President Evo Morales and executives from the world's largest software company will gather Friday in the colonial city of Sucre for the local launch of Windows and Office software in the Andean tongue of Quechua.

"The translation of these technologies into Quechua helps to re-value the language so that it will not be lost over time," Javier Medrano, spokesman for Microsoft's Bolivia operations, said Wednesday.

First launched in Peru in June and now available for download online, the software is a simple patch that translates the familiar Microsoft menus and commands into Quechua.

For example, "file" becomes "quipu" _ the name of an ancient Incan practice of recording information in an intricate system of knotted strings.

Quechua is spoken by 2.6 million Bolivians _ nearly 30 percent of the population _ and 10 million people throughout South America.

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