Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi (also spelled as Tupí) is an extinct
Tupian language
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 ...
which was spoken by the aboriginal
Tupi people
A subdivision of the Tupi-Guarani linguistic families, the Tupi people were one of the largest groups of indigenous Brazilians before its colonization. Scholars believe that while they first settled in the Amazon rainforest, from about 2,900 ...
of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
and
Southeast Brazil
The Southeast Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Sudeste do Brasil; ) is composed of the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo State, São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsi ...
. It belongs to the
Tupi–Guarani language family, and has a
written history
Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world his ...
spanning the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries. In the early
colonial period, Tupi was used as a ''
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' throughout Brazil by Europeans and aboriginal Americans, and had literary usage, but it was later suppressed almost to extinction. Today, only one modern descendant is living, the
Nheengatu language
The Nheengatu language (Tupi: , nheengatu rionegrino: ''yẽgatu'', nheengatu tradicional: ''nhẽẽgatú'' e nheengatu tapajoawara: ''nheẽgatu''), often written Nhengatu, is an indigenous language of the Tupi-Guarani family, being then deri ...
.
The names Old Tupi or classical Tupi are used for the language in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and by modern scholars (it is referred to as in
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 ...
), but native speakers called it variously "the good language", "common language", "human language", in Old Tupi, or, in Portuguese, "general language", "Amazonian general language", "Brazilian language".
History
Old Tupi was first spoken by the
Tupinambá people
The Tupinambá are one of the various Tupi ethnic groups that inhabited present-day Brazil since before the conquest of the region by Portuguese colonial settlers. In the first years of contact with the Portuguese, the Tupinambás lived in the wh ...
, who lived under cultural and social conditions very unlike those found in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. It is quite different from
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
in
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
,
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, but it was adopted by many Luso-Brazilians born in Brazil as a ''lingua franca'' known as ''
Língua Geral
Língua Geral (, ''General Language'') is the name of two distinct lingua francas, spoken in Brazil: the '' Língua Geral Paulista'' (''Tupi Austral'', or Southern Tupi), which was spoken in the region of Paulistania but is now dead, and the ''Lí ...
''.
It belonged to the Tupi–Guarani language family, which stood out among other South American languages for the vast territory it covered. Until the 16th century, these languages were found throughout nearly the entirety of the Brazilian coast, from
Pará
Pará is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian state) ...
to
Santa Catarina, and the River Plate basin. Today, Tupi languages are still heard in Brazil (states of
Maranhão
Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...
,
Pará
Pará is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian state) ...
,
Amapá
Amapá () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is in the northern region of Brazil. It is the second least populous state and the eighteenth largest by area. Located in the far northern part of the country, Amapá is bordered clockwise by Fr ...
,
Amazonas,
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP.
Neighboring ...
,
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 ...
,
Goiás
Goiás () is a Brazilian state located in the Center-West region. Goiás borders the Federal District and the states of (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso. The state capital is Goiânia. ...
,
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
,
Paraná,
Santa Catarina,
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...
,
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
, and
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo (, , ; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attra ...
), as well as in
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
,
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
,
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
,
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
,
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, and
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
It is a common mistake to speak of the "Tupi–Guarani language": Tupi,
Guarani and a number of other minor or major languages all belong to the
Tupian language family, in the same sense that
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
, and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
belong to the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
. One of the main differences between the two languages was the replacement of Tupi by the glottal fricative in Guarani.
The first accounts of the Old Tupi language date back from the early 16th century, but the first written documents containing actual information about it were produced from 1575 onwards – when
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
André Thévet
André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation ...
and
José de Anchieta
José de Anchieta y Díaz de Clavijo (Joseph of Anchieta) (19 March 1534 – 9 June 1597) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to the Portuguese colony of Brazil in the second half of the 16th century. A highly influential figure in Brazil's hi ...
began to translate
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
prayers and
biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
stories into the language. Another foreigner,
Jean de Lery
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Je ...
, wrote the first (and possibly only) Tupi "phrasebook", in which he transcribed entire dialogues. Lery's work is the best available record of how Tupi was actually spoken.
In the first two or three centuries of Brazilian history, nearly all
colonist
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settle ...
s coming to Brazil would learn the ''tupinambá'' variant of Tupi, as a means of communication with both the
Indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
and with other early colonists who had adopted the language.
The Jesuits, however, not only learned to speak ''tupinambá'', but also encouraged the Indians to keep it. As a part of their missionary work, they translated some literature into it and also produced some original work written directly in Tupi. José de Anchieta reportedly wrote more than 4,000 lines of poetry in ''tupinambá'' (which he called ''lingua Brasilica'') and the first Tupi grammar.
