Quechua is an Amerindian tongue spoken by the Indian populations of South America. Quechua was the language of the ancient Incas and today continues to be spoken by over 10 million people. The Quechua language was once used throughout South America from as far north as Ecuador and southern Colombia to Peru and Bolivia and ranging as far south as northern Chile and the northwestern parts of Argentina. Quechua was pushed beyond the boundaries of the Inca Empire by the Catholic Church which used it for proselytizing the Indians in and around the Andes. The dialect of Quechua spoken in Colombia and Ecuador, which is also called Quechua, is not intelligible to the majority of Quechua speakers elsewhere and may be properly classified as separate language. Generally speaking, all Quechua dialects are considered a single language making Quechua the America's most widely spoken Indian language. Along with Aymara and Spanish, Quechua has official status in both Bolivia and Peru.