 |
::01 |
 |
The name "Araweté," invented by
a Funai woodsman, means nothing in the group’s language.
The only word which could be taken as self-determination
is bïde, which means "we," "our people,"
"human beings." All humans are bïde, but
humans par excellence are the Araweté. The other
indigenous peoples and the whites (kamarã) are
awi, the "strangers" or "the enemy."
Language. The Araweté language belongs
to the great Tupi-Guarani family. It is not an easy-to-learn
language: its prosody is heavily nasal, the pace is
quick and there are sounds which are difficult for the
native Portuguese speaker to replicate. Syntax and morphology
are quite different than those of Indo-European languages:
there are several series of personal pronouns, there
are verbal phrases which have no Portuguese equivalent.
On the other hand, it is easy to recognize in the Araweté
language the legacy of a number of words that Tupi-Guarani
left to Brazilian Portuguese, be it in common vernacular,
be it in regional jargon, be it in names of places.
The adult Araweté population is practically
monolingual: only the young born prior to or immediately
following contact understand and speak a little Portuguese.
Within a few years, however, most Araweté will
be bilingual.
|
Print