Luís Figueira was another important figure of this time, who wrote the second Tupi grammar, published in 1621. In the second half of the 18th century, the works of Anchieta and Figueira were republished and Father Bettendorf wrote a new and more complete
catechism
A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...
. By that time, the language had made its way into the clergy and was the ''de facto''
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
of Brazil – though it was probably seldom written, as the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
held a near monopoly of literacy.
When the
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 ...
Prime Minister
Marquis of Pombal
Count of Oeiras () was a Portuguese title of nobility created by a royal decree, dated July 15, 1759, by King Joseph I of Portugal, and granted to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, head of the Portuguese government.
Later, through another roy ...
expelled the Jesuits from Brazil in 1759, the language started to wane fast, as few Brazilians were literate in it. Besides, a new rush of Portuguese immigration had been taking place since the early 18th century, due to the discovery of
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
,
diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...
s, and
gems
Gems, or gemstones, are polished, cut stones or minerals.
Gems or GEMS may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
*Gems (Aerosmith album), ''Gems'' (Aerosmith album), 1988
*Gems (Patti LaBelle album), ''Gems'' (Patti LaBelle album), 1994
*G ...
in the interior of Brazil; these new colonists spoke only their mother tongue. Old Tupi survived as a spoken language (used by Europeans and Indian populations alike) only in isolated inland areas, far from the major urban centres. Its use by a few non-Indian speakers in those isolated areas would last for over a century still.
Tupi research
When the Portuguese first arrived on the shores of modern-day Brazil, most of the tribes they encountered spoke
very closely related dialects. The Portuguese (and particularly the
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
priests who accompanied them) set out to
proselytise
Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Proselytism is illegal in some countries.
Some draw distinctions between ''evangelism'' or '' Da‘wah'' and proselytism regarding proselytism as invol ...
the natives. To do so most effectively, doing so in the natives' own languages was convenient, so the first Europeans to study Tupi were those priests.
The priests modeled their analysis of the new language after the one with which they had already experienced:
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, which they had studied in the
seminary
A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...
. In fact, the first grammar of Tupi – written by the Jesuit priest
José de Anchieta
José de Anchieta y Díaz de Clavijo (Joseph of Anchieta) (19 March 1534 – 9 June 1597) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to the Portuguese colony of Brazil in the second half of the 16th century. A highly influential figure in Brazil's hi ...
in 1595 – is structured much like a contemporary Latin grammar. While this structure is not optimal, it certainly served its purpose of allowing its intended readership (Catholic priests familiar with Latin grammars) to get enough of a basic grasp of the language to be able to communicate with and evangelise the natives. Also, the grammar sometimes regularised or glossed over some regional differences in the expectation that the student, once "in the field", would learn these finer points of the particular dialect through use with his flock.
Significant works were a Jesuit catechism of 1618, with a second edition of 1686; another grammar written in 1687 by another Jesuit priest, Luís Figueira; an anonymous dictionary of 1795 (again published by the Jesuits); a dictionary published by
Antônio Gonçalves Dias
Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...
, a well-known 19th century Brazilian poet and scholar, in 1858; and a
chrestomathy
A chrestomathy ( ; from the Ancient Greek (, “desire of learning”) = (, “useful”) + (, “learn”)) is a collection of selected literary passages (usually from a single author); a selection of literary passages from a foreign language ...
published by Dr Ernesto Ferreira França in 1859.
Considering the breadth of its use both in time and space, this language is particularly poorly documented in writing, particularly the dialect of São Paulo spoken in the South.
Phonology
The phonology of ''tupinambá'' has some interesting and unusual features. For instance, it does not have the lateral approximant or the
multiple vibrant rhotic consonant
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthography, orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek alphabet, Greek letter Rho (letter), rho, including R, , in the Latin ...
. It also has a rather small inventory of consonants and a large number of pure vowels (12).
This led to a Brazilian
pun
A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...
about this language, that Indians ''não têm fé, nem lei, nem rei'' (have neither faith, nor law, nor king) as the words ''fé'' (faith), ''lei'' (law) and ''rei'' (king) could not be pronounced by a native Tupi speaker (they would say ''pé'', ''re'i'' and ''re'i''). It is also a double pun because Brazil has not had a king for more than two centuries.
Vowels
The nasal vowels are fully vocalic, without any trace of a trailing or . They are pronounced with the mouth open and the palate relaxed, not blocking the air from resounding through the nostrils. These approximations, however, must be taken with caution, as no actual recording exists, and Tupi had at least seven known dialects.
