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Nambikwara

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The Nambikwara (also called Nambikuára ) is an indigenous people of Brazil , living in the Amazon . Currently about 1,200 Nambikwara live in indigenous territories in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso along the Guaporé and Juruena rivers. Their villages are accessible from the Pan-American highway.

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49-575: The Nambikwara are also known as the Alaketesu, Anunsu, Nambikuára, or Nambiquara people. The term Nambikwara is an exonym originating from the Tupi language family . Its literal meaning is 'pierced ear,' from the words nambi, "ear," and kûara, "hole." The Nambikwara speak the Southern Nambikuára language , which is a Nambiquaran language . A dictionary and grammar have been written for

98-483: A culture from Maranhão. What few cite is the presence of the Nheengatu in northeastern Brazil properly speaking. Mainly Ceará , Piauí and Rio Grande do Norte . Affirmation that proceeds as new evidence is discovered, both old and current. Thus came the case of the municipality of Monsenhor Tabosa which made the Nheengatu language official in the municipality and planned to adopt the language in municipal schools. As

147-799: A rating of 7 on the Gradual Intergenerational Interruption Scale (GIDS) (Simons and Fennig 2017). According to this scale, this classification suggests that "the population of children may use the language among themselves, but it is not being transmitted to children". According to the UNESCO Atlas of Endangered Languages of the World, Nheengatu is classified as "severely endangered". The language has recently regained some recognition and prominence after being suppressed for many years. In December 2002, Nheengatu gained official language status alongside Portuguese in

196-683: A textbook for teaching Nheengatu that Tupi Aqui makes available, along with other teaching materials, on a website hosted by the University of São Paulo. Yengatu developed from the extinct Tupinamba language and belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch of the Tupi language family. The Tupi–Guarani language family is responsible for a large and diverse group of languages, including, for example, Xeta , Siriono , Arawete , Kaapor , Kamayura , Guaja and Tapirape . Many of these languages differed years before

245-858: Is closely related to ancient Tupi , an extinct language, and to the Guarani of Paraguay , which, far from being extinct, is the most spoken language in that country and one of its official languages. According to some sources, ancient Nheengatu and Guarani were mutually intelligible in the past. Parentheses mark marginal phonemes occurring only in few words, or with otherwise unclear status. There are eight word classes in Nheengatu: nouns , verbs , adjectives , adverbs , postpositions , pronouns , demonstratives and particles. These eight word classes are also reflected in Cruz (2011)’s Fonologia e Gramática do Nheengatú . In her books, Cruz includes 5 chapters in

294-599: Is referred to by a wide variety of names in literature, including Nhengatu, Tupi Costeiro, Geral, Yeral (in Venezuela), Tupi Moderno , Nyengato, Nyengatú, Waengatu, Neegatú, Is'engatu, Língua Brasílica, Tupi Amazônico , Ñe'engatú, Nhangatu, Inhangatu, Nenhengatu, Yẽgatú, Nyenngatú, Tupi and Lingua Geral . It is also commonly referred to as the Língua Geral Amazônica (LGA) in Brazil. Belonging to

343-926: Is spoken in the Alto Rio Negro region, in the state of Amazonas , in the Brazilian Amazon and in neighboring parts of Colombia and Venezuela . As many as 19,000 Nheengatu speakers worldwide are possible, according to Ethnologue (2005), although some journalists have reported as many as 30,000. Currently, it is still spoken by around 73.31% of the 29.9 thousand inhabitants of São Gabriel da Cachoeira , in northwestern Amazonas state, Brazil ( IBGE 2000 Census), around 3000 people in Colombia and 2000 people in Venezuela, especially in Rio Negro river basin ( Uaupés and Içana rivers). Furthermore, it

392-442: Is the native language of the rural caboclo population of the area and is also used as a common language of communication between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, or between Indigenous of different languages. It is also an instrument of ethnic affirmation of Amazonian indigenous peoples who have lost their native languages, such as Barés , Arapaços, Baniuas , Uarequenas and others. Ethnologue rates Nheengatu as "changing" with

