Mẽbêngôkre, sometimes referred to as Kayapó (Mẽbêngôkre: ''Mẽbêngôkre kabẽn'' ) is a
Northern Jê language (
Jê,
Macro-Jê) spoken by the
Kayapó and the
Xikrin people in the north of
Mato Grosso and
Pará
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...
in Brazil.
There are around 8,600 native speakers since 2010 based on the 2015 Ethnologue 18th edition. Due to the number of speakers and the influence of
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
speakers, the language stands at a sixth level of endangerment; in which the materials for literacy and education in Mẽbêngôkre are very limited.
Ethnography
The Mẽbêngôkre language is currently spoken by two
ethnic groups, the
Kayapó and the
Xikrin, which, besides sharing a language in common, both use the
endonym ''Mẽbêngôkre'' (literally “those from the hole of the water”
[Verswijver, Gustaff. "Kayapó." ''Enciclopédia dos Povos Indígenas no Brasil''. 2002.
<https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/Kayapô/print> Accessed 30 September 2016.
] "Although there are differences between the dialects spoken among the various ethnic groups, all recognize themselves as participants in a common culture.") to refer to themselves and to their language.
They are also sometimes regarded as major subdivisions of a single ethnic group, the Mẽbêngôkre.
The label ''Kayapó'' (also spelled ''Caiapó'' or ''Kayapô'') has at times been used synonymously with ''Mẽbêngôkre'' in the literature — that is, it has been taken to refer both to the Kayapó (stricto sensu) and to the Xikrin, as well as to the linguistic varieties spoken by these groups. In order to avoid ambiguity (and further confusion with the
Southern Kayapó, yet another ethnic group which spoke
a not very closely related language of the Jê family), the term ''Mẽbêngôkre'' is preferred in this article (unless a reference is made to the Kayapó as opposed to the Xikrin). The term ''Kayapó'', whose original reference was restricted to the aforementioned
Southern Kayapó, is an
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
of unknown origin. It has been sometimes etymologized as a
Tupi-Guarani word meaning “those who look like monkeys”, but this has been disputed.
The first historical records of the Mẽbêngôkre language and culture made by Westerners date back to the end of the 19th century, when the French explorer
Henri Coudreau
Henri Anatole Coudreau (6 May 1859 Sonnac – 10 November 1899, State of Pará, Brazil) was a French professor of history and geography, explorer and geographer of French Guiana and the tributaries of the Amazon.
Exploration of the Amazon
At ...
came in contact with the Mẽbêngôkre-speaking Irã'ãmrãnhre group. Some records were made by the missionaries who arrived to Brazil later in the century to Christianize the indigenous people. Known authors of that period include Father Sebastião and Reverend Horace Banner, who lived among another Mẽbêngôkre (Kayapó) group known as Gorotire between 1937 and 1951.
Although, “the Mebengokre
ave been inpermanent contact with the surrounding non-indigenous population at various times, in most cases
here have beencatastrophic consequences.
The Irã'ãmrãnhre are now extinct, and the population of the Gorotire group decreased by 80% during the first years of contact. Following such brutal experiences, some small groups refused to be approached by investigators and remain uncontacted around the Xingu and Curuá rivers.
Since the exploration period, academic linguists and anthropologists have investigated the Mẽbêngôkre and have successfully acquired a body of knowledge about this indigenous group. Since the early writings on the grammar of Mẽbêngôkre by the
Summer Institute of Linguistics
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...
missionaries Stout and Thomson (1974), multiple academic researchers have worked on the language, including Marília Ferreira, Maria Amélia Reis Silva, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Lucivaldo Silva da Costa, and Edson de Freitas Gomes. A translation of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
into Mẽbêngôkre was published in 1996, and there are literary works including myth and ritual stories and descriptions of the Mẽbêngôkre speaking communities.
Furthermore, the Brazilian organization ProDocult began a documentation project of the Kayapó language and culture in April 2009 and thus far have produced "150 hours of video recording, 15 hours of audio recording and more than 6,000 digital photos, in addition to ... films
ontainingrecords of "culture" Mebengokre, and how could it be ... highly dynamic
n its
N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
creative aspect."
Phonology
The phonological inventory of Mẽbêngôkre is composed of 16 consonants and 17 vowels,
including oral and nasal vowels. Mẽbêngokre has a series of voiced oral stops, which makes it unique among the Northern Jê languages in employing the feature
oicefor establishing phonological oppositions. All other Northern Jê languages lost Proto-Northern Jê voiced obstruents through devoicing.