Consonants
Alternative view
According to Nataniel Santos Gomes, however, the phonetic inventory of Tupi was simpler:
* Consonants:
** p, t, k, ‘ ()
** b ()
** s, x ()
** m, n, ñ ()
** û (), î ()
** r ()
* Vowels
** i, y (), u, ĩ, ỹ, ũ
** e, o, õ, ẽ
** a, ã
This scheme does not regard Ŷ as a separate semivowel, does not consider the existence of G (), and does not differentiate between the two types of NG ( and ), probably because it does not regard MB (), ND () and NG () as independent phonemes, but mere combinations of P, T, and K with nasalization.
Santos Gomes also remarks that the
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s shifted easily to
nasal stops
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
, which is attested by the fitful spelling of words like ''umbu'' (''umu'', ''ubu'', ''umbu'', ''upu'', ''umpu'') in the works of the early missionaries and by the surviving dialects.
According to most sources, Tupi semivowels were more consonantal than their IPA counterparts. The Î, for instance, was rather fricative, thus resembling a very slight , and Û had a distinct similarity with the voiced stop (possibly via , which would likewise be a fricative counterpart of the labiovelar semivowel), thus being sometimes written ''gu''. As a consequence of that character, Tupi loanwords in
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 ...
often have ''j'' for Î and ''gu'' for Û.
Writing system
It would have been almost impossible to reconstruct the phonology of Tupi if it did not have a wide geographic distribution. The surviving Amazonian
Nhengatu
The Nheengatu language (Tupi: , nheengatu rionegrino: ''yẽgatu'', nheengatu tradicional: ''nhẽẽgatú'' e nheengatu tapajoawara: ''nheẽgatu''), often written Nhengatu, is an indigenous language of the Tupi–Guarani languages, Tupi-Guaran ...
and the close Guarani correlates (
Mbyá,
Nhandéva,
Kaiowá and
Paraguayan Guarani) provide material that linguistic research can still use for an approximate reconstruction of the language.
Scientific reconstruction of Tupi suggests that Anchieta either simplified or overlooked the phonetics of the actual language when he was devising his grammar and his dictionary.
The writing system employed by Anchieta is still the basis for most modern scholars. It is easily typed with regular Portuguese or French typewriters and computer keyboards (but not with character sets such as ISO-8859-1, which cannot produce ''ẽ'', ''ĩ'', ''ũ'', ''ŷ'' and ''ỹ'').
Its key features are:
* The
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
indicating
nasalisation
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internatio ...
: ''a'' → ''ã''.
* The
circumflex accent
The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...
indicating a
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...
: ''i'' → ''î''.
* The acute accent indicating the
stressed syllable: ''abá''.
* The use of the letter ''x'' for the voiceless palatal fricative , a spelling convention common in the
languages of the Iberian Peninsula but unusual elsewhere.
* The use of the digraphs ''yg'' (for Ŷ), ''gu'' (for ), ''ss'' (to make intervocalic S unvoiced), and of ''j'' to represent the semivowel .
* Hyphens are not used to separate the components of compounds except in the dictionary or for didactical purposes.
Morphology
Most Tupi words are roots with one or two syllables, usually with double or triple meanings that are explored extensively for
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
ical purposes:
* ''a'' = round / head / seed
* ''kaa'' = forest / bush / plant
* ''oby'' = green / blue; considered a
single colour in many languages.
* ''y'' = water / liquid / spring / lake, puddle / river, brook
The most common words tend to be
monosyllable In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language.
"Yes", "no", "jump", ...
s:
* ''a'' = head / round
* ''ã'' = shadow / ghost
* ''po'' = hand
* ''sy'' = mother / source
* ''u'' = food
* ''y'' = water, river
Disyllabic words belong to two major groups, depending on which syllable is
stressed:
* If the stress falls on the
penult
Penult is a linguistics term for the second to last syllable of a word. It is an abbreviation of ''penultimate'', which describes the next-to-last item in a series. The penult follows the antepenult and precedes the ultima. For example, the main ...
, the last syllable ends with an unstressed vowel (traditionally written with the letter ''a''). Such words usually drop the last vowel (or sometimes even the entire last syllable) to form compounds or drop the vowel and undergo a
consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of al ...
(nasalisation): ''ñeenga'' (speech) + ''katú'' (good) = ''ñeen-ngatú'' (the good language).
* If the stress falls on the last syllable, the syllable is unchanged: ''itá'' (rock, stone) + ''úna'' (black) = ''itaúna''.
