''Cafundó'' (), or (), is an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...

("secret language") spoken in the

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 ...

ian village of Cafundó, São Paulo, now a suburb of

Salto de Pirapora Salto de Pirapora () is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Sorocaba. The population is 45,860 (2020 est.) in an area of . The elevation is . See also * Cafundó language References ...

. The language is structurally similar to Portuguese, with many

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language *Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for Nationali ...

words in its lexicon. Cafundó was at first thought to be an African language, but a later study (1996) by Carlos Vogt and Peter Fry showed that its grammatical and morphological structure are those of

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 ...

, specifically the rural hinterland Southeastern variety, ''

caipira A Caipira () is an ethnic group native to Paulistânia, cultural area in Brazil, the term "''caipira''", of origin in the Paulista General language, probably influenced by the terms "''kai'pira''", "''ka'apir''", "''ka'a pora''" or "''kopira''" ...

''. Whereas its lexicon is heavily drawn from some Bantu language(s). It is therefore not a

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. Wh ...

, as it is sometimes considered. In contrast to Vogt and Fry (1996), Álvarez López and Jon-And (2017) suggests that when speakers code-switch from Cafundó Portuguese to Cupópia, they produce something different from a contemporary regional variety of Portuguese with a number of African-derived words. Rather, the passages in which Cupópia is used comprise specific grammatical features, suggesting that the variety has its own grammar.

History

The name means "a remote place" or "a hard-to-reach place", referring to the

quilombo A ''quilombo'' (; from the Kimbundu word , ) is a Brazilian hinterland settlement founded by people of African origin, and others sometimes called Carabali. Most of the inhabitants of quilombos, called quilombolas, were maroons, a term for e ...

of Cafundó. The Brazilian film '' Cafundó'' also takes its name from the same location.

Speakers

The speaker community is very small (40 people in 1978). They live in a rural area, 150 km from the city 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 Ga ...

, and are mostly of African descent. They also speak Portuguese, and use ''cafundó'' as a "secret"

home language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

References

* Peter Fry and Carlos Vogt (1996) ''Cafundó, a África no Brasil: Linguagem e Sociedade.'' São Paulo, Companhia das Letras. . * Sílvio Vieira de Andrade Filho (2000) ''Um Estudo Sociolingüístico das Comunidades Negras do Cafundó, do Antigo Caxambu e de seus Arredores''. Secretaria da Educação e Cultura of

Sorocaba Sorocaba () is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Sorocaba is the eighth-largest city in the state of São Paulo. Outside the Greater São Paulo region, it ranks behind only Campinas, São José dos Campos and Ribeirão Preto. I ...

. Also Ph.D. diss.,

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

.
Available on-line
* Laura Álvarez López and Anna Jon-And (2017) 'Afro-Brazilian Cupópia: Lexical and morphosyntactic features of a lexically driven in-group code'. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32:1 (75-103).

External links

Web page on Cafundó (in Portuguese)Explanation and examples of the Cafundó language (in Portuguese)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cafundo language Brazilian Portuguese Afro-Brazilian culture São Paulo (state)