Comparative study of the Tupari branch of the Tupi family: contributions to understanding its historical development and internal classification Ana Vilacy Galucio and Antonia Fernanda Nogueira MCTI - Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi Memorias del V Congreso de Idiomas Indígenas de Latinoamérica, 6-8 de octubre de 2011, Universidad de Texas en Austin Disponible en http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/events.html Comparative study of the Tupari branch of the Tupi family: contributions to understanding its historical development and internal classification∗ Ana Vilacy Galucio and Antonia Fernanda Nogueira MCTI - Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi
[email protected] [email protected] Key words: Tupi, Tupari languages, reconstruction, internal classification. 1. Introduction The Tupi linguistic family is one of the largest linguistic groups spoken in South America, and it is composed of ten smaller branches that together comprise about 45 languages (not counting the difference among dialects spoken by distinct ethnic groups): Arikém, Mondé, Puruborá, Ramarama, Tupari, Mundurukú, Jurúna, Awetí, Mawé (Sateré), and Tupí-Guaraní. The first five of these families are spoken exclusively in the current state of Rondônia, Brazil, which, because of the time depth of the Tupi diversity there, has, for many years, often been considered as the original “homeland” for the Tupi languages (Métraux, 1928; Rodrigues, 1964). Figure 1 below presents a schematic graph of the genetic relationship and subclassification among the 10 branches of Tupi. This graph reflects