Polysyllabic (non-compound) words are less common but are still frequent and follow the same scheme:
* ''paranã'' (the sea) + ''mirĩ'' (little) = ''paranãmirĩ'' (salty lagoon)
* ''pindóba'' (palm tree) + ''ûasú'' (big) = ''pindobusú''.
Nasal mutation of the initial consonant is always present, regardless of stress. Polysyllabic words are never stressed on the first syllable.
Compound noun
A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their ...
s are formed in three ways:
* Simple
agglutination
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
:
** ''arasy'' = ''ara'' + ''sy'' (day + mother) = mother of day: the sun
** ''yîara'' = ''y'' + ''îara'' (water + lord/lady) = lady of the lake (a mythological figure).
*
Blend
A blend is a mixture of two or more different things or substances; e.g., a product of a mixer or blender.
Blend
Blend may also refer to:
* Blend word, a word formed from parts of other words
* ''Blend'' (album), a 1996 album by BoDeans
* ...
ing with either
apocope
In phonology, apocope () is the loss (elision) of a word-final vowel. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any final sound (including consonants) from a word.
Etymology
''Apocope'' comes from the Greek () from () "cutting off", from ...
or
aphesis
In phonetics and phonology, apheresis (; en-GB, aphaeresis) is the loss of a word-initial vowel producing a new form called aphetism (e.g. ''American'' > '' 'Merican''). In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any initial sound (includin ...
:
** ''Pindorama'' = ''pindoba'' + ''rama'' (palm tree + future aspect) = where there will be palm trees (this was the name by which some of the coast tribes called their homeland).
** ''Takûarusu'' = ''takûara'' + ''ûasú'' (bamboo + big) = big bamboo tree. Portuguese: Taquaruçu (a variant of
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...
).
* Complex blending, with both apocope and aphesis:
** ''Taubaté'' = ''taba'' + ''ybaté'' (village + high) = the name of a Brazilian town,
Taubaté
Taubaté is a medium-sized city in the State of São Paulo, in southeastern Brazil.
Location
Its strategic location between the two most important Brazilian cities (São Paulo away, and Rio de Janeiro away), connected to both by the Presiden ...
, which was originally the name of a village on the top of a mountain.
** ''Itákûakesétyba'' = ''takûara + kesé + tyba'' (bamboo + knife + collective mark): where knives are made out of bamboo wood (the name of a Brazilian town: Itaquaquecetuba).
Later, after colonisation, the process was used to name things that the Indians originally did not have:
* ''îande'' + ''Îara'' (our + Lord) = a title held by
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
in Catholic worship.
* ''Tupã'' + ''sy'' (God + mother) = the mother of God (
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
).
Some writers have even extended it further, creating Tupi
neologisms
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
for the modern life, in the same vein as
New Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
.
Mário de Andrade
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetr ...
, for instance, coined ''sagüim-açu'' (''saûĩ'' +
'g'''ûasú'') for "elevator", from ''sagüim'', the name of a small tree-climbing monkey.
Grammatical structure
Tupi was an
agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain ...
with moderate degree of
fusional
Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features.
For e ...
features (nasal mutation of stop consonants in compounding, the use of some prefixes and suffixes), although Tupi is not a
polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
.
Tupi
parts of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
did not follow the same conventions of Indo-European languages:
* Verbs are "conjugated" for
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
(by means of prepositioning subject or object pronouns) but not for tense or mood (the very notion of
mood is absent). All verbs are in the present tense.
* Nouns are "declined" for
tense by means of suffixing the aspect
marker (
Nominal TAM) but not for gender or
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
.
* There is a distinction of nouns in two classes: "higher" (for things related to human beings or spirits) and "lower" (for things related to animals or
inanimate beings). The usual manifestation of the distinction was the use of the prefixes ''t-'' for high-class nouns and ''s-'' for low-class ones, so that ''tesá'' meant "human eye", and ''sesá'' meant "the eye of an animal". Some authors argue that it is a type of
gender inflection
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
.
* Adjectives cannot be used in the place of nouns, neither as the subject nor as the object nucleus (in fact, they cannot be used alone).
Tupi had a
split-intransitive grammatical alignment. Verbs were preceded by pronouns, which could be subject or object forms. Subject pronouns like ''a-'' "I" expressed the person was in control, while object pronouns like ''xe-'' "me" signified the person was not. The two types could be used alone or combined in transitive clauses, and they then functioned like subject and object in English:
* ''A-bebé'' = I-fly, "I can fly", "I flew".
