Aymara belongs to the Aymaran family (also called Jaqi or Aru), which also includes Jaqaru and Kawki, spoken in Peru's central highlands. Although it shares many structural and lexical features with Quechua due to long contact, most linguists consider this similarity areal rather than evidence of common genetic descent. Its origin is usually placed in the south-central highlands of Peru, from where it spread toward the Lake Titicaca altiplano.

The Aymara people inhabit the Andean altiplano around Lake Titicaca, spread across Bolivia, Peru and northern Chile, with roughly two to three million speakers. Their culture is deeply tied to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), the apus or achachilas (sacred mountains), and a complex high-altitude ritual and agricultural calendar. The Aymara are often linked to the legacy of the ancient Tiwanaku civilization, though the direct linguistic connection is debated.

Under Spanish rule, the Aymara region was shaped by the exploitation of the Potosí silver mines through the mita, which devastated Andean communities. The Church documented Aymara for evangelization; notable is the work of the Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio, whose Vocabulario de la lengua aymara (1612) is a fundamental source for the colonial language. Despite this pressure, Aymara communities preserved their language, their ayllus, and much of their social organization.

Aymara is an official language in Bolivia and Peru and enjoys renewed recognition, especially after Bolivia's 2009 Constitution, which made the country's Indigenous languages official. It retains high vitality in many rural altiplano communities, though in cities it suffers displacement by Spanish. There are intercultural bilingual education programs, Aymara-language media, and a strong identity dimension, reinforced by the political visibility of the Aymara people in Bolivia in recent decades.