Language Contact and Documentation: Contacto Linguistico y Documentacion

Tetsualü: The pluralism of languages and people in the Upper Xingu 157
Verbs and nouns are not absorbed as loans in the same way.
Today new objects and events are increasingly incorporated into the indigenous
language as loan words rather than being ‘digested.’
To give an idea of today’s ‘mixed’ speech:
Jakalu:
TrsJK
TpJk
TrsJK
TpJk
TrsJK
TrsJK
Tingi iheke uã, angi nkgulehüle kasulina engipini, dusentu
he thought: how many [litres of] gasolina [petrol] do you have? We have duzentos
[two hundred]
lepene ogopijü sem gehale cabou, inhalübeha eükintokoi, inhalüha bausa ogopitsoi.
Afterwards to return 100 will be needed, acabou [it’s finished], there won’t be a
balsa [raft] for the return trip
tá aqui Kokoti etsa hegei quarta-feira leha igiabeha ingeta
Kokoti is going to travel, because he is being called to go there
Janamá:
TrsJM você tá lá longe você não pode resolver só etsote
TrpJm You can’t solve the problem there from afar, only when you come here
TrsJM ano passado atamini gele ila nossa inhalüha, bagunça porque ekü leha
TrJm Nossa [wow], ano passado [last year] was really bagunça [a mess], porque
[why]?
TrsJM ige ingi leha kunhümi projetu ingi leha resolvei kunhümi leha
TrpJm we don’t think much about projetos [projects] any more, how to resolver [solve]
something else.
TrsJM membruko tüilü ehekeni tudo üle hunguki
TrrpJm so the membruko [members] know about this
TrsJM Sila heke não sei o que tüma cheki tüihoni assinai
TrpJm Sila, não sei o que [nobody knew who] could assinai [sign] the cheki [cheque]
In Jakalu’s dialogue there is no translation for various items of vocabulary from
Portuguese, something which is common today with the insertion of isolated
words:
– Names of objects: kasulina, bausa, kaminhãu, dieseu, motorista, boka, tinhegu,
transpoti …
– Time: days of the week
– Numbers, measures (litru);
– Discursive particles (kabou, tá aqui, iÞtãu, se tiver …)
– Verbs: hesoufei, kumprikai
Jakalu uses measures of time and quantities in Portuguese, something that has
already become dominant: Kuikuro terms are being abandoned and are only