About the Web Author

Hello! My name is Marilyn S. Feke. I'm the creator of this Quechua Language Instructional Website. I am currently working toward the attainment of a PhD degree at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, with a major field concentration in Hispanic Linguistics, a minor field concentration in Methodology and Applied Linguistics, and a certificate in Latin American Studies from CLAS, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Latin American Studies. After receiving my PhD degree, I plan to find employment as a university professor, teaching Hispanic Sociolinguistics, Hispanic Pragmatics, Spanish Dialectology, Hispanic Phonology, the Quechua language, and the Spanish language.

As a Spanish Instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching basic Spanish language classes to undergraduate students. It has been a thrill for me to introduce my students to the many rich Hispanic cultures, which I have become acquainted with through my own study. Because of my participation in Boston University's Madrid, Spain study abroad program, as a junior in the spring of 1998, and because of my experience living in southern Mexico as a member of the PDLMA (Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Meso-America) linguistic team headed by Professor Terrence Kaufman, of the University of Pittsburgh's Anthropology Department, I have an intimate knowledge of the cultures of Spain and southern Mexico. My recent experiences in Cuzco, Peru, have also widened my knowledge of South America in general, and the fascinating and complex mesh of cultures that exist within the country of Peru. Beyond my own research, I enjoy sharing my experiences of living and studying in Spanish and Quechua-speaking regions with my students.

I have studied Cuzco Quechua since September 2000. At the University of Pittsburgh, as a student of the LCTL Less Commonly Taught Languages Program, I studied Quechua for four semesters. Also, during the summer of 2001 I was a student of Advanced Quechua at the CBC, Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolomé de Las Casas" Colegio Andino. During the summer of 2002, I studied Conversational Quechua privately with Georgina Maldonado Gómez, one of the Quechua instructors of the Colegio Andino.