441-778: The Amazon ( Grão Pará and Maranhão ), but with the aim of deculturating the Amazon people, the Portuguese language was promoted, but without success. In the mid-18th century, the Amazon General Language (distinct from the São Paulo General Language , a similar variety used further south) was used throughout the colony. At this point, Tupinambá remained intact, but as a "liturgical language". The languages used in everyday life evolved drastically over

490-745: The Baixo Tapajós and the state of Pará , it is being revitalized by the people of the region, such as the Borari and the Tupinambá , and also among the riverside dwellers themselves. The language is spoken by approximately 20,060 people in three linguistic variants in Brazil: that of the Rio Negro region, called Yẽgatu, that of the Baixo Amazonas, known as traditional Nheengatú, and that of

539-911: The Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), and funded by the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) and the Inter-American Foundation . In this study, Moore focused on the effects of language contact, and how Nheengatu evolved over the years with the help of a Nheengatu-speaking informant. Moore (2014) urges for the “location and documentation of modern dialects of Nheengatu”, due to their risk of becoming extinct. Anthropological research has been done on

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588-573: The Northern General Language (Amazonian) and the Southern General Language (Paulista), which at its height became the dominant language of the vast Brazilian territory. An anonymous manuscript from the 18th century is emblematically titled "Dictionary of the general language of Brazil, spoken in all the towns, places, and villages of this vast State, written in the city of Pará, year 1771" . If Nheengatu

637-537: The Portuguese arrived in Brazil , they found that wherever they went along the vast coast of South America, most of the indigenous peoples spoke similar languages. Jesuit missionaries took advantage of these similarities, systematizing common standards then named línguas gerais ("general languages"), which were spoken in that region until the 19th century. The best known and most widely spoken of these languages

686-518: The Rio Negro region among the Baniwa , Baré and Warekena people, mainly in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira , in the state of Amazonas , Brazil . Since 2002 , it has been one of the state's official languages, along with Baníwa , Yepá-masã, and Portuguese. It is also spoken in the Baixo Amazonas region (in the state of Amazonas ), among the Sateré-Mawé, Maraguá and Mura people. In

735-636: The Tupinambarana island ( Parintins ), between the borders of Pará and Amazonas . The language of the Tupinambás then, as it belongs to a feared and conquering people, became a lingua franca , which in contact with the conquered languages gained its own differentiation, hence why the Arawak peoples of the Parintins region came to be called Tupinambaranas, among them, the maraguazes, the çapupés,

784-534: The 19th century, as a natural evolution of the Northern General Language (NGL) . Comparisons between Tupi, Portuguese, and Nheengatu variants: It is known that the Nheengatu originated in the Amazonian Tupinambá, a Tupi variant located more precisely in Maranhão than during Portuguese colonization, it was part of the state of Grão Pará and Maranhão . Since then, Nheengatu has also been understood as

833-558: The Baixo Rio Tapajós or Nheengatu tapajoawara. Variants outside of Brazil exist, including Nheengatu from Venezuela (Ñeengatu) and Nheengatu from Colombia (Nyengatu). Technology further helps in the language's revitalization. The language name derives from the words nhẽẽga (meaning "language" or "word") and katu (meaning "good"). The related language name Ñeꞌengatú in Paraguay is similarly derived. Thus, Nheengatu

882-670: The Cabanos, and when the rebels were defeated (1860), the Brazilian government imposed a harsh persecution of the speakers of Nheengatu. Half of the male population of Grão-Pará (Amazon) was murdered and anyone who was caught speaking in Nheengatu was punished and if they were not contacted indigenous, they were baptized by priests and received their surnames on certificates, since the priests themselves were their godparents, this resulted in people of indigenous origin with Portuguese surnames without even being heirs to colonists. The imposition of

931-539: The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil (Brazilian Constitution) promulgated in 1988, was translated into Nheengatu for the first time. Language documentation agencies (such as SOAS , Museu do Índio , Museu Goeldi and Dobes ) are currently not engaged in any language documentation project for Nheengatu. However, research on Nheengatu by Moore (1994) was supported by Museu Goeldi and