* ''Xe pysyka'' = me catch, "Someone has caught me" or "I'm caught".
* ''A-î-pysyk'' = I-him-catch, "I have caught him".
Although Tupi verbs were not inflected, a number of pronominal variations existed to form a rather complex set of aspects regarding who did what to whom. That, together with the temporal inflection of the noun and the presence of tense markers like ''koára'' "today," made up a fully functional verbal system.
Word order played a key role in the formation of meaning:
* ''taba abá-im'' (village + man + tiny) = tiny man from the village
* ''taba-im abá'' = man from the small village
Tupi had no means to inflect words for gender, so used adjectives instead. Some of these were:
* ''apyŷaba'' = man, male
* ''kuñã'' = woman, female
* ''kunumĩ'' = boy, young male
* ''kuñãtãĩ'' = girl, young female
* ''mena'' = male animal
* ''kuñã'' = female animal
The notion of gender was expressed, once again, together with the notion of age and that of "humanity" or "animality".
The notion of plural was also expressed by adjectives or numerals:
* ''abá'' = man; ''abá-etá'' = many men
Unlike Indo-European languages, nouns were not implicitly masculine except for those provided with natural gender: ''abá'' "man" and ''kuñã''
'tã''"woman/girl"; for instance.
Without proper verbal inflection, all Tupi sentences were in the present or in the past. When needed, tense is indicated by adverbs like ''ko ara'', "this day".
Adjectives and nouns, however, had temporal inflection:
* ''abáûera'' "he who was once a man"
* ''abárama'' "he who shall be a man someday"
That was often used as a semantic derivation process:
* ''akanga'' "head"
* ''akangûera'' "skull" (of a skeleton)
* ''abá'' "man"
* ''abárama'' "teenager"
With respect to syntax, Tupi was mostly
SOV, but
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
tended to be free, as the presence of pronouns made it easy to tell the subject from the object. Nevertheless, native Tupi sentences tended to be quite short, as the Indians were not used to complex
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
al or
literary
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
uses.
Most of the available data about Old Tupi are based on the ''tupinambá'' dialect, spoken in what is now the Brazilian state of
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
, but there were other dialects as well.
According to
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Sa ...
's categories, Old Tupi could be characterized as follows:
# With respect to the concepts expressed: complex, of pure relation, that is, it expresses material and relational content by means of
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es and word order, respectively.
# With respect to the manner in which such concepts are expressed: a)
fusional-agglutinative, b) symbolic or of internal inflection (using
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
of syllables, functionally differentiated).
# With respect to the degree of cohesion of the semantic elements of the sentence:
synthetic.
Sample vocabulary
Colors
* ''îubá'' = yellow, golden
* ''(s)oby'' = blue, green
* ''pirang'' = red
* ''ting'' = white
* ''(s)un'' = black
Substances
* ''(t)atá'' = fire
* ''itá'' = rock, stone, metal,
* ''y'' = water, river
* ''yby'' = earth, ground
* ''ybytu'' = air, wind
People
* ''abá'' = man (as opposed to woman), Indian or Native-American (as opposed to European), human being (as opposed to the animal world)
* ''aîuba'' = Frenchman (literally "yellow heads")
* ''maíra'' = Frenchman (the name of a mythological figure that the Indians associated with the Frenchmen)
* ''karaíba'' = foreigner, white man (literally means "spirit of a dead person"). Means also prophet.
*
kunhã = woman
* ''kunhãtã'ĩ'' = girl
* ''kunhãmuku'' = young woman
* ''kunumĩ'' = boy
* ''kunumĩgûasu'' = young man
* ''morubixaba'' = chief
* ''peró'' = Portuguese (neologism, from "Pero", old variant of "Pedro" = "Peter", a very common Portuguese name)
* ''sy'' = mother
* ''tapy'yîa'' = slave (also the term for non-Tupi speaking Indians)
The body
* ''akanga'' = head
* ''îuru'' = mouth
* ''îyba'' = arm
* ''nambi'' = ear
* ''pó'' = hand
* ''py'' = foot
* ''py'a'' = heart
* ''(t)esá'' = eye
* ''(t)etimã'' = leg
* ''tĩ'' = nose
* ''(t)obá'' = face
Animals
* ''aîuru'' = parrot, lory, lorykeet
* ''arara'' = macaw, parrot
* ''îagûara'' = jaguar
* ''ka'apiûara'' =
capybara
The capybaraAlso called capivara (in Brazil), capiguara (in Bolivia), chigüire, chigüiro, or fercho (in Colombia and Venezuela), carpincho (in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and ronsoco (in Peru). or greater capybara (''Hydrochoerus hydro ...
