Language planning with Spanish colonization. When the Spanish first arrived in Peru, Quechua served as a language of wider communication, a lingua franca, between Spaniards and Peruvian natives. As the years passed, Spaniards asserted the superiority of the Spanish language; as a result, Spanish gained prestige, taking over as a language of wider communication and the dominant language of Peru. In 1975, under the leadership of President Juan Velasco Alvarado, the revolutionary government of Peru declared Quechua an official language of the Peruvian state, "coequal with Spanish." Four years later, the law was reversed. Peru's 1979 constitution declares Spanish the only official
Juan José Alvarado Juan José Alvarado Juan José Alvarado (1798–1857) was Supreme Director of Honduras from 15 April 1839 to 27 April 1839. Alvarado was born in Ciudad de la Esperanza, Intibucá, but later lived in Gracias a Dios in the department of Lempira, where he worked as a surveyor. There he became a judge of first instance and Jefe Político of Gracias. He was a member of the Constituent Assembly and was elected President of this Parliament. On 26 October 1838 under the provincial government of José María Martinez Salinas, the province of Honduras had declared itself a separate state. Francisco Ferrera,