Guató is a possible

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

spoken by 1% of the

Guató people The Guató are an indigenous people living on the upper Paraguay River, along the border of modern-day Brazil and Bolivia. They aided the Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the la ...

of Brazil.

Classification

Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the

Macro-Jê languages Macro-Jê (also spelled Macro-Gê) is a medium-sized language stock in South America, mostly in Brazil but also in the Chiquitanía region in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as well as (formerly) in small parts of Argentina and Paraguay. It is centered o ...

, but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro. Martins (2011) also suggests a relationship with Macro-Jê.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the

Bororo 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 ...

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 ...

, and Karib language families due to contact. 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)
'. found lexical similarities between Guató and the

Zamucoan languages Zamucoan (also Samúkoan) is a small language family of Paraguay (northeast Chaco) and Bolivia (Santa Cruz Department). The family has hardly been studied by linguists (as of Adelaar & Muysken 2004), although several studies have recently appe ...

. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances.

Distribution

Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul () is one of the Midwestern states of Brazil. Neighboring Brazilian states are (from north clockwise) Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay, to the southwest, and ...

, Brazil, Guató is spoken on the banks of the

Paraguay River The Paraguay River (Río Paraguay in Spanish, Rio Paraguai in Portuguese, Ysyry Paraguái in Guarani) is a major river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. It flows about from its headwaters in ...

and up the São Lourenço River, along the Bolivian border. It is also spoken at

Uberaba Lake __NOTOC__ Uberaba Lake is a lake in the Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia and Mato Grosso, Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin ...

Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia) Santa Cruz () is the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia, occupying about one-third (33.74%) of the country's territory. With an area of , it is slightly smaller than Japan or the US state of Montana. It is located in the e ...

Phonology

The Guató vowel system, like that of Macro-Jê languages, collapses a three-way distinction of height in oral vowels to two in nasal vowels.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Guató. : For more extensive vocabulary lists of Guató by Palácio (1984)Martins, Andérbio Márcio Silva. 2011. ''Uma avaliação da hipótese de relações genéticas entre o Guató e o tronco Macro-Jê''. Dissertação doutoral, Universidade de Brasília. and Postigo (2009),Postigo, Adriana Viana. 2009. ''Fonologia da língua Guató''. Dissertação de mestrado. Três Lagoas: Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul. see the corresponding Portuguese article.

References

*Alain Fabre, 2005, ''Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: GUATÓ'

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guato language Macro-Jê languages Languages of Brazil Indigenous languages of South America (Central) Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas Language isolates of South America