* ''mboîa'' = snake, cobra
* ''pirá'' = fish
* ''so'ó'' = game (animal)
* ''tapi'ira'' = tapir
Plants
* ''ka'api'' = grass, ivy (from which the word
capybara
The capybaraAlso called capivara (in Brazil), capiguara (in Bolivia), chigüire, chigüiro, or fercho (in Colombia and Venezuela), carpincho (in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and ronsoco (in Peru). or greater capybara (''Hydrochoerus hydro ...
comes)
* ''ka'a'' = plant, wood, forest
* ''kuri'' = pine
* ''(s)oba'' = leaf
* ''yba'' = fruit
* ''ybá'' = plant
* ''ybyrá'' = tree, (piece of) wood
* ''ybotyra'' = flower
Society
* ''oka'' = house
* ''taba'' = village
Adjectives
* ''beraba'' = brilliant, gleamy, shiny
* ''katu'' = good
* ''mirĩ, 'í'' = little
* ''panema'' = barren, contaminated, unhealthy, unlucky
* ''poranga'' = beautiful
* ''pûera'', ''ûera'' = bad, old, dead
* ''(s)etá'' = many, much
* ''ûasu'', ''usu'' = big
Sample text
This is the
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
in Tupi, according to
Anchieta:
Notice that two Portuguese words, (Kingdom) and (temptation) have been borrowed, as such concepts would be rather difficult to express with pure Tupi words.
Presence of Tupi in Brazil
As the basis for the ''
língua geral
Língua Geral (, ''General Language'') is the name of two distinct lingua francas, spoken in Brazil: the '' Língua Geral Paulista'' (''Tupi Austral'', or Southern Tupi), which was spoken in the region of Paulistania but is now dead, and the ''Lí ...
'', spoken throughout the country by white and Indian settlers alike until the early 18th century, and still heard in isolated pockets until the early 20th century, Tupi left a strong mark on the Portuguese language of Brazil, being by far its most distinctive source of modification.
Tupi has given the Portuguese language:
* A few thousand words (some of them hybrids or corrupted) for animals, plants, fruit and cultural entities.
* Multiple names of locations, including states (e.g.
Paraná,
Pará
Pará is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian state) ...
,
Paraíba
Paraíba ( Tupi: ''pa'ra a'íba''; ) is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and it is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Paraíba ...
)
Some municipalities which have Tupi names:
*
Iguaçu (y ûasú''): great river
*
Ipanema
Ipanema () is a neighbourhood located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between Leblon and Arpoador. The beach at Ipanema became known internationally with the popularity of the bossa nova jazz song, "The Girl from Ipane ...
(y panema''): bad, fishless water
* Itanhangá (''itá + añãgá''): devil's rock
*
Itaquaquecetuba
Itaquaquecetuba, also simply called Itaquá, is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The population is 375,011 (2020 est.) in an area of . It sits at an elevation of .
The municip ...
(''takûakesétyba'', from ''itá + takûara + kesé + tyba''): where bamboo knives are made
*
Itaúna
Itaúna is a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais in the Southeast region of Brazil.
See also
*List of municipalities in Minas Gerais
This is a list of the municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais (MG), located in the Southeast R ...
("itá + una"): black rock
*
Jaguariúna
Jaguariúna is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. The population is 58,722 (2020 est.) in an area of 141.39 km². The elevation is 584 m. This place name comes from the Tupi ...
(''îagûara + 'í + una''): small black jaguar
*
Pacaembu
Pacaembu () is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 ...
(''paka + embu''): valley of the
paca
A paca is a member of the genus ''Cuniculus'' of ground-dwelling, herbivorous rodents in South and Central America. It is the only genus in the family Cuniculidae. Pacas are large rodents with dots and stripes on their sides, short ears, and ...
s.
*
Paraíba
Paraíba ( Tupi: ''pa'ra a'íba''; ) is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and it is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Paraíba ...
(''pará + aíba''): bad to navigation or "bad river"
*
Paranaíba
Paranaíba is the easternmost Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the States of Brazil, Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Its population was 42,276 (2020) and its area is 5,402.778 km².
References
Municipalities in Mato ...
(''paranãíba'', from ''paranã + aíba''): dangerous sea
* Paraná-mirim (''paranã + mirĩ''): salty lagoon (literally: "small sea")
*
Pindorama
Pindorama () is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The name is Tupi for ''Land of the Palms'', the natives name for Brazil. According to tradition, before colonisation "Pindorama" (Tupi for "Land of the Palms") was the native name ...
