Language Contact and Documentation: Contacto Linguistico y Documentacion

Tetsualü: The pluralism of languages and people in the Upper Xingu 153
[kuɟɛ] kuje ‘colher’ spoon
[pɑaka] pagaka ‘barraca’ tent
[kaamɛ] kagame ‘arame’ wire
[kupɛtu] kupetu ‘cobertor’ blanket
[tiɲeu] tinhegu ‘dinheiro’ money
[papɛ] pape ‘papel/carta/ paper/letter/
caderno/livro’ notebook/book
As we can see in this word list, the appropriation of the sounds of the Portuguese
nouns led to changes as they were adapted to Kuikuro phonetics and
phonology:
– CCV > CV.CV
– alveolar tap [ɾ] > uvular flap []
– voiced occlusives (b, d, g) > voiceless occlusives (p, t, k)
– p>h
– ʎ>ɟ
The native lexicon has absorbed other new words thanks to the predominance
of football, a neotradition:
(4) [atraɸiu] atrafiu ‘trave’ crossbar
[ ŋ ɡɔlɛɾu] nkolegu ‘goleiro’ goalkeeper
[katʃiʊ] katxiu ‘escanteio’ corner
[apitu] apitu ‘apito/juiz’ whistle/referee
[ʃuisi] juisi ‘juiz’ referee
[ɸauta] falta ‘falta’ foul
[ᵐbɔlʌ] bola ‘bola’ ball
u-bola-gü ‘minha bola’ my ball
1-bola/ball-REL
[ʃutɛɾa] chuteira ‘chuteira’ boot
u-chutera-sü ‘minha chuteira’ my boot
1-chuteira/boot-REL
Observing the examples from this football vocabulary, we can see that new
sounds have been introduced into Kuikuro speech through the loan words (the
alveolar tap, the labiodental fricative, the palatal fricative) as well as new letters
(f, r, tx, ch). At the same time, some of these words may be ‘possessed,’ in
which case they receive the relational inflection provided by Kuikuro grammarː
new signs, ‘old’ clothing. 24
24 I found just two works referring to neologisms and loan words in indigenous languages in
Brazil: Fialho (2002) and Albuquerque (2009).