980-765: The Morphology section that describes lexical classes, nominal and verbal lexicogenesis, the structure of the noun phrase and grammatical structures. In the section on lexical classes, Cruz discusses personal pronominal prefixes, nouns and their subclasses (including personal, anaphoric and demonstrative pronouns as well as relative nouns), verbs and their subclasses (such as stative, transitive and intransitive verbs) and adverbial expressions. The subsequent chapter on nominal lexicogenesis discusses endocentric derivation, nominalization and nominal composition. Under verbal lexicogenesis in Chapter 7, Cruz covers valency, reduplication and

1029-509: The Northeast try to learn the language not only because they think it is beautiful, but because it has "always been" part of the native regional culture. Over the course of its evolution since its beginnings as Tupinambá, extensive research has been done on Nheengatu. There have been studies done at each phase of its evolution, but much has been focused on how aspects of Nheengatu, such as its grammar or phonology, have changed upon contact over

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1078-587: The Portuguese language this time had an effect and with the advent of Portuguese schools, the population was shepherded to the new language. Also in the 20th century, due to economic and political events, such as the Amazon Rubber boom (coming from huge waves of settlers from the Northeast, encouraged by the government, to the Amazon), the presence was felt again due to these events, forcing indigenous peoples to move or be subjected to forced labor. The language

1127-471: The Portuguese settlers in the Amazon, so much so that the Portuguese themselves adapted to the native language. "To speak or converse in the colony of Grão Pará, I had to use Nheengatu, if not, I would be talking to myself since no one used Portuguese, except in the government palace in Belém and among the Portuguese themselves." The General Language was established as the official language from 1689 to 1727 in

1176-649: The Tupi-Guarani linguistic family, Nheengatu emerged in the 18th century, descending from the now-extinct Amazonian Tupinambá, a regional Tupi variant that originated in the Odisseia Tupínambá. The exodus of that nation that, fleeing from Portuguese invaders on the Bahia coast, entered the Amazon and settled first in Maranhão, and from there to the bay of Guajará ( Belém ), the mouth of the Tapajós river to

1225-631: The Tupinambá language. Efforts to communicate between communities resulted in the "corruption" of the Tupinambá language, hence the distinction between Tupinambá and the Amazonian general language. Nheengatu continued to evolve as it expanded into the Alto Rio Negro region. There was contact with other languages such as Marawá, Baníwa, Warekana, Tucano and Dâw (Cabalzar; Ricardo 2006 in Cruz 2015). The General Language evolved into two branches,

1274-579: The best known are Tupi proper and Guarani . Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere between the Guaporé and Aripuanã rivers, in the Madeira River basin. Much of this area corresponds to the modern-day state of Rondônia , Brazil. Five of the ten Tupian branches are found in this area, as well as some Tupi–Guarani languages (especially Kawahíb ), making it

1323-399: The borrowing of loanwords from Portuguese. The following chapter then discusses the distinction between particles and clitics, including examples and properties of each grammatical structure. There are two types of pronouns in Nheengatu: personal or interrogative. Nheengatu follows the same pattern as Tupinambá, in that the same set of personal pronouns is adopted for the subject and object of

1372-469: The century due to contact with the language, with Tupinambá as the “language of rituals, and Amazonian General Language, the language of popular communication and therefore of religious instruction.” Moore (2014) notes that by the mid-18th century, the Amazon and Tupinambá General Languages were already distinct. Until then, the original Tupinambá community was facing a decline, but other speaking communities were still required by Portuguese missionaries to learn

1421-507: The changing cultural landscapes along the Amazon, as well as life of the Tupinambá people and their interactions with the Jesuits. Floyd (2007) describes how populations navigate between their “traditional” and “acculturated” spheres. Other studies have focused on the impact of urbanization on Indigenous populations in the Amazon (de Oliveira 2001). In addition to the previously mentioned general language of São Paulo , now extinct, Nheengatu

