Projeto de pesquisa diacrónica na família Tupari

Abstract

This paper aims to present the first results of a historical-comparative study applied to a group of indigenous Brazilian languages, the Tupari language family. This family is currently composed of the Ayuru, Makurap, Mekens and Tupari languages, spoken in the south of the state of Rondônia, only two of which have been subjected to any kind of scientific study. Using data recorded in 1988 and transcribed by the scholar and applying to the Tupari languages the same method that made possible the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language, we intend to rescue aspects of the ancestral language spoken about 2000 years ago, the Proto-Tupari, as well as aspects related to the culture of the people who speak this language. This is possible because indigenous languages, like other European languages, present patterns of systematic changes and regular correspondences that make it possible to classify them scientifically and establish genetic relationships between them. Another stage of the work is the comparison with other families of the Tupi trunk, namely: Mondé, Ramarama, Arikém, Xipaya, Mawé, Puruborá, Munduruku; which makes it possible to verify the existence of linguistic borrowings between the families and to formulate hypotheses about the degree of depth of the observed changes.