Contact
First contact with the Waimiri Atroari occurred in the 17th century with the Spanish and Portuguese crown spreading to gain more territory (Do Vale). First official contact with the Waimiri Atroari took place in 1884 with Joãno Barbosa Rodrigues who enlisted the Waimiri Atroari as guides. At this point in time the Waimiri Atroari already had a reputation for being violent and Rodrigues sought to change the stereotypes associated with the group (Do Vale). In 1911 a member of the SPI (Indian Protection Services) made contact with the Waimiri Atroari, the following year the First Indian Attraction Station was established (Do Vale). Despite friendly contact the government of this region saw the great wealth of resources that the native land possessed and encouraged the invasion of the land in order to exploit the natural resources (Do Vale). As a result, the Waimiri Atroari took up defense of their land with bows and arrows. This led to many acts of violence between the Waimiri Atroari and non-indigenous people, with military forces used to combat the indigenous group and wiping out entire villages (Do Vale). The next large scale conflict with the Waimiri Atroari that has been documented is in the 1960s with the Amazonas State and Roraima Territory Government's plan for a highway between Manaus and Caracarai, cutting directly through indigenous land (Do Vale). This project brought in individuals and teams to "pacify" the Waimiri Atroari as well as Military forces to build the highway and intimidate the indigenous people (Do Vale). As a result of high tension and disagreements most of the non-indigenous pacifists were killed by the Waimiri Atroari (Do Vale). In 1971 theLanguage Family
Waimiri Atroari belongs to the Carib language family, which is centralized inDocumentation
João Barbosa Rodrigues’ wordlist seems to be the first to document the language in 1885 and he refers to the people as "Crichanas" (Bruno 2003, 12). A century later, in 1985, a phonological proposal and alphabet were developed by a Catholic missionary couple from the Indigenous Missionary Council (Bruno 2010, 85). A year after, in 1986, another missionary couple from the Evangelical Mission of the Amazonian (MEVA), created a more accurate orthography (Bruno 2010, 86). It seems that the first detailed description was done by Ana Carla Bruno. She released a dissertation in 2003 on the descriptive grammar of the Waimiri-Atroari language. She extensively described theProjects
While there are currently no language documentation projects for Wairmiri Atroari, there are projects for other languages in the Carib family. Carib language documentation supported by DOBES include the following languages:Phonology
Consonants
(Bruno 2003, 31)Vowels
(Bruno 2003, 32)Morphology
Bruno (2003) creates a thorough documentation of the morphology of Waimiri Atroari which includes nouns of possession, relational morphemes, derivational morphemes,Pronouns
Bruno states that pronouns can take both subject and object positions in Waimiri Atroari (76).1st Person: ''awy, aa, kara~kra''
= Subject position
= Bruno states that ''kara~kra'' is used when responding to a question or to emphasize that the person did an action or wants something. It is also the only pronoun that can be used in the OSV order (77).= Object position
= It seems that for a 1st person singular object, ''aa'' can be used (Bruno 81).2nd Person: ''amyry-amyra''
= Subject position
= (Bruno 2003, 78-79)= Object position
= It seems that the morpheme ''a'' is used to express a 2nd person singular object as in the examples (5) (Bruno 2003, 100) and (6) (Bruno 2003,118) below.1+2 we inclusive : kyky and 1+3 we exclusive: a’a
= Subject position
= (Bruno 2003, 79-80)= Object position
= (Bruno 2003, 123)Anaphoric (he, she, they, it): ''mykyky, mykyka'a, ka, iry''
= Subject position
= (Bruno 2003, 80-81)= Object position
= ''Mykyka'' and ''ka'' can appear in object position, but Bruno notes that ''ka'' seems to be the preferred morpheme in her data (81). (Bruno 2003, 79 & 81)Proximal: ''(h)anji, kanji, anjinji, byby, by''
= Subject position
= (Bruno 2003, 81-82) ''By'' is used to describe animate objects (Bruno 2003, 81).= Medial: ''myry'' ''and Distal: mo’o, mymo’, myky''
== Subject position
= (Bruno 2003, 82-83) ''Myry'' can only be used to describe inanimate objects (Bruno 82). ''Mymo’'' and ''mo’o'' are used with inanimate objects, while ''myky'' is used with animate objects (Bruno 82).= Object position