1470-586: The course of its evolution from Tupinambá (Cruz 2015). Cruz (2014) also studies reduplication in Nheengatu in detail, as well as morphological fission in bitransitive constructions. A proper textbook for the conducting of Nheengatu classes has also been written. Lima and Sirvana (2017) provides a sociolinguistic study of Nheengatu in the Pisasu Sarusawa community of the Baré people, in Manaus, Amazonas. In 2023,

1519-412: The curiatós, the Parintins and the saterés themselves. Already with the Amazon conquered by the Portuguese, a fact that occurred from 1600, and having established a colony at the beginning of the 17th century, the so-called state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, whose capital Belém was named Cidade dos Tupinambás or Tupinãbá marií, Franciscan and Jesuit priests, aiming at catechism from that language, elaborated

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1568-456: The expense of their own, as well as peoples like Hanera, better known as Baré, became a Nheengatu speaker, which led to the extinction of their own language or the Maraguá people, who even a historical speaker of Nheengatu recently sought to revitalize their own language and today they learn Maraguá along with Nheengatu in local schools. The number of speakers of other languages vastly outnumbered

1617-401: The following basic vocabulary items. Nheengatu language The Nheengatu or Nenhengatu language ( Tupi: [ɲɛʔɛ̃ŋaˈtu] , Nheengatu from Rio Negro: yẽgatu , Traditional Nheengatu: nhẽẽgatú , and Tapajoawaran Nheengatu: nheẽgatu ), or Nenhengatu , also known as Modern Tupi and Amazonic Tupi , is a Tupi–Guarani language . It is spoken throughout

1666-455: The grammar and their own orthography, although Latinized, which resulted in the northern general language, or general Amazonian language, (a name still used today), whose development took place parallel to that of São Paulo general language (extinct). Since then, Nheengatu has spread throughout the Amazon as an instrument of colonization, Portuguese domain and linguistic standardization, where many peoples started to have it as their main language at

1715-454: The independence of Brazil in 1822, even though Grão-Pará (Amazon) is a separate Portuguese colony, its local rulers decided to integrate into the new country, which greatly displeased the inhabitants of indigenous origin who were the majority of the people in general, which later led the Amazon to an independence revolution that lasted for 10 years. The second ban on the language came right after this revolution better known as Cabanagem or War of

1764-520: The invasion of Portuguese colonizers to the territory now known as Brazil. Over time, the term "Tupinamba" was used to describe groups that were "linguistically and culturally related", even though the original people almost disappeared. Taking personal pronouns as an example, see a comparison between Brazilian Portuguese , Old Tupi , and Nheengatu: Brazilian philologist specialized in Nheengatu, Eduardo de Almeida Navarro , argues that Yengatu, with its current characteristics, would only have emerged in

1813-551: The language, which is written in the Latin script . The Nambikwara were first contacted in 1770 (254 years ago)  ( 1770 ) but did not experience prolonged contact with Europeans until the early 20th century, when Brazilian army official Marechal Cândido Rondon passed through Nambikwara territory to extend the telegraph lines. He estimated that there were around 10,000 Nambikwara. Shortly after contact with European Brazilians epidemics of measles and smallpox decimated

1862-416: The local newspaper says: “The municipal council of Monsenhor Tabosa unanimously approved a bill that recognizes the native language Tupi-Nheengatu as the co-official language of the municipality. The legal text has already been sanctioned by Mayor Salomão de Araújo Souza, who is a descendant of indigenous peoples”. As in the municipality of Monsenhor Tabosa, the number of indigenous people and descendants from

1911-460: The most divergent branches are listed first, followed by the core branches. Meira and Drude (2015) posit a branch uniting Mawé and Aweti with Tupi-Guarani, also known as Maweti-Guarani . Purubora may form a branch together with Ramarama . Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016): († = extinct) Galucio et al. (2015) give the following phylogenetic tree of Tupian, based on a computational phylogenetic analysis. Loukotka (1968) lists

