In summer 2024, Micah Unzueta, Alec Kingsley, and several other collaborators brought to fruition a full-scale model and implementation of the Muyuchina Quechua Verb Wheel—a long-term interdisciplinary collaboration supported by the Kawsay Ukhunchay Andean & Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifacts Research Collection, Quechua Language Program, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The STEAM Factory, Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Design, Department of Art, Department of Engineering, Studio for Art and Design Research (SADR), College of Nursing Innovation Studio, Center of Science and Industry (COSI), Language Science Research Lab at COSI, Whitten Scholarship Fund, and an Ohio Sustainable Energy Partners (OSEP) grant.
The Muyuchina Quechua Verb Wheel is a hands-on language tool that encourages users to engage with Quechua by allowing them to construct verbs in the language. In Quechua, muyu is a seed or a circle. Combined with the suffixes /-chi/ and /-na/, Muyuchina means ‘that makes spin’ or, in Spanish, ‘que hace girar’. The wheel is a tool for student-led discovery and dialogue around Quechua as an agglutinative language where verb meanings and function are defined by the addition of suffixes.
(Alec Kingsley with the Muyuchina at COSI)
Quechua or Runasimi is one of more than 600 indigenous languages in South America. Today, it is most commonly spoken in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru—present-day countries that partially map the extent of the pre-Columbian Inca Empire, known as the Tawantinsuyu. Quechua is spoken by more than 10 million people, making it the most spoken indigenous language in South America.
There are many varieties within the Quechua supralect. However, native Quechua speakers across South America all use suffixes in agglutinative fashion, to construct the meaning of verbs. A single verb can accommodate more than a dozen suffixes!
(way’kurparimpuwankimanpischu means ‘and would you please quickly go cook for me?’)
As students interact with the Muyuchina they can learn about Quechua morphology in connection to Quechua culture. Long, continuous verb structures arguably mirror social values that characterize Quechua culture—extended relationships, elaborate storytelling, and intricately interconnected weavings are a few examples. As such the activity is also an entry point for conversations about indigenous Andean cultures.
(Micah Unzueta explains how one verb in Quechua can equal more than a dozen in English)
As an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, Micah Unzueta developed the idea for the Muyuchina and presented it at the 2021 Kawsay Ukhunchay Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifacts Research Collection Tukuypaq Open House. Students gathered around and built their own Quechua verb wheels to learn more about Quechua language and culture.
(Micah Unzueta presenting the Muyuchina at the Tukuypaq Open House 2021)
The original Muyuchina workshop connected users to a space of inquiry and oriented them within the Collection by centering language. By analyzing Quechua, participants were introduced to cultural takeaways that led them to a more profound understanding of the art and cultural artifacts in the workroom. This educational intervention, focused on Quechua morphology, demonstrated the intimacy and interconnectedness of the language, a motif present throughout other Andean traditions and meaning-making practices.
Funding from an Ohio Sustainable Energy Partners (OSEP) 2023-2024 grant allowed Unzueta to return to OSU post-graduation to work as a research consultant for Kawsay Ukhunchay and develop a full-scale Quechua verb wheel for implementation with diverse audiences at COSI (Center of Sciences and Industry), as well as other venues.
(Unzueta captures a photo of the mounted design of the Muyuchina)
Unzueta collaborated with engineering and advanced Quechua student Alec Kingsley to fabricate various full-scale verb wheels based on Unzueta’s initial designs. Together, they worked with Elivia Andia, Quechua language instructor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Josh Gagliardi at the College of Nursing Innovation Studio and Paul Tenwalde at Ohio State’s Studio for Art and Design Research (SADR) to develop the final products.
The Muyuchina design features an empty space for the placement of a verb root at the center of the wheel. This space is surrounded by multiple outer rings containing different suffixes in Quechua that can be rotated into place to create increasingly complex meanings.
(T’usuchkani means ‘I am dancing’)
(Kingsley tests the Muyuchina at SADR)
The table-top design of the Muyuchina is paired with a miniature computer that generates a simultaneous translation for the verb wheel using distance sensors and indicators of varying depths to register each suffix’s location on the verb wheel.
(Kingsley assembles the wiring for the simultaneous translator)
Kingsley designed two Quechua to English translation programs for the Muyuchina. The first is a program for simultaneous translation. The second is a program that requires manual input.
One of the challenges of the project was adapting the Muyuchina to reach beyond its original context of the Kawsay Ukhunchay Research Collection to tap broader audiences. Ohio State’s STEAM Factory was integral to connecting Unzueta and the Muyuchina project to a broad interdisciplinary network including Laura Wagner, Director of the Language Sciences Research Lab at COSI. Dr. Wagner guided the team in terms of implementation with diverse audiences and, in summer of 2024, invited a pilot of the project at COSI’s Language Lab.
(Kingsley shares his translation program with Dr. Michelle Wibbelsman, Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of Kawsay Ukhunchay)
Micah’s ingenuity and his vision for collaborative interdisciplinary work have contributed an exceptional resource for ongoing student research, classroom application, and public outreach and engagement opportunities with Quechua language and culture.
(Anais Fernandez Castro examines the Muyuchina)
The future of the Muyuchina includes plans for Quechua language students to present the Muyuchina and facilitate public interactions once per semester at the COSI Language Sciences Research Lab. Beyond this, the project lends itself to presentation at conferences centered on education, pedagogy, Andean and Amazonian studies and Quechua language. As Micah heads to The University of Texas at Austin for graduate school, inclusion of the project in AILLA-UT (Archives for Indigenous Languages of Latin America) might be a possibility. And eventually, Micah looks forward to implementing the Muyuchina in educational settings in the Andes.
Congratulations to Micah and his team of collaborators for this exciting project, and stay tuned as the project goes out into the world!
Tinkunakama