Consonants
The consonant /d/ (as in ''jaduj'' 'short', ''krwỳdy'' 'beak') is exceedingly rare; /t͡ʃ/ (as in ''xãn'' 'cat', ''jaxwe'' 'naughtly') is rare in the onset position. The consonant /ɾ/ in the coda position is always followed by an epenthetic
echo vowel
An echo vowel, also known as a synharmonic vowel, is a paragogic vowel that repeats the final vowel in a word in speech. For example, in Chumash, when a word ends with a glottal stop and comes at the end of an intonation unit, the final vowel is ...
, which may be an exact copy of the preceding vowel or
(if the preceding vowel is /a/ or sometimes /ɔ ʌ/). That way, the words /paɾ/ 'his/her foot' and /puɾ/ 'garden' are pronounced
paɾi puɾu(and written ''pari'', ''puru'').
Vowels
The vowels /ã/ (as in ''mrã'' 'to walk', ''xãn'' 'cat') and /ũ/ (as in ''tũm'' 'old') are rare and mostly go back to earlier oral vowels /a/ and /u/ in certain environments. The vowel /ɯ̃/ (as in ''nhỹ'' 'to sit') is also somewhat rare.
In some analyses, Mẽbêngôkre has five
diphthongs which occur word-finally only: ''uwa'' /uᵊ/, ''ija'' /iᵊ/, ''eje'' /ɛᵊ/, ''ôwa'' /oᵊ/, ''ĩja'' /ĩᵊ/. These are realized phonetically as
uwa ija ɛjɛ owa ĩj̃ã Other authors analyze them as monophthongs followed by a glide (/w/ or /j/) in the coda position, which is followed by an epenthetic
echo vowel
An echo vowel, also known as a synharmonic vowel, is a paragogic vowel that repeats the final vowel in a word in speech. For example, in Chumash, when a word ends with a glottal stop and comes at the end of an intonation unit, the final vowel is ...
. Some examples follow.
Syllable structure
The maximal syllable structure of Mẽbêngôkre is /CCCVC/. Any consonant may occur as a simple onset. Complex onsets may by formed by a combination of one of /p b m k ŋ/ and one of /ɾ j/ (''pr-, br-, mr-, kr-, ngr-, pj-, mj-, bj-, kj-, ngj-''); /t n ɾ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ɲ k ŋ kɾ ŋɾ/ can also combine with /w/ (''tw-, nw-, rw-, xw-, djw-, nhw-, kw-, ngw-, krw-, ngrw-''). The coda may be any of /p t t͡ʃ k m n ɲ ɾ j/ (in analyses which do not recognize the existence of diphthongs, also /w/).
Stress
In Mẽbêngôkre, the stress is fixed on the final underlying syllable. Epenthetic vowels (
echo vowel
An echo vowel, also known as a synharmonic vowel, is a paragogic vowel that repeats the final vowel in a word in speech. For example, in Chumash, when a word ends with a glottal stop and comes at the end of an intonation unit, the final vowel is ...
s) are absent from the phonological representation and are thus unstressed (as in ''pari'' /paɾ/
paɾi'his/her foot'). In diphthongs, the leftmost element is stressed (as in ''ngija'' /ŋiᵊ/
ŋija'skunk'). The diminutive clitic ''-re'' is unstressed, as in ''ngôre''
ŋoɾɛ'his/her louse'.
Morphology
Finiteness morphology
As in all other Northern Jê languages, Mẽbêngôkre verbs inflect for
finiteness and thus have a basic opposition between a ''finite'' form and a ''nonfinite form''. Finite forms are used in matrix clauses only, whereas nonfinite forms are used in all types of subordinate clauses as well as in some matrix clauses (with a particular aspectual interpretation). The morphology associated with the finite/nonfinite distinction includes suffixation and/or prefix substitution.
Some verbs lack an overt finiteness distinction.
The following nonfinite suffixes occur in the language: ''-rV'' (the most common option, found in many transitive and intransitive verbs) and its allomorph ''-n'' (following front nasal vowels), ''-nh'' (found chiefly in transitive verbs), as well as ''-k'', ''-m'', and ''-x'' (found in a handful of intransitive verbs).
In a handful of verbs, all of which end in an underlying stop, the nonfinite form does not receive any overt suffixes, but it is nevertheless distinct from the finite form because the latter
lenites the stem-final consonant (''-t'', ''-k'' → ''-rV'', ''-rV'').
Erstwhile palatalizing prefix
A small set of verbs form their nonfinite forms by employing one of the aforementioned processes and a morphophonological process whereby the onset of the stressed syllable changes to ''dj'', ''’'', or is deleted, whereas the nucleus of the stressed syllable is raised (if possible). This has been attributed to the influence of an underlying palatalizing nonfinite prefix in
Proto-Northern Jê.
