano @wilfitu_yachachiq

♬ Francisquita – Los Kjarkas

While it's true that certain forms of teaching are better facilitated in person than through a screen, for Wilfredo digital tools can be taken advantage of in various ways. The challenges he encounters are mainly time and economic sustainability, and that is why for him it is important to clarify that he is not an influencer, but rather a content creator. He explains:

Los influencers se graban con la cámara y ya están ahí. O sea, son influencers y parten de ahí. En mi caso tengo que dedicarle varias horas a pensar y planear, tengo que hacer ahí el guión, grabarme, editar, subtitular. Yo soy la preproducción, producción y postproducción de cada contenido.

Influencers record something with their camera and there they are. That is, they're influencers and take it from there. In my case, I have to dedicate many hours to thinking and planning. I have to make a script, record myself, edit, and subtitle. I am the preproduction, production, and postproduction of every piece of content.

Wilfredo also engages in cinematic processes, from creation, acting, and directing. He dreams of creating a feature film that he is already working on, which will cover traditional stories and narratives that he knows from his grandmother. Furthermore, he is interested in showing the world that Quechua is in the cities.

No quiero folclorizar el quechua, sino que se vea como algo natural. No solamente hablado en la parte rural, sino que también es hablado en la urbanidad y más allá.

I don't want to folklorize Quechua, I want it to be seen as something natural. Not just spoken in rural areas, but also in urban areas and beyond.

Wilfredo is a sociologist, and together with cinema and digital content, he dreams of influencing public policies in favor of languages. He also dreams that in Bolivia people will feel proud to speak Quechua and that his journey as a content creator can contribute to that horizon. If you want to learn Quechua, or learn more about Wilfredo, follow his YouTube channel and check out this post or the accounts of Rising Voices.