Je–Tupi–Carib (or TuKaJê) is a proposed

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

composed of the Macro-Je (or Macro-Gê),

Tupian The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani. Homeland and ''urheimat'' Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere between ...

and

Cariban The Cariban languages are a family of languages Indigenous to north-eastern South America. They are widespread across northernmost South America, from the mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes, and they are also spoken in small pock ...

languages of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Aryon Rodrigues Aryon Dall'Igna Rodrigues (4 July 1925 – 24 April 2014) was a Brazilian linguist, considered one of the most renowned researchers of the indigenous languages of Brazil. Education and early career In 1959, Rodrigues was the first Brazilian t ...

(2000) based this proposal on shared morphological patterns. In an earlier proposal, Rodrigues (1985) had also proposed a ''Tupí-Cariban'' language family. However, in some cases, similarities among the language families are clearly due to more recent linguistic diffusion, as with Tupian and Jê languages (

Timbira Timbira refers to a number of related ethnolinguistic groups of Timbira-speaking Gê peoples native to Northern and Northeastern Brazil. Among those peoples grouped under the name are the Apanyekrá, Apinajé, Kanela, Gavião (Jê), Krahô ...

;

Guajajara The Guajajara are an indigenous people in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. They are one of the most numerous indigenous groups in Brazil, with an estimated 13,100 individuals living on indigenous land. History In 1901, the Guajajara fought C ...

, Tembe, Guaja, Urubu-Ka'apor, etc.) in the lower

Tocantins Tocantins () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 2014 ...

- Mearim area.Cabral, Ana Suelly Arruda Câmara; Beatriz Carreta Corrêa da Silva; Maria Risolta Silva Julião; Marina Maria Silva Magalhães. 2007. Linguistic diffusion in the Tocantins-Mearim area. In: Ana Suelly Arruda Câmara Cabral; Aryon Dall’Igna Rodrigues (ed.), ''Línguas e culturas Tupi'', p. 357–374. Campinas: Curt Nimuendaju; Brasília: LALI. Linguistic diffusion among Jê, Tupian, Cariban, Arawakan, and Trumai languages is also evident among the languages of the

Xingu Indigenous Park The Xingu Indigenous Park (, pronounced ) is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its official purposes are to protect the environment and the several nations of Xingu I ...

.Seki, Lucy. 2011
Alto Xingu: uma área linguística?
In: Franchetto, Bruna (ed.),
Alto Xingu: uma sociedade multilíngue
', p. 57-85. Rio de Janeiro: Museu do Índio/FUNAI.

Comparison

Nikulin (2015)

Nikulin (2015) compared the vocabulary of Proto-Macro-Jê, Proto-Tupí, and Proto-Carib. In this comparison, only four matches were found among all three proto-languages: 'name', 'tooth', 'to eat', and 'ear'.

Nikulin (2019)

Jê-Tupí-Cariban basic vocabulary listed by Nikulin (2019):Nikulin, Andrey V. 2019.
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, Higher School of Economics, October 17, 2019. *‘to go’: p-Tupian *to, p-Bororo *tu, p-Cariban * ɨə ə*‘arm’: p-Mundurukú *paʔ, p-Macro-Jê *paC, Chiquitano ''pa''-, p-Kariri *bo(ro-), p-Cariban *apə-rɨ *‘foot’: p-Tupian *py, p-Macro-Jê *pVrV, p-Bororo *bure, Kariri *bɨ(ri-), (?) Chiquitano ''pope''-, (?) p-Cariban *pupu-ru *‘seed’: p-Tuparí-Karitiana *j-upa, p-Cariban *əpɨ (*-tɨpə) *‘stone’: p-Macro-Jê *kra(C), p-Kariri *kro *‘tree’: p-Bororo *i, p-Kariri *dzi *‘to sleep’: p-Jabutí *nũtã, Chiquitano ''a-nu'', p-Bororo *unutu / *-nutu, p-Kariri *-unu, (?) p-Macro-Jê *ũtᵊ