(from ''pindó'', "palm tree", and ''(r)etama'' , country): palm country (this is the name the ''
tupiniquins'' gave to the place where they lived, today known as Brazil).
*
Piracaia
Piracaia is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 mi ...
("pirá" + "caia"): fried fish
*
Piraí (''pirá'' + ''y''): "fish water"
*
Umuarama
Umuarama is a municipality in the state of Paraná in Brazil. Its population was 112,500 inhabitants in 2020.
Umuarama is one of the most important cities in Paraná, one of the three states of southern Brazil. The city elevation is 430 m (1,300 ...
(''ũbuarama'', from ''ũbu + arama''): where the cacti will grow
Among the many Tupi loanwords in Portuguese, the following are noteworthy for their widespread use:
* ''abacaxi'' (
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
, literally: "fruit with thorns")
* ''jacaré'' (caiman)
* ''mirim'' (small or juvenile) as in "escoteiro-mirim" ("
Boy Scout
A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Pathfinder) is a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split ...
")
* ''perereca'' (a type of small frog, also slang for vulva), literally: "hopper"
* ''
peteca
Peteca () is a traditional sport in Brazil, played with a "hand shuttlecock" from indigenous origins and reputed to be as old as the country itself. The same name is given to the shuttlecock-object itself.
Objectives
The objective of the game i ...
'' (a type of badminton game played with bare hands) literally: "slap"
* ''
piranha
A piranha or piraña (, , or ; or , ) is one of a number of freshwater fish in the family Serrasalmidae, or the subfamily Serrasalminae within the tetra family, Characidae in order Characiformes. These fish inhabit South American rivers, ...
'' (a carnivorous fish, also slang for immoral women) literally: "toothed fish"
* ''pipoca'' (popcorn) literally "explosion of skin"
* ''piroca'' (originally meaning "bald", now a slang term for penis)
* ''
pororoca
The Pororoca (, ) is a tidal bore, with waves up to high that travel as much as inland upstream on the Amazon River and adjacent rivers. Its name might come from the indigenous Tupi language, where it could translate into "great roar". It could b ...
'' (a tidal phenomenon in the Amazon firth) literally: "confusion"
* ''siri'' (crab)
* ''sucuri'' (anaconda)
* ''urubu'' (the Brazilian vulture)
* ''urutu'' (a kind of poisonous snake)
* ''uruçu'' (the common name for ''
Melipona scutellaris'')
It is interesting, however, that two of the most distinctive Brazilian animals, the
jaguar
The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
and the
tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabit ...
, are best known in Portuguese by non-Tupi names, ''onça'' and ''anta'', despite being named in English with Tupi loanwords.
A significant number of Brazilians have Tupi names as well:
* Araci (female): ''ara sy'', "mother of the day"
* Bartira, Potira (female): ''Ybotyra'', "flower"
* Iara (female): y îara'',
lady of the lake
The Lady of the Lake (french: Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac, cy, Arglwyddes y Llyn, kw, Arloedhes an Lynn, br, Itron al Lenn, it, Dama del Lago) is a name or a title used by several either fairy or fairy-like but human enchantresses in the ...
* Jaci (both): ''îasy'', the moon
* Janaína (female): ''îandá una'', a type of black bird
* Ubirajara (male): ''ybyrá îara'', "lord of the trees/lance"
* Ubiratã (male): ''ybyrá-atã'', "hard wood"
Some names of distinct Indian ancestry have obscure etymology because the ''tupinambá'', like the Europeans, cherished traditional names which sometimes had become archaic. Some of such names are Moacir (reportedly meaning "son of pain") and Moema.
Literature
Old Tupi literature was composed mainly of religious and grammatical texts developed by Jesuit missionaries working among the colonial Brazilian people. The greatest poet to express in written Tupi language, and its first grammarian was José de Anchieta, who wrote over eighty poems and plays, compiled at his ''Lírica Portuguesa e Tupi''. Later Brazilian authors, writing in Portuguese, employed Tupi in the speech of some of their characters.
Recurrence
Tupi is also remembered as distinctive trait of nationalism in Brazil. In the 1930s,
Brazilian Integralism
Brazilian Integralism ( pt, integralismo) was a political movement in Brazil, created in October 1932. Founded and led by Plínio Salgado, a literary figure who was somewhat famous for his participation in the 1922 Modern Art Week. The movement h ...
used it as the source of most of its catchphrases (like ''Anaûé'' meaning "you are my brother", the old Tupi salutation which was adopted as the Brazilian version of the German ''Sieg Heil'', or the Roman "Ave") and terminology.