Prefix substitution or loss
In addition to the aforementioned processes, the finiteness inflection may involve prefix substitution or loss. For example, the valency-reducing prefixes are ''a(j)-'' (
anticausative
An anticausative verb ( abbreviated ) is an intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject, while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event. The single argument of the anticausative verb (its subject) is a ...
) and ''a-'' (
antipassive
The antipassive voice (abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency ...
) in finite verb forms, but ''bi-'' and ''djà-/dju-'', respectively, in the nonfinite forms.
In addition, some verbs which denote physiological activities or movement have a prefix (''i-'' and ''wa-'', respectively) in their finite forms but not in the nonfinite form.
Person inflection and case
In Mẽbêngôkre,
postposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s, and
relational nouns inflect for person of their
internal argument by taking
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
or
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
person prefixes. The accusative series is required by a subclass of transitive verbs (in finite clauses only) as well as by some postpositions; the absolutive series is the default one and is found with most transitive and all intransitive verbs in finite clauses, with all verbs in nonfinite clauses, with all relational nouns, and with some postpositions. External arguments of verbs are not indexed by person prefixes but are rather encoded by
nominative (unmarked)
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s (including
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s) in finite clauses, or by
ergative phrases in nonfinite clauses. In nouns, nominative, absolutive and accusative are unmarked, whereas the ergative case is marked by the
ergative postposition ''te''.
The person prefixes which index the internal argument of verbs, postpositions, and nouns are as follows.
The nominative and ergative forms of the pronouns are as follows.
The pronouns have also an emphatic form, which is used when a pronoun is
focalized and can also be considered a grammatical case on its own.
Nominative case
The nominative case expresses the subject of a transitive or intransitive verb.
Ergative case
The ergative case marks the
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
of a transitive verb in a
nonfinite form and may cooccur with a nominative pronoun expressing the same participant.
Absolutive case
In nonfinite clauses, the absolutive case encodes the sole participant (subject) in intransitive verbs and the
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
in transitive verbs.
It is also used to encode the
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
of some transitive verbs in their
finite
Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to:
* Finite number (disambiguation)
* Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number
* Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
form (except for monosyllabic verbs compatible with overt nonfiniteness morphology, which take accusative objects), as well as the possessors of nouns and the complements of some postpositions.
Accusative case
The accusative case encodes the
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
of monosyllabic transitive verbs compatible with overt nonfiniteness morphology in
finite
Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to:
* Finite number (disambiguation)
* Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number
* Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
clauses.
Voice
In Mẽbêngôkre, transitive verbs may be detransitivized by means of an
anticausative
An anticausative verb ( abbreviated ) is an intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject, while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event. The single argument of the anticausative verb (its subject) is a ...
or an
antipassive
The antipassive voice (abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency ...
derivation. The anticausative marker is the prefix ''a(j)-'' in the
finite
Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to:
* Finite number (disambiguation)
* Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number
* Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
form and the prefix ''bi-'' in the
nonfinite form of the verb. The antipassive derivation is achieved by means of the prefix ''a-'' in the
finite
Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to:
* Finite number (disambiguation)
* Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number
* Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
form and the prefix ''djà-'' or ''dju-'' in the
nonfinite form of the verb.
Derivational morphology
Diminutive and augmentative
Mẽbêngôkre makes use of a
diminutive suffix ''-re'' (which is always unstressed; after ''-t'' it has the allomorph ''-e'', and after nasals it surfaces as ''-ne'') and of an
augmentative suffix ''-ti'' (which is always stressed). These attach to nouns and abundantly occur in the names of animal and plant species. The combination of ''-ti'' and ''-re'' is used in a number of nouns which denote human collectives, such as ''Gorotire'' and ''Mẽtyktire'' (names of Mẽbêngôkre subdivisions).
Non-productive affixes
In Mẽbêngôkre, many predicates appear to contain fossilized prefixes of different shapes (such as ''ka-'', ''nhõ-'', ''ku-'', ''py-/pu-'', ''ja-'', ''dju-'', ''nhĩ-''), whose semantic contribution is not always straightforward. These have been variously referred to as ''classifiers''
or ''transitivity prefixes''.
Reduplication
Reduplication may be used to convey repeated action and possibly transitivity, as in the following examples:
In some verbs, such as ''prõrprõt'' ‘to float up and down’, the final consonant of the reduplicated base changes from a stop /t/ to a rhotic /ɾ/.
Syntax
Mẽbêngôkre is a
head-final
In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements) or head-final (the head follows its complements). The head is the ...
language.
Morphosyntactic alignment
Prototypically, finite
matrix clause
An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself.
Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...
s in Mẽbêngôkre have a
nominative–accusative alignment pattern, whereby the agents of transitive verbs (A) and the sole arguments of intransitive verbs (S) receive the
nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
, whereas the patients of transitive verbs (P) receive the
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
or the
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
case, which has been described as an instance of a
split-P alignment.
