The Monde languages of

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 ...

form a branch of the

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 ...

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in his ...

Cinta Larga The Cinta Larga (or Cinturão Largo) are a people indigenous to the western Amazon Rainforest of Brazil, numbering almost 2,000. Their name means "broad belt" in Portuguese, referring to large bark sashes the tribe once wore. The tribe is fam ...

is a

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...

spoken by a thousand people. Other languages are Mondé, Aruáshi, Suruí, Zoro, and

Gavião do Jiparaná Gavião may refer to: People * Gavião (Gê), an indigenous Gê-speaking people of Pará and Maranhão, Brazil **Pará Gavião language, a Gê language spoken by the Gavião of Pará and Maranhão * Gavião (Rondônia), an indigenous people of Rond ...

Classification

Internal classification of the Mondé languages according to Moore (2005):Moore, Denny. 2005
Classificação interna da família lingüística Mondé
''Estudos Lingüísticos'' 34: 515-520.
PDF
*Mondé ** Suruí (Paíter) **A ***Salamãy ( Mondé) ***B ****

(3 groups: Kabínééy, Kakínééy, and Maamééy) ****(subgroup) ***** Gavião de Rondônia (Ikolééy) ***** Zoró (Pãgɨñééy) ***** Aruá ''Unclassified'': Arara do Guariba

Varieties

Below is a list of Mondé language varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties. *Mondé - spoken on the Ouro River, tributary of the

Pimenta Bueno River The Pimenta Bueno River is a river of Rondônia Rondônia () is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northern subdivision of the country (central-western part). To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is th ...

Rondônia Rondônia () is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northern subdivision of the country (central-western part). To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is the state of Amazonas, in the east is Mato Grosso ...

. *Sanamaica / Salamay - spoken on the left bank of the

. *Aruá - spoken on the

Branco River The Branco River ( pt, Rio Branco; Engl: ''White River'') is the principal affluent of the Rio Negro from the north. Basin The river drains the Guayanan Highlands moist forests ecoregion. It is enriched by many streams from the Tepui highlands ...

near São Luís, Rondônia. *Digüt - spoken on the left bank of the

Machado River Machado is a surname of Portuguese origin meaning the word "axe" or "hatchet" dating back to approximately 2nd century Europe. It is commonly found in Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Latin America, and India (Southern Tamil Nadu and Southern Kerala) ...

. *Aruáshi - spoken by the neighbors of the Tupari tribe at the sources of the

. Kabanae (spoken by the "Arara nation" according to

Johann Natterer Johann Natterer (9 November 1787 – 17 June 1843) was an Austrian naturalist and explorer. Family and early life Johann Natterer was born on 9 November 1787, the son of the animal-zoologist Joseph Natterer Sr. and Maria Anna Theresia Scho ...

) and Matanau, are both extinct Monde languages that were spoken at the mouth of the

Aripuanã River Aripuanã River ( pt, Rio Aripuanã) is a river in the Mato Grosso and Amazonas states in north-western Brazil. It is a tributary of the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin. The town of Novo Aripuanã is located on its banks where it merges into t ...

. Word lists of Kabanae and Matanau were collected by

in 1829 during his expedition into the

Madeira River The Madeira River ( pt, Rio Madeira, link=no ) is a major waterway in South America. It is estimated to be in length, while the Madeira-Mamoré is estimated near or in length depending on the measuring party and their methods. The Madeira is ...

(Jolkesky 2016: 640-641).Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery. 2016.
Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas
'. Ph.D. dissertation,

University of Brasília The University of Brasília ( pt, Universidade de Brasília, UnB) is a federal public university in Brasília, the capital of Brazil. It was founded in 1960 and has since consistently been named among the top five Brazilian universities and the ...

. Jolkesky (2016) also observed some similarities between the Arara do Rio Branco and the Monde languages; however, Arara do Rio Branco remains unclassified.

References

Tupian languages {{tupian-lang-stub *