Puquina is an extinct language

Extinct language

An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...

 once spoken by the ancient Inca in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is a lake located on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It sits 3,811 m above sea level, making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world...

 (Perú

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

) and in the north of what is now Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

.

Remnants of Puquina can be found in the Quechua and Spanish languages spoken in the south of Perú, mainly in Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. There also appear to be remnants in Callahuaya (Kolyawaya), which may be a mix

Mixed language

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...

 of Quechua and Puquina. (Kaufman

Terrence Kaufman

Terrence Kaufman is an American linguist specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena. He is currently a professor at the department of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh....

 (1990) finds this proposal plausible.)

Sometimes the term Puquina is wrongly used for Uru

Uru language

The Uru language, also known as Iru-Itu , Morato, or Muratu, is the language of the Uros, an Amerindian people. In the year 2000 it had 2 remaining native speakers out of an ethnic group of 100 to 150 people in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, the rest having...

, which is completely different.