Nikulin (2023)

Nikulin (2023) identifies the following cognates in Macro-Jê and Tupian as further evidence for a Macro-Jê–Tupian family. Non-cognate lookalikes or loans are identified by Nikulin (2023) as: *‘flat’: Proto-Mawé–Guaranian *-peːP and Ofayé -ɸiʔ *‘to kill’: Ofayé -kə˜jʔ, Proto-

Chiquitano The Chiquitano or Chiquitos are an indigenous people of Bolivia, with a small number also living in Brazil. The Chiquitano primarily live in the Chiquitania tropical savanna of Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, with a small number also living in ...

*kõˀõj- ‘to kill, to die’, and Awetí -kỹj *‘liquid’:

Proto-Tupian Proto-Tupian (PT) is the reconstructed common ancestor of all the Tupian languages. It consists, therefore, of a hypothetical language, reconstructed by the comparative method from data of the descendant languages. In Brazil, Tupian historical ...

*ʔɯ / *-j-ɯ and Proto- Jabutian *-y *‘louse’: Proto-Macro-Jê *-ŋgy₁n° (Eastern only) and Proto-Core Mondé *giT *‘neck’:

*-woT and Proto-

Cerrado The Cerrado () is a vast ecoregion of Tropics, tropical savanna in central Brazil, being present in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piauí, Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Paraná ...

*-mbut *‘powder, paste’:

*-jõʔõP and Proto- Jabutian *-nũ *‘thorn’: Proto-Macro-Jê *-ñĩn° ~ *-ñĩñ° and Tuparí -ĩ

Macro-Chaco hypothesis

Nikulin (2019) suggests a Macro-Chaco hypothesis linking Jê-Tupí-Cariban (including Karirian and Bororoan) with Mataco-Guaicuruan (possibly including Zamucoan): *Macro-Chaco ** Macro-Guaicurú *** Matacoan *** Guaicurú ***(?)

Zamuco The Ayoreo (Ayoreode, Ayoréo, Ayoréode) are an indigenous people of the Gran Chaco. They live in an area surrounded by the Paraguay, Pilcomayo, Parapetí, and Grande Rivers, spanning both Bolivia and Paraguay. There are approximately 5,600 ...

**Jê-Tupí-Cariban ***Macro-Tupian ****

**** Macro-Jê +

***Macro-Cariban ****

**** Karirí **** Boróro In addition to likely shared morphology, there are also various possible Macro-Chaco shared basic vocabulary items, listed below. *‘tooth’: p-Tupian *j-ãc, p-Tupian *j-uñ, p-Bororo *o, Chiquitano ''oʔo''-, p-Cariban *jə, p-Kariri *dza, p-Guaicurú *-owe *‘liquid’: p-Tupian *j-ɯ, Chiquitano ''uʔu''- ‘honey’, p-Matacoan *-ʔi *‘name’: p-Tupian *j-et, p-Tupian *-jet, p-Bororo *idʒe, Kariri *dze, p-Matacoan *-ej, p-Zamocoan *i, (?) Chiquitano ''ɨri''- *‘blood’: p-Tupian *əɯ, p-Tupian *j-O, p-Matacoan *’woj-, p-Guaicurú *-awot, Ayoreo ''ijo'' *‘seed’: pre-pMundurukú *j-a, p-Tupian *j-əm, p-Bororo *a, Chiquitano ''ijo''-, p-Chiquitano *a, p-Matacoan *-oʔ, p-Guaicurú -a ‘fruit’ Reconstructed pronominal affixes of the protolanguages of the Macro-Chaco families are given in the following table: In this table the forms marked with (A) refer to ergative/agentive case, and the forms marked with (O) are referred to absolutive/patient/experiencer case.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Je-Tupi-Carib languages Proposed language families Indigenous languages of Eastern Brazil Indigenous languages of Central Amazonia Indigenous languages of Northern Amazonia