The Mundurukú 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. They are
Munduruku
The Munduruku, also known as Mundurucu or Wuy Jugu or
BMJ, are an indigenous people of Brazil living in the Amazon River basin. Some Munduruku communities are part of the Coatá-Laranjal Indigenous Land. They had an estimated population in 201 ...
and the extinct
Kuruáya.
Varieties
Loukotka (1968) lists the following names for Mundurucú language varieties, including names of unattested varieties.
*Mundurucú / Paiquizé / Pari / Weidéñe - originally spoken along the
Tapajós River
The Tapajós ( pt, Rio Tapajós ) is a river in Brazil. It runs through the Amazon Rainforest and is a major tributary of the Amazon River. When combined with the Juruena River, the Tapajós is approximately long. It is one of the largest clear ...
, now on the
Urariá River and
Maué-assú River, Amazonas.
*Kuruáya / Caravare / Curivere / Guahuara / Curuapa - spoken on the
Curua River, now perhaps extinct.
Proto-language
Some Proto-Mundurukú reconstructions by Picanço (2005) are as follows.
[Picanço, Gessiane Lobato. 2005. ]
Munduruku: Phonetics, phonology, synchrony, diachrony
'. Doctoral dissertation, University of Vancouver.
:
References
{{Tupian languages
Tupian languages