Your browser does not support the NLM PubReader view.

Go to this page to see a list of supporting browsers.
Journal of Universal Language
Sejong University Language Research Institue

J. Univers. Lang. 2007; 8(2):39-59

pISSN: 1598-6381

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22425/jul.2007.8.2.39

Article

The Kaingang (Brazil) Seem Linguistically Related to Oceanic Populations

Vladimir Pericliev1
1Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Copyright ⓒ 2016, Sejong University Language Research Institue. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jan 01, 2017

Abstract

The Southern-Ge Kaingang people, comprising the Xokleng and the Kaingang, presently reside in the states of Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul in south-eastern Brazil, and speak two closely related languages, forming the Kaingang language family. No external relationship of the Kaingang people, or their language, with peoples or languages outside of Ge, or Amerind(ian) more generally, has so far been suggested. In a previous paper in this journal (Pericliev 2006), I showed that statistically significant lexical similarities exist between Xokleng and several Oceanic languages, and based on further linguistic and population genetic data, tentatively put forward the hypothesis concerning the existence of a historical relationship between the Brazilian language and Austronesian. In this paper, I will show significant kinship similarities between Xokleng and Austronesian, as well as sketch some grammatical similarities. Then, including also the Kaingang language into the comparison, more than thirty putative cognate words will be given alongside with sound correspondences between the Kaingang and the Polynesian language families seeming to corroborate the idea of a link between the Brazilian languages on the Atlantic and the Oceanic languages to a considerable extent.

Keywords: Austronesian-Kaingang relationship; Oceanic and South American contacts; language prehistory and classification; languages and migrations

References

1.

Andrews, L. 1865. A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, to which is Appended and English-Hawaiian Vocabulary and a Chronological Table of Remarkable Events. Honolulu, HI: Henry M. Whitney.

2.

Briggs, B. 1973. The Languages of Polynesia. Current Trends in Linguistics 466-505. The Hague: Mouton.

3.

Gensch, H. 1908. Wörterverzeichnis der Bugres von Santa Catharina. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 40, 744-759.

4.

Gordon, G. (ed.). 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth Edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International.

5.

Henry, J. 1935. A Kaingang Text. International Journal of American Linguistics 8, 172-218.

6.

Henry, J. 1948. The Kaingang Language. International Journal of American Linguistics 14, 194-204.

7.

Klamer, M. 2002. Typical Features of Austronesian Languages in Central and Eastern Indonesia. Oceanic Linguistics 41, 363-383.

8.

Murdock, P. 1970. Kin Term Patterns and Their Distribution. Ethnology 9, 165-207.

9.

Pericliev, V. 2006. Significant Lexical Similarities between a Language of Brazil and Some Languages of Southeast Asia and Oceania: From Typological Perspective. Journal of Universal Language 7.1, 121-145.

10.

Pukui, M. & S. Erbert. 1986. Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian Dictionary. Hononulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

11.

Ribeiro, M., S. Figueiredo & F. Sonati, 2003. Haplotypes of α-Globin Gene Regulatory Element in Two Brazilian Native Populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121, 58 - 62.

12.

Ruhlen, M. 1987. Classification. A Guide to the World's Languages 1. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

13.

Tregear, R. 1891. Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Wellington: Lyon & Blair.

14.

Urban, G. 1985. Ergativity and Accusativity in Shokleng. International Journal of American Linguistics 51, 164-87.

15.

Urban, G. 1986. Semiotic Functions of Macro-parallelism in the Shokleng Origin Myth. In J. Sherzer & G. Urban (eds.), Native South American Discourse 15-57. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

16.

Valdés-Pérez, E. & V. Pericliev. 1999. Computer Enumeration of Significant Implicational Universals of Kinship Terminology. The Journal of Comparative Social Science 33, 162-174.

17.

Wiesemann, U. 1972. Die Phonologische und Grammatische Struktur der Kaingáng-sprache. Janua Linguarum Series Practica 90. The Hague: Mouton.

18.

Wiesemann, U. 2002. Dicionário Bilingüe Kaingang - Português. Curitiba: Editora Evangélica Esperança.

19.

Williams, W. 1957. A Dictionary of the Maori Language. Wellington: Government Printer.