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 Ramírez de Velasco Tucumán by Philip II of Spain to replace Hernando de Lerma. Ramírez served in the government of Tucuman between 1586-1593. In 1588 being the governor of Tucumán Juan Ramirez de Velasco made expeditions against the Indians in calchaquí valley and won the allegiance of a son of Juan Calchaquí. Shortly after he founded the city of Todos los Santos de la Nueva Rioja. In 1592 he founded the city of Madrid de las Juntas in the present department Metán. In 1594 Juan Ramírez Velasco was appointed commander of the Governorate of the Rio de la Plata a position he held