There are only several dozen of transitive verbs which take an accusative patient, all of which are monosyllabic
and have distinct finite and nonfinite forms. It has been suggested that all transitive verbs which satisfy both conditions (monosyllabicity and a formal finiteness distinction), and only them, select for accusative patients,
while all remaining transitive verbs take absolutive patients in Mẽbêngôkre and other Northern Jê languages.
Nonfinite clauses (including all embedded clauses) are headed by nonfinite verbs and are
ergatively organized: the agents of transitive verbs (A) are encoded by
ergative postpositional phrases, whereas the patients of transitive verbs (P) and the sole arguments of all intransitive predicates (S) receive the
absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
.
Classes of predicates
The following table summarizes the proposed classes of predicates in Mẽbêngôkre.
Transitive verbs
In Mẽbêngôkre, transitive verbs take
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
or
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
patients in finite clauses, depending on the verb class. In nonfinite clauses, all transitive verbs take
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
patients. Note that nouns do not receive any overt marking either in the
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
or in the
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
case; the difference between these two cases is seen in the third person index, which takes the form ''ku-'' in the accusative case and ''∅-'' in the absolutive case.
The transitive verbs which index their patient in the
accusative case (in finite clauses) are known as ''ku-''verbs. All ''ku-''verbs are monosyllabic and have distinct finite and nonfinite forms. The remaining transitive verbs index their patient in the
absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
. All verbs that belong to this class satisfy at least one of the following conditions:
*they contain at least two syllables (for example, ''pumũ'' ‘to see’, ''kaô'' ‘to suck’, ''ku’õ'' ‘to wash ''(solid objects)''’),
*their finite and nonfinite forms are identical (for example, ''’ôk'' ‘to paint’, ''kre'' ‘to plant’, ''djũn'' ‘to insult’).
Finite ''ku-'' verbs further differ from all other transitive verbs in that under certain circumstances they index their
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
(rather than
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
) on the verb. This happens when a second-person agent acts over a third-person patient:
Intransitive verbs
Semantics
Instruments, locations, and prototypical agents
Mẽbêngôkre extensively uses the nouns ''djà'' ‘container’ and ''djwỳnh'' ‘owner, master’ to denote instruments (or locations) and prototypical agents, respectively, as in ''idjàkuru djà'' ‘eating utensils; eating place; food’ (literally ‘the container of my eating’) or ''pi’ôk jarẽnh djwỳnh'' ‘teacher’ (literally ‘the owner of the telling of the book’). These nouns attach to the nonfinite (nominal) forms of verbs or to other nouns, and express meanings that in other languages are frequently conveyed by special kinds of nominalizations.
Tense and aspect
In Mẽbêngôkre, there is no morphological distinction between present and past, the completion or continuation of an action is determined by the narrative context. Aspectual distinctions may be conveyed by auxiliaries or by using a
nonfinite form of a verb in an unembedded clause. The following sentence shows the role of verbal finiteness when determining aspect:
In the semantic interpretation of the first example, the position of the event with respect to the time of the utterance can only be determined by narrative context. In contrast, the occurrence of the nonfinite form of the verb in the second example makes the event not "anaphoric to discourse, but rather coterminous with the subject's lifespan (mutatis mutandis for inanimate subjects). This interpretation has been variously described as “stative” or “subject-oriented” (in the sense that it ascribes a property to the subject, rather than focusing on the event itself) in the descriptive literature.”
Vocabulary
Kinship terms
Mẽbêngôkre has
triadic kinship terms, which express at the same time the relation of a given referent both to the speaker and the addressee.
Loanwords
Mẽbêngôkre has been in contact with the distantly related
Karajá
The Karajá, also known as Iny, are an indigenous tribe located in Brazil.[Karaja Indians.]
''Hands Aro ...
language, as evidence by a number of Karajá loanwords in Mẽbêngôkre, especially in the dialect spoken by the
Xikrin group; the source of these loanwords is thought to be the Xambioá dialect. There are also loans from the
Tupian
The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani.
Homeland and ''urheimat''
Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere between ...
languages
Yudjá (
Jurunan group) and
Língua Geral Amazônica (
Tupi-Guarani group), as well as from a hypothetical extinct
Northern Jê language. More recently, lexical borrowings have been adopted from
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
. Examples include:
References
NFUT:nonfuture tense:Nonfuture tense
PAUC:paucal number:Paucal number
INT:interrogative particle:Interrogative particle
F:finite verb:Finite verb
See also
*
Kayapo people
The Kayapo (Portuguese language, Portuguese: Caiapó ) people are the indigenous people in Brazil who inhabit a vast area spreading across the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries. T ...
{{Macro-Jê languages
Jê languages
Languages of Brazil