Proto-Tupian (PT) is the reconstructed common ancestor of all the

Tupian languages 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 betwee ...

. It consists, therefore, of a hypothetical language, reconstructed by the

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...

from data of the descendant languages. In

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, Tupian historical-comparative studies are being developed mainly by two scientific teams: one from the Laboratório de Línguas Indígenas (LALI) of the

University of Brasília A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, under the coordination of

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 ...

; and the other one from the

Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, commonly shortened MPEG, is a Brazilian research institution and museum located in the city of Belém, state of Pará, Brazil. It was founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna as the Pará Museum of Natur ...

, located in

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

, under the orientation of Denny Moore. These studies provide evidence about the Proto-Tupian economy and culture, suggesting, for example, that they had

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

. The most accepted theory is that the Tupian language family originated between the Guaporé and

Aripuanã Aripuanã is a municipality in the state of Mato Grosso in the Central-West Region of Brazil. It is located on the banks of the Aripuanã River. The city is served by Aripuanã Airport. The municipality contains the Rio Flor do Prado Ecolog ...

rivers, in the

Madeira River The Madeira River ( ) 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 the biggest tributary of ...

basin. There are currently 70 Tupian languages, including Tupi,

Paraguayan Guarani Paraguayans () are the citizens of Paraguay. Though the majority of Paraguayans reside in Paraguay, significant communities have been established in multiple countries, most noticeably Argentina, Spain, United States, Brazil. History The first ...

, Awetï, Ayvu, etc.

Linguistic homeland

Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian

linguistic homeland In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically ...

to be somewhere between the Guaporé and

rivers, in the

basin. Much of this area corresponds to the modern-day state of

Rondônia Rondônia () is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northern subdivision of the country (central-western part). It is bordered by Acre (state), Acre in the west, Amazonas, Brazil, Amazonas in the north, Mato Grosso in the east, and Bo ...

, Brazil. Five of the ten Tupian branches are found in this area, as well as some

Tupi–Guarani languages Tupi–Guarani (/tuːˈpiː ɡwɑˈrɑːni/ /ɡwɑˈɾɑ-/; Tupi-Guarani: uˈpi ɡwaɾaˈni ) is the most widely distributed subfamily of the Tupian languages of South America. It consists of about fifty languages, including Guarani and Ol ...

(especially Kagwahiva), making it the probable linguistic homeland of these languages and maybe of the peoples that traditionally speak them. Rodrigues believes that Proto-Tupian dates back to around 5000 BP. O'Hagan (2014)O'Hagan, Zachary (with Keith Bartolomei, Natalia Chousou-Polydouri, Emily Clem, Erin Donnelly and Lev Michael). 2014
A Computational-phylogenetic Classification of Tupí-Guaraní and its Geographical Spread
Language Variation and Change, October 20, Chicago. proposes that Proto-Tupi-Guarani was spoken in the region of 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 ...

and

Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; ; ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. __TOC__ Description and history The fir ...

s. Proto-Omagua-Kokama then expanded up the Amazon River, Proto-Tupinamba expanded south along the Atlantic coast, and the Southern branch expanded up along the Tocantins/

Araguaia River The Araguaia River ( , Karajá language, Karajá: ♂ ''Berohokỹ'' eɾohoˈkə̃ ♀ ''Bèrakuhukỹ'' ɛɾakuhuˈkə̃ is one of the major rivers of Brazil, and a tributary of the Tocantins River. Geography The Araguaia River comes from ...

towards the

Paraná River The Paraná River ( ; ; ) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. ...

basin.

Lexicon

This section lists Proto-Tupían reconstructions from Rodrigues and Cabral (2012). Since the reconstructions are highly tentative, the Proto-Tupían forms are all marked by two asterisks. For a list of Proto-Tupian reconstructions by Nikulin (2020),Nikulin, Andrey. 2020.
Proto-Macro-Jê: um estudo reconstrutivo
'. Doctoral dissertation, University of Brasília. see the corresponding Portuguese article.

Independent nouns

Proto-Tupian independent nouns: ;Human beings: * **apʷũ ‘person’/‘who’ * **aɨče ‘man’ * **pet ‘woman’ * **orʲe ‘we, I; he/they’ * **ru ‘fellow’ ;Animals: * **ɨčɨ ‘deer’ * **ameko ‘jaguar’ * **aʔɨ ‘sloth’ * **awuru/aworo ‘parrot’ * **arat ‘macaw’ * **moj ‘snake’ * **ɨp ‘fish’ * **enem ‘beetle’ * **ŋap ‘wasp’ ;Plants: * **mani ‘

manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

’ * **awa/awai ‘yams’ * **ɨčɨpo ‘vine’ * **kʔɨp ‘tree, wood’ * **kɨče ‘bamboo’ * **ɨʔa ‘

calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvest ...

’ * **wetʲɨk ‘

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

’ ;Nature: * **ŋʷat ‘sun’ * **watɨ ‘moon’ * **ɨpʷɨ ‘earth’ * **aman ‘rain’ * **ičʔɨ ‘river’ * **wita ‘stone’ * **ʔat ‘day’

Dependent nouns

Proto-Tupian dependent nouns: ;Kinship: * **amõj ‘grandfather’ * **up ‘father’ * **čɨ ‘mother’ * **aʔɨt ‘son of a man’ * **ɨket ‘older sister of a woman’ * **kɨpʷɨt ‘brother of a woman’ ;Parts of the body of animals: * **po ‘hand’ * **ʔa ‘head’ * **ap ‘hair’ * **apɨ ‘ear’ * **pepʔo ‘wing’ * **uwaj ‘tail’ * **kaŋ ‘bone’ ;Parts of plants: * **epʷ ‘leaf’ * **akã ‘branch’ * **potʔɨt ‘flower’ * **wu ‘thorn’ ;Artifacts: * **ekʷʔɨp ‘arrow’ * **wɨ ‘ax’ * **ɨrʲu ‘basket’ * **waʔẽ ‘pot’ * **čʔam ‘rope’ * **atʲa ‘fire’ * **ekʷ ‘house’ * **moʔɨt ‘necklace’ ;Sensations, feelings, and attributes * **ačɨ ‘ache’ * **akʲup ‘warm’ * **ečaraj ‘forgetful’ * **pocɨj ‘heavy’ * **acʔaŋ ‘thick’

Verbs, affixes, and others

Proto-Tupian verbs, affixes, and other parts of speech: ;Positional verbs * **ʔam ‘to stand’ * **up ~ wup ‘to lie’ * **in ‘to sit’ * **eko ‘to be moving’ * **kup ‘to be plural’ ;Motion / directional verbs * **ka ‘to go’ * **co ‘to go’ * **ut ~ **wut ‘to come’ ;Dicendi / faciendi verb * **kʔe ‘to say/to do’ ;Postpositions * **pe ‘punctual locative/dative’ * **ka ‘allative’ * **wo ~ mo ‘diffuse locative’ * **ece ‘relative’/‘associative’ * **eɾi, **wi ‘ablative’ * **eɾʲo ~ **eɾʲe ‘associative’ * **coče ‘superessive’ * **na ‘translative’ ;Derivational valence changing prefixes * **mo- ‘causative prefix’ * **eɾʲo- ~ **eɾʲe- ‘causative-comitative prefix’ * **we- ‘reflexive prefix’ * **wo- ‘reciprocal prefix’

Cultural vocabulary

Proto-Tupían cultural vocabulary (Rodrigues and Cabral 2012): :

Linguistic homeland

Lexicon

Independent nouns

Dependent nouns

Verbs, affixes, and others

Cultural vocabulary

See also

References

Further reading