See also
*
Jesuit Reductions
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
*
Língua Geral
Língua Geral (, ''General Language'') is the name of two distinct lingua francas, spoken in Brazil: the '' Língua Geral Paulista'' (''Tupi Austral'', or Southern Tupi), which was spoken in the region of Paulistania but is now dead, and the ''Lí ...
*
Língua Geral of São Paulo
The paulista general, also called southern general and tupi austral, is a lingua franca and creole language formed in the 16th century, in the Captaincy of São Vicente. Today it is only of historical interest, as it has been a dead language si ...
*
List of Brazil state name etymologies
The names of most Brazilian states are based on Portuguese placenames, while others are based on indigenous (often Tupi–Guarani) and a few European languages.
See also
*States of Brazil
References
{{Place name etymologies
Etymologies
B ...
Notes
Bibliography
ALVES Jr., Ozias. ''Uma breve história da língua tupi, a língua do tempo que o brasil era canibal''.*
Ioseph de Anchieta: ''Arte de grammtica da lingoa mais usada na costa do Brasil.'' 1595.
** ANCHIETA, José de. ''Arte da gramática da língua mais usada na costa do Brasil''. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1933.
*
DI MAURO, Joubert J. ''Curso de Tupi Antigo''.*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070112151355/http://www.nautilus.com.br/~ensjo/tupi/tupi-profilo-pt.html Perfil da língua tupi* EDELWEISS, Frederico G. ''Tupis e Guaranis, Estudos de Etnonímia e Lingüística''. Salvador: Museu do Estado da Bahia, 1947. 220 p.
* EDELWEISS, Frederico G. ''O caráter da segunda conjugação tupi''. Bahia: Livraria Progresso Editora, 1958. 157 p.
* EDELWEISS, Frederico G. ''Estudos tupi e tupi-guaranis: confrontos e revisões''. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Brasiliana, 1969. 304 p.
* GOMES, Nataniel dos Santos. ''Observações sobre o Tupinambá''. ''Monografia final do Curso de Especialização em Línguas Indígenas Brasileiras''. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional / UFRJ, 1999.
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A. ''Pequeno Vocabulário Tupi–Português''. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria São José, 1951.
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A.
Juká, o paradigma da conjugação tupí: estudo etimológico-gramatical' in ''Revista Filológica'', ano II, n. 12, Rio de Janeiro, 1941.
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A.
Nova categoria gramatical tupi: a visibilidade e a invisibilidade nos demonstrativos' in ''Verbum'', tomo IV, fasc. 2, Rio de Janeiro, 1947.
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A. ''Pequeno vocabulário Tupi–Português''. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria São José, 1955. (3ª ed.: Livraria São José, Rio de Janeiro, 1967)
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A.
Curso de Tupi antigo'. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria São José, 1956.
* LEMOS BARBOSA, A. ''Pequeno vocabulário Português-Tupi''. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria São José, 1970.
* MICHAELE, Faris Antônio S. ''Tupi e Grego: Comparações Morfológicas em Geral''. Ponta Grossa: UEPG, 1973. 126 p.
*
* RODRIGUES, Aryon Dall'Igna. ''Análise morfológica de um texto tupi''. Separata da Revista "Logos", ano VII, N. 5. Curitiba: Tip. João Haupi, 1953.
* RODRIGUES, Aryon Dall'Igna. ''Morfologia do Verbo Tupi''. Separata de "Letras". Curitiba, 1953.
* RODRIGUES, Aryon Dall'Igna. ''Descripción del tupinambá en el período colonial: el arte de José de Anchieta''. ''Colóquio sobre a descrição das línguas ameríndias no período colonial''. Ibero-amerikanisches Institut, Berlim.
* SAMPAIO, Teodoro. ''O Tupi na Geografia Nacional''. São Paulo: Editora Nacional, 1987. 360 p.
*
*
External links
The art of the grammar of the Tupi language by Father Luis Figueira
Tupi Swadesh-vocabulary list(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix
essay in Portuguese.
*
ttp://tupi.fflch.usp.br/cursoelementartupiantigo An elementary course of Old Tupi(in Portuguese)
Another course of Old Tupi(in Portuguese)
(with non-standard Tupi spelling)
Sources on Tupinambá at the Curt Nimuendaju Digital LibraryTuLaR (Tupian Languages Resources)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tupi Language
Agglutinative languages
Extinct languages of South America
Tupi–Guarani languages
Cultural history of Brazil
Languages attested from the 16th century