The Spanish phrase "Happy Day Teacher," left, hangs next to a white board of words in the Indigenous Quechua language, during language class at a public primary school in Licapa, Peru ...

About 10 native languages in Peru are spoken by only 20 to 200 people, one is used by some 1,500 people and the most common in the Amazon is Ashaninka, with some 400,000 speakers.

But the language’s status began to decline following the Spanish conquest of Peru. Though Spanish authorities initially tolerated Quechua, they banned it following an Indigenous rebellion in 1781.