Microsoft Windows to speak Inca

THE SOFTWARE polyglot which speaks the tongues of all humanity, Microsoft, is to translate Windows and Office into Quechua, the language of the indigenous Inca.

The Incas ruled a fair chunk of South America between 1200 and 1535 AD, but the civilisation was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in search of gold and potatoes.

The language is still spoken in Andean nations including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In fact Marushka Chocobar, Microsoft's educational liaison person in Lima, said that more than 10 million people still speak Quechua -- many of them are poor and illiterate.

This is the first time Microsoft has translated its software to an indigenous language of Latin America, and is aimed at boosting literacy programmes in those countries.

Inca society was autocratic in the extreme with most crime sorted out by the death penalty. Criminals were thrown off a cliff, hands cut off or eyes cut out, or hung up to starve to death. Which will make Vole's licensing penalty clauses seem like a walk in the park, or perhaps not. µ