Soledad Chango, a native of Ecuador and a graduate student in MIT’s Indigenous Language Initiative, began preparations for her Quechua course with a clear idea about its purpose. “Our language matters,” she says. “It’s worth studying and spreading.” Quechua at MIT, a new two-week introductory class hosted by MIT Global Languages during the Institute’s Independent Activities Period in January, introduced students to the basics of Kichwa, a Quechua variant that is the most widely spoken language in the Americas. The class, which featured an interactive approach, focused on oral and…