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 Víctores de Velasco Juan Víctores de Velasco Juan Víctores de Velasco, O.S.B. (1644–1713) was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Trujillo (1707–1713) and Bishop of Santa Marta (1694–1707). Juan Víctores de Velasco was born in Burgos, Spain in 1644 and ordained a priest in the Order of Saint Benedict. On 19 Jul 1694, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Innocent XII as Bishop of Santa Marta. On 21 Oct 1694, he was consecrated bishop at the convent San Martín in Madrid, Spain. On 28 Nov 1707, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Clement XI as Bishop