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The Asuriní speak a Tupi-Guarani language,
studied by the linguists Carl Harrison, Robin Solly and,
more recently, Velda Nicholson, Catherine Aberdour and
Annette Tomkins, all from the Summer Institute of Linguistics
(SIL, called Sociedade Internacional de Lingüística
in Brazil). According to Harrison (1980), various dialectical
differences exist between the Asuriní language
spoken by the Trocará group and the group found
on the Pacajá. In his opinion, such differences
suggest that contacts between the two groups, by then
residents of a single village, were previously intermittent.
In 1962, the members of the Pacajá group were basically
monolingual, while the Asuriní living at the Trocará
Indigenous Post (IP) already spoke Portuguese, learnt
from the Post workers and their families, as well as from
neighbours on the Tocantins river who visited them sporadically.
By 1973 all the Asuriní children and youths living
at the Trocará IP spoke only Portuguese, while
all the members of the Pacajá group spoke the indigenous
language. Today practically all the Asuriní speak
Portuguese fluently, younger people and children communicating
almost exclusively in this language. |
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01. Pukará e família Asuriní
photo: Michel Pellanders, 1987 |
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