= (Bruno 2003, 84)Negation particle
Waimiri Atroari uses non-verbal negation, that is, negation marked by particles ''kap~kapy~kapa'' and ''wan.'' These particles act to indicate negation rather than negation being marked on a verb and are often used to negate existence as seen below (Bruno 115).Causative forms
There are two kinds of causative forms that can be used to signify if a subject causes an event. First, there is the ''-py'' morpheme that indicates if someone “made” someone else do something or if they are not resistant to “cause” an event to happen. There is one construction where the morpheme -''py'' appears with the lexicalized verb, such as in examples (27) and (28), where -''py'' attaches to the verb for 'tell' (Bruno 100). There is also a form where -''py'' does not appear with a lexicalized verb, such as in examples (29) and (30), where -''py'' attaches to the verbs 'bleed' and 'laugh'. It also seems that intransitive verbs like these, behave like transitive verbs when they take a causative form like V ntr+Caus [A O (Bruno 101). Second, there is a form that indicates if the subject is “letting” the event happen. Someone is ordered or permitted to do something without forcing the other or knowing if the other may fulfill the event. It seems that there is an absence of the morpheme -''py'', as in examples (31) and (32), and the particle ''tre’me'' is notable, however Bruno notes that the particle ''tre’me'' may not mean "let" because of example (33), in which it does not indicate "let/permit" (Bruno 103).Syntax
Split System-S
Waimiri Atroari is what Gildea (1998)Gildea, Spike. “''On Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax''.” Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 18, Oxford: Oxford Press (1998). classifies to as an Inverse Split system-S. Characteristics of this language system include A and O nominals having no case marking, a lack of auxiliaries and personal prefix set as well as the collective number suffixes (Bruno 2015, 5). In Inverse Split System-s, also referred to as Set I systems the OV unit may either precede or follow the A, in Wamiri Atroari the order is AOV (Bruno 2015, 7).Bruno, Ana Carla. ''"Case Marking in Waimiri Atroari: typical nominative/accusative or nominative with some inverse/split-s features.''" Revista Linguíʃtica 4.2 (2015)Hierarchy
Hierarchical relationships exist in Waimiri Atroari in which the third person is ranked lower than the first, second and first plural inclusive and exclusive person. In situations where second person acts on first person, or first person acts on second person there is may be subject agreement or object agreement. Therefore, it is necessary that subject and object marking follow a hierarchy : 1=2, 1+2/1+3>3. The following table provided by Bruno (2015, 11) illustrates how case is marked in Waimiri Atroari as well as the hierarchy present in the language.Semantics
Quantification
Adverbial quantifiers
Noun phrases which possess quantifiers show positional variation, as seen in examples (5) to (9). Adverbials quantifiers may be positioned on either side of the head noun. Bruno (2003) explains the relative mobility of these quantifiers by categorizing them as adjuncts.Numeral noun phrases
Examples (10) to (12) provide examples of the occurrence of the numeral ''one.'' (11) is unique in the set as it refers to 'one group' while (10) and (12) refer to one individual (Bruno 2003, 108). Example (13) demonstrates use of the number ''two'' and examples (14) and (15) provide depictions of the use of number ''three'' (Bruno 2003, 140)''.''= ''amini ~ awinini -awinihe -awynihe'' (one, alone) (Bruno 2003, 108)
==''Typytyna'' (two, a couple, a pair) (Bruno 2003, 140)
==''Takynynapa'' (three) (Bruno 2003, 140)
=Loanword influence
As of recently, due to western influence, Portuguese loanwords are also used to refer to amounts higher than three, and it is common for younger speakers to use them for amounts lower than three (Bruno 2003, 140).Many
However, traditionally, it is common for the Kinja people to use ''waha~wapy'' ('many, a lot') for amounts more than three because they did not count up to three (Bruno 2003, 140).References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waimiri-Atroari language Languages of Brazil Cariban languages