Mura is a language of
Amazonas, Brazil. It is most famous for
Pirahã, its sole surviving dialect. Linguistically, it is typified by
agglutinativity, a very small
phoneme inventory (around 11 compared to around 44 in English),
whistled speech, and the use of
tone.
In the 19th century, there were an estimated 30,000–60,000 Mura. It is now spoken by only 300 Pirahã people in eight villages.
Dialects
Since at least Barboza Rodrigues (1892)
eference? there have been three ethnic names commonly listed as dialects of Mura, or even as Muran languages. The names are:
* Bohurá, or ''Buxwaray'', the original form of the name 'Mura'; spoken on the
Autaz River
*
Pirahã, or ''Pirahá, Pirahán'', the name the remaining dialect goes by
* YahahÃ, also spelled ''Jahahi''; 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 ...
On the basis of a minuscule amount of data, it would appear that Bohurá (Mura proper) was
mutually intelligible with Pirahã; however, for Yahahà there exists only ethnographic information, and it can be assumed they spoke the same language as other Mura.
Rodrigues
Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. Rod ...
describes the Yahahà as having come from the Branco river, a tributary of the right bank of the upper
Marmelos river. The last Yahahà are said to have joined the Pirahã.
The Mura/Bohurá endonym is , according to Barboza Rodrigues (1892), or ~ , according to Tastevin (1923). This was pronounced ''Murá'' by their neighbors, the
Torá and
Matanawi. In his vocabulary, Rodrigues lists ''Bohura'' for the people and ''bhurai-ada'' "Mura language" for the language, from the Mura of the Manicoré River; Tastevin has ''Bohurai'' and ''bohuarai-arase'' for the same. They also record,
: "That one is Mura"
: "We are all Mura"
(Caution: these words need to be confirmed. The scanned text of Nimuendaju (1948) at the link has several errors, such as for , for , and for .)
Genealogical relations
Mura is often proposed to be related to
MatanawÃ. Kaufman (1994) also suggests a connection with
Huarpe in his ''Macro-Warpean'' proposal.
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Mura language varieties.
:
Notes
Bibliography
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
*Everett, D. L. (1992). A lÃngua Pirahã e a teoria da sintaxe: descrição, perspectivas e teoria. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.
*Hanke, W. (1950a). O idioma Mura. Arquivos: Coletânea de documentor para a História da Amazônia, 12:3-8.
*Hanke, W. (1950b). Vocabulário e idioma mura dos Ãndios mura do rio Manicoré. Arquivos, 12:3-8.
*Heinrichs, A. (1961). Questionário: Mura-Pirahã Rio Marmelos. (Questionário dos Vocabulários Padrões para estudos comparativos preliminares de lÃnguas indÃgenas brasileiras.) Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional.
*Heinrichs, A. (1963). Questionário: Mura-Pirahã Rios Marmelos e Maici. (Questionário dos Vocabulários Padrões para estudos comparativos preliminares de lÃnguas indÃgenas brasileiras.) Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional.
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the world's languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
*
Curt Nimuendajú (1948): "The Mura" and "The Yahahi", i
Handbook of South American Indians, Volume 3: ''The Tropical Forest Tribes'' ed. Julian H. Steward, pp. 255–269.
External links
* PROEL
{{South American languages
Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas