The Cumanagoto people are a group of Native Americans in South America . Their language belongs to the Carib language family . Their territory extended originally over the ancient province of Nueva Andalucía ( Cumaná and Barcelona ) in eastern Venezuela , and their descendants live now in the north of Anzoátegui State , Venezuela .
18-513: The Cumanagotos lived in northeastern Venezuela at the time of the Spanish incursion. Since the 17th century they have not existed as a tribal or governmental unit. The Cumanagoto spoke a Cariban language , related to that of the Palenque . They were agricultural, growing maize , manioc , sweet potatoes , and other native crops, as well as coca trees . They also gathered wild foods, and hunting
36-622: A handful of words. Dominica is the only island in the eastern Caribbean to retain some of its pre-Columbian population, descendants of the Carib Indians, about 3,000 of whom live on the island's east coast. The Cariban languages share irregular morphology with the Jê and Tupian families. Ribeiro connects them all in a Je–Tupi–Carib family. Meira, Gildea, & Hoff (2010) note that likely morphemes in proto-Tupian and proto-Cariban are good candidates for being cognates, but that work so far
54-597: A relationship with Macro-Jê . Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Bororo , Tupi , and Karib language families due to contact. An automated computational analysis ( ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities between Guató and the Zamucoan languages . However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances. Today, Guató
72-454: Is insufficient to make definitive statements. Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guato , Kawapana , Nambikwara , Taruma , Warao , Arawak , Bororo , Jeoromitxi , Karaja , Rikbaktsa , and Tupi language families due to contact. Extensive lexical similarities between Cariban and various Macro-Jê languages suggest that Cariban languages had originated in
90-533: Is not closely related. According to Kaufman (2007), "Except for Opon, Yukpa, Pimenteira and Palmela (and possibly Panare), the Cariban languages are not very diverse phonologically and lexically (though more so than Romance, for example)." Good data has been collected around ca. 2000 on most Cariban languages; classifications prior to that time (including Kaufman 2007, which relies on the earlier work) are unreliable. Several such classifications have been published;
108-802: Is spoken in Guató Indigenous Territory and Baía dos Guató Indigenous Territory. Loukotka (1968) reported that in Mato Grosso do Sul , Brazil, Guató is spoken on the banks of the Paraguay River and up the São Lourenço River , along the Bolivian border. It is also spoken at Uberaba Lake in Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia) . The Guató vowel system, like that of Macro-Jê languages, collapses
126-609: The Lower Amazon region (rather than in the Guiana Highlands ). There they were in contact with early forms of Macro-Jê languages, which were likely spoken in an area between the Parecis Plateau and upper Araguaia River . The Cariban languages are closely related. In many cases where one of the languages is more distinct, this is due to influence from neighboring languages rather than an indication that it
144-470: The Upper Xingu ). Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016): ( † = extinct) Below is a full list of Cariban language varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties. Western languages : Caraib / Calinago / Karib – language spoken by the insular and continental Caraibes, with many dialects: Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for
162-544: The Cariban (Karaib) languages. Proto-Cariban phonology according to Gildea (2012): Proto-Cariban reconstructions by Gildea (2007, 2012): Guato language Guató is a possible language isolate spoken by 1% of the Guató people of Brazil. Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages , but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro. Martins (2011) also suggests
180-406: The Cariban languages according to Sérgio Meira (2006): As of Gildea (2012), there had not yet been time to fully reclassify the Cariban languages based on the new data. The list here is therefore tentative, though an improvement over the one above; the most secure branches are listed first, and only two of the extinct languages are addressed. Meira, Birchall & Chousou-Polydouri (2015) give
198-593: The city of Cagua in Aragua State is said to derive from the Cumanagoto word for snail, Cahigua . This article related to an ethnic group in South America is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Cariban languages The Cariban languages are a family of languages indigenous to north-eastern South America . They are widespread across northernmost South America, from
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#1732783587223216-654: The family— Hixkaryana —has a default word order of object–verb–subject . Prior to their discovery of this, linguists believed that this order did not exist in any spoken natural language . In the 16th century, Cariban peoples expanded into the Lesser Antilles . There they killed or displaced, and also mixed with the Arawak peoples who already inhabited the islands. The resulting language— Kalhíphona or Island Carib —was Carib in name but largely Arawak in substance. The Carib male conquerors took Arawak women as wives, and
234-572: The following phylogenetic tree of Cariban, based on a computational phylogenetic analysis of 100-item Swadesh lists . Meira, Birchall & Chousou-Polydouri (2015) conclude that the Proto-Cariban homeland was located north of the Amazon River , and that there is no evidence for a northward migration from the south, as previously proposed by Rodrigues (1985). Rather there were two southern migrations ( Pekodian and Nahukwa into
252-554: The latter passed on their own language on to the children. For a time, Arawak was spoken by women and children and Carib by adult men, but as each generation of Carib-Arawak boys reached adulthood, they acquired less Carib until only basic vocabulary and a few grammatical elements were left. That form of Island Carib became extinct in the Lesser Antilles in the 1920s, but it survives as Garífuna , or "Black Carib," in Central America . The gender distinction has dwindled to only
270-496: The mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes , and they are also spoken in small pockets of central Brazil. The languages of the Cariban family are relatively closely related. There are about three dozen, but most are spoken only by a few hundred people. Macushi is the only language among them with numerous speakers, estimated at 30,000. The Cariban family is well known among linguists partly because one language in
288-462: The one shown here, by Derbyshire (1999) divides Cariban into seven branches. A traditional geographic classification into northern and southern branches is cross referenced with (N) or (S) after each language. The extinct Patagón de Perico language of northern Peru also appears to have been a Cariban language, perhaps close to Carijona. Yao is so poorly attested that Gildea believes it may never be classified. Preliminary internal classification of
306-567: The sun and moon. The Cumanagotos also valued frogs, as they saw the animal to be the god of waters. Therefore, they did not kill frogs, instead choosing to keep them as pets, but whipping them in the case of an extended winter or little rainfall. The short-lived Province of New Catalonia (1633-1654), founded by Joan Orpí , was also known as the Province of the Cumanagotos . It was absorbed into New Andalusia Province in 1654. The name of
324-410: Was important. Domesticated animals were uncommon, except for turkeys . Their villages often had wooden palisades for defense. Dress was minimal, consisting of a small genital covering and decorative ornaments of feathers, pearls, gold, shell, clay beads, coral beads, bones, teeth, or flowers. Polygyny was practiced by chiefs, whose wives lived together in a kind of harem. Religion centered on worship of
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