Quechan or Kwtsaan (/kʷt͡sa:n/, Kwatsáan Iiyáa),[2] also known as Yuma, is the native language of the Quechan people of southeastern California and southwestern Arizona in the Lower Colorado River Valley and Sonoran Desert.

[3] In 1980, it was estimated that there were fewer than 700 speakers of the language, including both the elderly and young.

[7] Quechan speakers participate in the Yuman Family Language Summit, held annually since 2001.

Golding says, "The songs are all sung in the language, so if you're not learning and picking up the language, then you won't be able to understand the songs ... there are actually words telling stories..."[9] Assistance is available for speakers of the language who wish to vote in elections in Imperial County, California and Yuma County, Arizona, under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Quechan has five vowel phonemes, which all occur in short and long forms.

Vowel length is contrastive, as shown in ʔa·vé "snake" versus ʔa·vé· "mouse".

A variety of processes affect the realization of sounds in Quechan, a few of which are listed below.

Themes are structures consisting of unanalyzable root morphemes that form the basis of Quechan words.

The following suffix combinations are found (with -nʸ representing the demonstrative suffixes): Quechan verbs convey most meaning in sentences, including indication of notional and grammatical relationships, in contrast to nouns which are comparatively simple in content.

Verbs typically consist of a theme and two nonthematic elements, a pronominal prefix and a predicative suffix as in ʔayú·k "I see", which is composed of first person pronominal prefix ʔ + "to see" ayú + present-past suffix ·k.

Some verb stems can be reduplicated to add the meaning of repetitive or intermittent activity.

[13] Like other Yuman languages, Quechan features switch-reference by which two clauses can be linked with markers specifying whether their subjects are the same or different.

[13] The following is an excerpt from a traditional Quechan story called "The Man Who Bothered Ants.