Quechua, Cusco

In December of 1998, Andrés Chirinos published his article Las lenguas indígenas peruanas más allá del 2000 in Revista Andina, Año 16, No. 2, pp. 453-479, where he gives his count of mother-tongue speakers of Cuzco Quechua, or Inca Quechua based on the 1993 census at 706,514 speakers.  In his, and other modern linguists' treatment of South Peruvian Quechua varieties, Cuzco Quechua includes what Ethnologue views as three languages: Cusco Quechua, Eastern Apurimac Quechua, and Arequipa-La Union Quechua.

Now, his count of the mother-tongue speakers of all the South Peruvian Quechua varieties for that year totals 2,390,750.

In October of 2019, César Itier of France in his book Runasimita Yachasun: Método de quechua (variedad ayacuchana), written together with Zenobio Ortiz Cárdenas of Andahuaylas, Peru, estimated the total of all Southern Quechua speakers in Peru at approximately 3 million.

Proportionately recounted, the number of Cuzco Quechua speakers will stand at 886,560. And we remember that for Ethnologue this includes the three languages named above (Cusco, Eastern Apurimac, and Arequipa). If Ethnologue's figures for Eastern Apurimac (200,000) and Arequipa (18,600) stand, the Cusco share for 2019 amounts to 667,960.