The Borôroan languages of Brazil are Borôro and the extinct Umotína and Otuke. They are sometimes considered to form part of the proposed Macro-Jê language family, though this has been disputed. They are called the Borotuke languages by Mason (1950), a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsBororo The Bororo are indigenous people of Brazil, living in the state of Mato Grosso. They also extended into Bolivia and the Brazilian state of Goiás. The Western Bororo live around the Jauru and Cabaçal rivers. The Eastern Bororo ( Orarimogodoge ...

and Otuke.

Languages

The relationship between the languages is, * Umotina ''(†)'' *Otuke–Bororo ** Borôro **? Bororo of Cabaçal ''(†)'' ** Otuke ''(†)'',

Gorgotoqui Gorgotoqui is a currently undocumented extinct language of the Chiquitania region of the eastern Bolivian lowlands. It may have been a Bororoan languages, Bororoan language. Spellings Alternate spellings include ''Borogotoqui, Brotoqui, Corocoqui ...

''(†)'' ?

may have also been a Bororoan language.Combès, Isabelle. 2010. ''Diccionario étnico: Santa Cruz la Vieja y su entorno en el siglo XVI''. Cochabamba: Itinera-rios/Instituto Latinoamericano de Misionología. (Colección Scripta Autochtona, 4.)Combès, Isabelle. 2012. Susnik y los gorgotoquis: Efervescencia étnica en la Chiquitania (Oriente boliviano), p. 201–220. ''Indiana'', v. 29. Berlín. See Otuke for various additional varieties of the Chiquito Plains in Bolivia which may have been dialects of it, such as Kovare and Kurumina. There are other recorded groups that may have spoken languages or dialects closer to Borôro, such as Aravirá, but nothing is directly known about these languages: *Aravirá – extinct language once spoken on the Cabaçal River and

Sepotuba River The Sepotuba River is a river in the state of Mato Grosso in western Brazil. It flows through the mountainous Serra do Tapirapuã region and is a tributary of the Paraguay River. The Sepotuba River's drainage basin is an area of over or , rep ...

in Mato Grosso according to Loukotka (1968) Orari (Eastern Borôro, Orarimugodoge), listed by Loukotka as a language that was spoken on the Valhas River, Garças River, and

Madeira River The Madeira River ( pt, Rio Madeira, link=no ) is a major waterway in South America. It is estimated to be in length, while the Madeira-Mamoré is estimated near or in length depending on the measuring party and their methods. The Madeira is ...

in Mato Grosso, is another name for Bororo. Bororo of Cabaçal, which has been documented by

Johann Natterer Johann Natterer (9 November 1787 – 17 June 1843) was an Austrian natural history, naturalist and List of explorers, explorer. Family and early life Johann Natterer was born on 9 November 1787, the son of the animal-zoologist Joseph Natter ...

and Francis de Castelnau, has been identified by Camargo (2014) as a separate language distinct from Bororo proper.Camargo, Gonçalo Ochoa. 2014. ''Boe ewadaru = A língua bororo : breve histórico e elementos de gramática''.

Campo Grande Campo Grande (, ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul in the Center-West region of the country. The city is nicknamed ''Cidade Morena'' ("Swarthy City" in Portuguese) because of the reddish-brown colour ...

, MS:

Universidade Católica Dom Bosco The Dom Bosco Catholic University ( pt, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, UCDB) is a private, non-profit Catholic university, located in Campo Grande, the capital of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, in western Brazil. It is maintained by the Ca ...

(UCDB).

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items. :

Proto-language

For a list of Proto-Bororo reconstructions by , see the corresponding Portuguese article.

External relations

The Bororoan languages are commonly thought to be part of the Macro-Jê language family., Ceria & Sandalo (1995) note parallels between Bororo and the

Guaicuruan languages Guaicuruan (Guaykuruan, Waikurúan, Guaycuruano, Guaikurú, Guaicuru, Guaycuruana) is a language family spoken in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and Brazil (Mato Grosso do Sul). The speakers of the languages are often collectively called ...

. Kaufman (1994) has suggested a relationship with the

Chiquitano language Chiquitano (also ''Bésɨro'' or ''Tarapecosi'') is an indigenous language isolate spoken in the central region of Santa Cruz Department of eastern Bolivia and the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Classification Chiquitano is usually considered ...

, which Nikulin (2020) considers to be a sister of Macro-Jê. Furthermore, Nikulin (2019) has suggested that Bororoan has a relationship with the

Cariban The Cariban languages are a Language family, family of languages indigenous to northeastern South America. They are widespread across northernmost South America, from the mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes, and they are also spoken ...

and Kariri languages:Nikulin, Andrey V
The classification of the languages of the South American Lowlands: State-of-the-art and challenges / Классификация языков востока Южной Америки
Illič-Svityč (Nostratic) Seminar / Ностратический семинар, October 17, 2019. : An automated computational analysis (

ASJP The Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) is a collaborative project applying computational approaches to comparative linguistics using a database of word lists. The database is open access and consists of 40-item basic-vocabulary lists ...

4) by Müller et al. (2013)Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. also found lexical similarities between Bororoan and Cariban.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guato, Karib, Kayuvava,

Nambikwara 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. Thei ...

, and

Tupi Tupi may refer to: * Tupi people of Brazil * Tupi or Tupian languages, spoken in South America ** Tupi language, an extinct Tupian language spoken by the Tupi people * Tupi oil field off the coast of Brazil * Tupi Paulista, a Brazilian municipalit ...

language families due to contact. Cariban influence in Bororoan languages was due to the later southward expansion of Cariban speakers into Bororoan territory. Ceramic technology was also adopted from Cariban speakers. Similarly, Cariban borrowings are also present in the

Karajá languages The Karajá, also known as Iny, are an indigenous tribe located in Brazil.Karaja Indians.
''Hands Aro ...

. Karajá speakers had also adopted ceramic technology from Cariban speakers. Similarities with Cayuvava are due to the expansion of Bororoan speakers into the

Chiquitania Chiquitania ("Chiquitos" or "Gran Chiquitania") is a region of tropical savannas in the Santa Cruz Department in eastern Bolivia. Geography "Chiquitos" is the colonial name for what is now essentially five of the six provinces that make up the Chi ...

region.

Languages

Vocabulary

Proto-language

External relations

Language contact

References

Further reading