The Ofayé or Opaye language, also ''Ofaié-Xavante, Opaié-Shavante'', forms its own 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 ...
. It is spoken by only a couple of the small
Ofayé people, though language revitalization efforts are underway. Grammatical descriptions have been made by the
Pankararú linguist
Maria das Dores de Oliveira (Pankararu),
as well as by
Sarah C. Gudschinsky and Jennifer E. da Silva, from the
Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul.
It was spoken on the
Ivinhema River
The Ivinhema River ( pt, Rio Ivinhema) is a river of Mato Grosso do Sul state in southwestern Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Lat ...
,
Pardo River, and
Nhandú River
The Nhandú River ( pt, Rio Nhandú) is a river in the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, Brazil. It is a tributary of the Teles Pires.
Course
The Nhandú River flows southwest from Pará into Mato Grosso, where it is a right tributary of the Teles ...
in
Mato Grosso do Sul. ''Guachi'', spoken on the
Vacaria River in Mato Grosso do Sul, is a dialect.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the
Macro-Mataguayo-Guaykuru languages due to contact.
Phonology
The consonantal inventory of Ofayé is as follows.
The vowel inventory of Ofayé is as follows.
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.
:
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ofaye language
Nuclear Macro-Jê languages
Languages of Brazil
Indigenous languages of South America (Central)
Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas