The AP Version of History

OK, I've got morning classes, but I can't let this bit of nonsense from the Associated Press pass without comment:

On this date: In 1533, the last Incan King of Peru, Atahualpa, was murdered on orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro.

Um, well, not exactly. First of all, he was the emperor of Tawantinsuyu, otherwise known as the Incan Empire, which included a whole lot more than modern Peru. Further, he wasn't the last person to hold the title of Sapa Inca (official title of the emperors) - that honor goes to Tupac Amaru (the one who died in 1572 - not Tupac Amuru II, or, for that matter, Tupac Amaru Shakur). It's all a little complicated, more than I can go into right now, but the Spanish alternately propped up and fought against a series of heirs to Atahualpa before finishing off Tupac Amaru. Atahualpa represents the end of a truly sovereign, powerful Incan Empire, but he wasn’t the final end. History tends to be messier than that - AP's error is just one more piece of evidence that a "names and dates" concept of history is deeply flawed.

Bill Gates Continues To Take Over The World

If you’ve always longed to talk to your computer in the same language that the mighty Sapa Inca used to command his empire, then at last your dreams have been fulfilled. You can now download a patch that will translate the Windows menus and the like to Quechua, the native language of millions of Andeans. Few of these people have computers, but in time, they can be banging their heads and screaming in frustration as once again, their software crashes for no apparent reason. You can even get stickers to convert your keyboard to Quechua – here it is still August and your Christmas shopping worries are over! There’s one quote in the CNN story though that worries me just a bit:

"More than anything, I was surprised," said 21-year-old Dilma Arancibia, a Quechua speaker invited to a Thursday preview of the program. "If they hadn't done this with Quechua, and if we don't teach it to our children, the language would definitely cease to exist."

While Mr. Gates thankfully does not yet have the power to make a language spoken by millions disappear, Arancibia is correct – languages left out of of the computing world are threatened. So I’m ambivalent – kudos to Microsoft for taking this step, but let’s not forget that the Empire is never altruistic!

Hat tip to The Latin Americanist.