Bororoan languages
The Borôroan languages of Brazil are Borôro and the extinct Umotína and Otuke. They are sometimes considered to form part of the proposed Macro-Jê language family,[1][2]:547 though this has been disputed.[3]:64–8
| Borôroan | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Brazil |
| Linguistic classification | Macro-Jê?
|
| Glottolog | boro1281 |
 Geographical distribution of the Borôroan languages | |
They are called the Borotuke languages by Mason (1950), a portmanteau of Bororo and Otuke.[4]
Languages
The relationship between the languages is,[5]
See Otuke for various additional varieties of the Chiquito Plains in Bolivia which may have been dialects of it, such as Kovare and Kurumina.
There are other recorded groups that may have spoken languages or dialects closer to Borôro, such as Aravirá, but nothing is directly known about these languages:[6]
- Aravirá – extinct language once spoken on the Cabaçal River and Sepotuba River in Mato Grosso
- Orari (Eastern Borôro, Orarimugodoge) – spoken on the Valhas River, Garças River, and Madeira River in Mato Grosso
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.[6]
gloss Boróro Orari Umutina Otuque tongue i-táuro i-kaura azoː ki-taho hand i-kéra i-kera azyida seni fire yóru dzyóru zoːruː reru stone tori tori tauri tohori sun kueri meri baru neri moon ári ari aːliː ari earth róto mottu moto moktuhu jaguar adúgo adugo azyukuetá anteko fish kare karo haré aharo house bái bai isipá huala bow baíga voiga bóika vevika
Proto-language
For a list of Proto-Bororo reconstructions by Camargos (2013), see the corresponding Portuguese article.
External relations
The Bororoan languages are commonly thought to be part of the Macro-Jê language family.[1][2]:547
Kaufman (1994) has suggested a relationship with the Chiquitano language.[7]
Nikulin (2019) has suggested a relationship with the Cariban and Kariri languages:[8]
gloss Proto-Bororo Kariri Proto-Cariban tooth *ɔ dza *(j)ə ear *bidʒa beɲe *pana go *tu *tə tree *i dzi *jeje tongue nunu *nuru root mu *mi(t-) hand (a)mɨsã *əmija fat (n.) *ka *ka(t-) seed *a *a fish *karo *kana name *idʒe dze heavy *motɨtɨ madi
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)[9] also found lexical similarities between Bororoan and Cariban.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guato, Karib, Kayuvava, Nambikwara, and Tupi language families due to contact.[10]
Cariban influence in Bororoan languages was due to the later southward expansion of Cariban speakers into Bororoan territory. Ceramic technology was also adopted from Cariban speakers.[10]:415 Similarly, Cariban borrowings are also present in the Karajá languages. Karajá speakers had also adopted ceramic technology from Cariban speakers.[10]:420
Similarities with Cayuvava are due to the expansion of Bororoan speakers into the Chiquitania region.[10]:416
References
- ,Guérios, R. F. Mansur F. (1939). "O nexo lingüístico Bororo/Merrime-Caiapó (contribuição para a unidade genética das línguas americanas)". Revista do Círculo de Estudos “Bandeirantes”. 2: 61–74.
- Ribeiro, Eduardo Rivail; Voort, Hein van der (2010). "Nimuendajú was right: the inclusion of the Jabutí language family in the Macro-Jê stock" (PDF). International Journal of American Linguistics. 76 (4): 517–70.
- Nikulin, Andrey (2020). Proto-Macro-Jê: um estudo reconstrutivo (PDF) (Ph.D. dissertation). Brasília: Universidade de Brasília.
- Mason, John Alden (1950). "The languages of South America". In Steward, Julian (ed.). Handbook of South American Indians. 6. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143. pp. 157–317.
- Camargo (2013)
- Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
- Kaufman, Terrence. 1994. The native languages of South America. In: Christopher Moseley and R. E. Asher (eds.), Atlas of the World’s Languages, 59–93. London: Routledge.
- Nikulin, Andrey V. The classification of the languages of the South American Lowlands: State-of-the-art and challenges / Классификация языков востока Южной Америки. Illič-Svityč (Nostratic) Seminar / Ностратический семинар, October 17, 2019.
- Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (in Portuguese) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
Further reading
 |
Wiktionary has a list of reconstructed forms at Appendix:Proto-Bororo reconstructions |
- Camargos, L. S. (2013). Consolidando uma proposta de Família Linguística Boróro: contribuição aos estudos histórico-comparativos do Tronco Macro-Jê (Doctoral thesis) (in Portuguese). Universidade de Brasília.
- Ochoa, G. C. (1995). Dicionário Bororo-Português (in Portuguese). Campo Grande: Missão Salesiana de Mato Grosso.
- Schultz, H. (1951). "Vocabulário dos indios Umutína". Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris (in Portuguese). 41: 81–137. doi:10.3406/jsa.1952.2400 – via Persée.
- Schultz, H. (1955). "Vocabulos Urukú e Digút". Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris (in Portuguese). 44: 81–97. doi:10.3406/jsa.1955.2600 – via Persée.