1960-534: The municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira in accordance with local law 145/2002. Now Nheengatu is one of the four official languages of the municipality. In 1998, University of São Paulo professor Eduardo de Almeida Navarro founded the Tupi Aqui organization dedicated to promoting the teaching of historical Tupi and Nheengatu in high schools in São Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil. Professor Navarro wrote

2009-557: The part of the Portuguese government, during the administration of the Marquis of Pombal , who intended to impose the Portuguese language in the Amazon and make the names of places Portuguese. Hence, why many places have their names changed from nheengatu to names of places and cities in Portugal, thus appearing names that today make up Amazonian municipalities such as Santarém, Aveiro, Barcelos, Belém, Óbidos, Faro, Alenquer and Moz. With

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2058-594: The population to only 500 around 1930. The culture of the Nambikwara was the subject of studies by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss , which were later analyzed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his work Of Grammatology . The Nambikuara Nation is composed of many smaller bands which each have their own name. Tupi language family The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America , of which

2107-782: The probable urheimat of these languages and maybe of its speaking peoples. Rodrigues believes the Proto-Tupian language dates back to around 3,000 BC. Tupian languages have extensively influenced many language families in South America. Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arawa , Bora-Muinane , Guato , Irantxe , Jivaro , Karib , Kayuvava , Mura-Matanawi , Taruma , Trumai , Yanomami , Harakmbet , Katukina-Katawixi , Arawak , Bororo , Karaja , Macro-Mataguayo-Guaykuru , Takana , Nadahup , and Puinave-Kak language families due to contact. When

2156-630: The spread of Spanish more successfully than Tupi resisted Portuguese . Today, Guarani has seven million speakers, and is one of the official languages of Paraguay . The Tupian family also includes several other languages with fewer speakers. These share irregular morphology with the Je and Carib families, and Rodrigues connects them all as a Je–Tupi–Carib family. Rodrigues & Cabral (2012) list ten branches of Tupian, which cluster into Western Tupian and Eastern Tupian. Within Western and Eastern Tupian,

2205-476: The years (Mello 1967, Grenand and Epaminondas 1989, Barbosa 1951). More recently, Stradelli (2014) also published a Portuguese-Nheengatu dictionary. There have also been several linguistic studies of Nheengatu more recently, such as Borges (1991)’s thesis on Nheengatu phonology and Cruz (2011)’s detailed paper on the phonology and grammar of Nheengatu. She also studied the rise of number agreement in modern Nheengatu, by analyzing how grammaticalization occurred over

2254-464: The years. (Facundes et al. 1994 and Rodrigues 1958, 1986). As mentioned earlier, the first documents that were produced were by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Arte da Grammatica da Lingoa mais usada na costa do Brasil by Father José de Anchieta (1595) and Arte da Língua Brasilíca by Luis Figueira (1621). These were detailed grammars that served their religious purposes. Multiple dictionaries have also been written over

2303-401: Was Old Tupi , a modern descendant of which is still used today by indigenous peoples around the Rio Negro region, where it is known as Nheengatu ( [ɲɛʔẽŋaˈtu] ), or the "good language". However, the Tupi family also comprises other languages. In the neighbouring Spanish colonies, Guarani , another Tupian language closely related to Old Tupi, had a similar history, but managed to resist

2352-472: Was again influenced by the increased presence of Portuguese speakers. Nheengatu remained mainly among the most distant inhabitants of the urban centers, in the families descended from the cabanos and among unconquered peoples. Furthermore, "tapuios" (ribeirinhos) kept their accent and part of their speech tied to their language. Until 1920 it was common for Nheengatu to be used in traditional commercial centers in Manaus, Santarém, Parintins, and Belém. Nheengatu

2401-399: Was the major obstacle for the cultural and linguistic domination of Portuguese in the region, the colonizers saw that it was necessary to take it away from the people and impose the Portuguese language, which at first was not successful since the general language was very well rooted both among indigenous people and in the speech of blacks and whites themselves. The language had its first ban on

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