What did the Incans call themselves?

I know that the term Inca refers to the Emperor himself; using the term Inca Empire is like calling Rome the Caesarean Empire.

What is the correct term? Peruvian? Cuscan?
 
From Wikepedia

The Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu in Quechua) was an empire that existed in South America from about 1200 until the death of the last emperor Atahualpa at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadores in 1533. The empire included regions as far north as southern Colombia and Ecuador, all of Peru and Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. Its capital was the modern-day city of Cuzco (Quechua for "Navel of the World"), in what today is Peru. This great empire covered many different nations and harboured over seven hundred different languages.
 
Since the Inca originated among the Quechua (both an ethnic and lingusitic group), it is reasonable to presume that they may also have referred to themselves as "Quechua" as opposed to ther tribes and linguistic groups they ruled. There is no evidence the name "Tawantinsuyu" was conceived as a country or empire name in the same way modern people use the terms "Germany" or "the USSR". Nor is there evidence neighboring peoples used this term for the Inca Empire. It was more a vainglorious description of their realm used by the Inca and related nobility. One was not a "subject" of Tawantinsuyu. One was subject to the Inca, the Inca state apparatus, the lesser nobility, and linneage groups to which one belonged.
 
zoomar said:
Since the Inca originated among the Quechua (both an ethnic and lingusitic group), it is reasonable to presume that they may also have referred to themselves as "Quechua" as opposed to ther tribes and linguistic groups they ruled.

But do the Quechua call themselves Quechua?

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9860/ketxua.html said:
The Quechua people call themselves Runa, "the people".

http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/spc/GRANBER1.SPK said:
Inca Unitary life still survives in the Andean highlands of Peru, where the Group transcends the individual and village and family welfare comes first. They still call themselves Runa, The People, and look forward to a time when their time-honored values will once again govern their land. They refer to Quechua as Runa Simi, Human Speech, and to Spanish as Alqo Simi, Animal Language.
 
Duncan said:
But do the Quechua call themselves Quechua?

Good point. I stand corrected for sloppy and careless scholarship - or failing to remember what I should have known!
 
fortyseven said:
Don't people call themselves whatever "people" is in their own language.

Absolutely. I understand that the people we call "Americans" actually refer to themselves as "The Folks". And my own people, though called "English" by ignorant foreigners, call ourselves "JollyGoodChaps" in our own dialect.
 
Duncan said:
Absolutely. I understand that the people we call "Americans" actually refer to themselves as "The Folks". And my own people, though called "English" by ignorant foreigners, call ourselves "JollyGoodChaps" in our own dialect.

Good point. Generally only small and "primitive" cultures use a variant of "the people" as their name for themselves. Oh, and you have it wrong. We so-called "Americans" call ourselves "The-Only-Real-Men-and-God's-Gift-to-the Whole-World-now-get-out-our-way-or-you're-toast-with-a-capital-T-People".
 
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