Indigenous Languages

This web site contains links to other web sites not connected with SIL in Brazil. The opinions and viewpoints of these other sites do not necessarily represent those of SIL members in Brazil.

About Brazil
The Brazilian Embassy

Indigenous Languages of Brazil

South American Indian languages have been grouped into language families by linguistic evidences of genetic relationships. Genetic groupings of languages are groups of languages descended essentially from the same language, which we refer to as a protolanguage.

These evidences include consistent phonetic relationships as shown by cognates in the various languages, as well as grammatical and other evidences that the languages originated primarily from a single source. Cognates are words in different languages which are recognizable as being related to each other because they were derived from the same source. For example, the following pairs of words are cognates in Portuguese and Spanish:
fazer hacer 'to do, to make'
filho hijo 'son'

Brazilian indigenous languages show a lot of genetic diversity. Based on the number of related languages within a group, there are 4 major families or stocks. A language family is a grouping of languages descended from a single language. Examples of language families outside of South America are the Germanic, the Romance, and the Slavic language families. There are also 2 medium-sized families, several smaller families, as well as a number of language isolates.

A language stock is a grouping of language families all of which are descended from a single language. The relationship between these families is more distant in time and the differences between languages are greater than those within a single language family. For example, the Indo-European stock includes the Germanic, Romance, and Slavic language families as well as several other families.

A language isolate is a language which shows no genetic relationship to other languages.

Major groupings: Arawak (also referred to as Maipuran), Carib, Macro-Gê, and Tupi.

Medium-sized families: Pano, Tucano.

Smaller families: Arawá, Kariri, Katukina, Makú, Mura-Pirahã, Nambikuara, Yanomami.

Language isolates: Ticuna, Aikaná, Koiaiá, Jabuti, Kapiwana, Trumai, Máku, Awaké, Irantxe.

Source: Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 1996. Amazonian Languages. Manuscript prepared for the Third Australian Linguistic Institute, Canberra Australia, July 1-12, 1996.

Approximately 38% of the languages of South America are considered endangered because they are small groups with populations of 600 or less. Using this criteria, there are 133 endangered languages in Brazil. Of these, 105 have populations of 225 or less.

Source: Mary Ruth Wise, 1994.

Indigenous language families are completely unrelated to European languages such as English and Portuguese. As a result, learning an indigenous language can be a challenge (read an article by Greg Thomson on the subject (in Portuguese)). And the complexities involved in translating works by indigenous authors into the national language are also formidable (see Complexidades Sociolingüísticas Ocorrentes na Tradução da Literatura de Autoria Indígena para a Língua Nacional (in Portuguese)).