South American Indian languages

Introduction

      group of languages that once covered and today still partially cover all of South America, the Antilles, and Central America to the south of a line from the Gulf of Honduras to the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Estimates of the number of speakers in that area in pre-Columbian times vary from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000. In the early 1980s there were approximately 15,900,000, more than three-fourths of them in the central Andean areas. Language lists include around 1,500 languages, and figures over 2,000 have been suggested. For the most part, the larger estimate refers to tribal units whose linguistic differentiation cannot be determined. Because of extinct tribes with unrecorded languages, the number of languages formerly spoken is impossible to assess. Only between 550 and 600 languages (about 120 now extinct) are attested by linguistic materials. Fragmentary knowledge hinders the distinction between language and dialect and thus renders the number of languages indeterminate.

      Because the South American Indians originally came from North America, the problem of their linguistic origin involves tracing genetic affiliations with North American groups. To date only Uru-Chipaya, a language in Bolivia, is surely relatable to a Macro-Mayan phylum of North America and Mesoamerica (Mesoamerican Indian languages). Hypotheses about the probable centre of dispersion of language groups within South America have been advanced for stocks like Arawakan and Tupian, based on the principle (considered questionable by some) that the area in which there is the greatest variety of dialects and languages was probably the centre from which the language groups dispersed at one time; but the regions in question seem to be refugee regions, to which certain speakers fled, rather than dispersion centres.

      South America is one of the most linguistically differentiated areas of the world. Various scholars hold the plausible view that all American Indian languages are ultimately related. The great diversification in South America, in comparison with the situation of North America, can be attributed to the greater period of time that has elapsed since the South American groups lost contact among themselves. The narrow bridge that allows access to South America (i.e., the Isthmus of Panama) acted as a filter so that many intermediate links disappeared and many groups entered the southern part of the continent already linguistically differentiated.

Investigation and scholarship

      The first grammar of a South American Indian language (Quechua) appeared in 1560. Missionaries (mission) displayed intense activity in writing grammars, dictionaries, and catechisms during the 17th century and the first half of the 18th. Data were also provided by chronicles and official reports. Information for this period was summarized in Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro's Idea dell' universo (1778–87) and in Johann Christoph Adelung and Johann Severin Vater's Mithridates (1806–17). Subsequently, most firsthand information was gathered by ethnographers (ethnography) in the first quarter of the 20th century. In spite of the magnitude and fundamental character of the numerous contributions of this period, their technical quality was below the level of work in other parts of the world. Since 1940 there has been a marked increase in the recording and historical study of languages, carried out chiefly by missionaries with linguistic training, but there are still many gaps in knowledge at the basic descriptive level, and few languages have been thoroughly described. Thus, classificatory as well as historical, areal, and typological research has been hindered. Descriptive study is made difficult by a shortage of linguists, the rapid extinction of languages, and the remote location of those tongues needing urgent study. Interest in these languages is justified in that their study yields basic cultural information on the area, in addition to linguistic data, and aids in obtaining historical and prehistorical knowledge. The South American Indian languages are also worth studying as a means of integrating the groups that speak them into national life.

Classification of the South American Indian languages

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, Table Although classifications based on geographical criteria or on common cultural areas or types have been made, these are not really linguistic methods. There is usually a congruence between a language, territorial continuity, and culture, but this correlation becomes more and more random at the level of the linguistic family and beyond. Certain language families are broadly coincident with large culture areas—e.g., Cariban and Tupian with the tropical forest area—but the correlation becomes imperfect with more precise cultural divisions—e.g., there are Tupian languages like Guayakí and Sirionó whose speakers belong to a very different culture type. Conversely, a single culture area like the eastern flank of the Andes (the Montaña region) includes several unrelated language families. There is also a correlation between isolated languages, or small families, and marginal regions, but Quechumaran (Kechumaran), for instance, not a big family by its internal composition, occupies the most prominent place culturally.

      Most of the classification in South America has been based on inspection of vocabularies and on structural similarities. Although the determination of genetic relationship depends basically on coincidences that cannot be accounted for by chance or borrowing, no clear criteria have been applied in most cases. As for subgroupings within each genetic group, determined by dialect study, the comparative method, or glottochronology (also called lexicostatistics, a method for estimating the approximate date when two or more languages separated from a common parent language, using statistics to compare similarities and differences in vocabulary), very little work has been done. Consequently, the difference between a dialect and language on the one hand, and a family (composed of languages) and stock (composed of families or of very differentiated languages) on the other, can be determined only approximately at present. Even genetic groupings recognized long ago (Arawakan or Macro-Chibchan) are probably more differentiated internally than others that have been questioned or that have passed undetected.

      Extinct languages present special problems because of poor, unverifiable recording, often requiring philological interpretation. For some there is no linguistic material whatsoever; if references to them seem reliable and unequivocal, an investigator can only hope to establish their identity as distinct languages, unintelligible to neighbouring groups. The label “unclassified,” sometimes applied to these languages, is misleading: they are unclassifiable languages.

      Great anarchy reigns in the names of languages and language families; in part, this reflects different orthographic conventions of European languages, but it also results from the lack of standardized nomenclature. Different authors choose different component languages to name a given family or make a different choice in the various names designating the same language or dialect. This multiplicity originates in designations bestowed by Europeans because of certain characteristics of the group (e.g., Coroado, Portuguese “tonsured” or “crowned”), in names given to a group by other Indian groups (e.g., Puelche, “people from the east,” given by Araucanians to various groups in Argentina), and in self-designations of groups (e.g., Carib, which, as usual, means “people” and is not the name of the language). Particularly confusing are generic Indian terms like Tapuya, a Tupí word meaning enemy, or Chuncho, an Andean designation for many groups on the eastern slopes; terms like these explain why different languages have the same name. In general (but not always), language names ending in -an indicate a family or grouping larger than an individual language; e.g., Guahiboan (Guahiban) is a family that includes the Guahibo language, and Tupian subsumes Tupí-Guaraní.

      There have been many linguistic classifications for this area. The first general and well-grounded one was that by U.S. anthropologist Daniel Brinton (1891), based on grammatical criteria and a restricted word list, in which about 73 families are recognized. In 1913 Alexander Chamberlain, an anthropologist, published a new classification in the United States, which remained standard for several years, with no discussion as to its basis. The classification (1924) of the French anthropologist and ethnologist Paul Rivet (Rivet, Paul), which was supported by his numerous previous detailed studies and contained a wealth of information, superseded all previous classifications. It included 77 families and was based on similarity of vocabulary items. estmír Loukotka, a Czech language specialist, contributed two classifications (1935, 1944) on the same lines as Rivet but with an increased number of families (94 and 114, respectively), the larger number resulting from newly discovered languages and from Loukotka's splitting of several of Rivet's families. Loukotka used a diagnostic list of 45 words and distinguished “mixed” languages (those having one-fifth of the items from another family) and “pure” languages (those that might have “intrusions” or “traces” from another family but totalling fewer than one-fifth of the items, if any). Rivet and Loukotka contributed jointly another classification (1952) listing 108 language families that was based chiefly upon Loukotka's 1944 classification. Important work on a regional scale has also been done, and critical and summarizing surveys have appeared.

      Current classifications are by Loukotka (1968); a U.S. linguist, Joseph Greenberg (Greenberg, Joseph H.) (1956); and another U.S. linguist, Morris Swadesh (1964). That of Loukotka, based fundamentally on the same principles as his previous classifications, and recognizing 117 families, is, in spite of its unsophisticated method, fundamental for the information it contains. Those of Greenberg and Swadesh, both based upon restricted comparison of vocabulary items but according to much more refined criteria, agree in considering all languages ultimately related and in having four major groups, but they differ greatly in major and minor groupings. Greenberg used short lexical lists, and no evidence has been published in support of his classification. He divided the four major groups into 13 and these, in turn, into 21 subgroups. Swadesh based his classification upon lists of 100 basic vocabulary items and made groupings according to his glottochronological theory (see above). His four groups (interrelated among themselves and with groups in North America) are subdivided into 62 subgroups, thus, in fact, coming closer to more conservative classifications. The major groups of these two classifications are not comparable to those recognized for North America, because they are on a more remote level of relationship. In most cases the lowest components are stocks or even more distantly related groups. It is certain that far more embracing groups than those accepted by Loukotka can be recognized—and in some cases this has already been done—and that Greenberg's and Swadesh's classifications point to many likely relationships; but they seem to share a basic defect, namely, that the degree of relationship within each group is very disparate, not providing a true taxonomy and not giving in each case the most closely related groups. On the other hand, their approach is more appropriate to the situation in South America than a method that would restrict relationships to a level that can be handled by the comparative method.

      At present, a true classification of South American languages is not feasible, even at the family level, because, as noted above, neither the levels of dialect and language nor of family and stock have been surely determined. Beyond that level, it can only be indicated that a definite or possible relationship exists. In the accompanying chart—beyond the language level—recognized groups are therefore at various and undetermined levels of relationship. Possible further relationships are cross-referenced. Of the 82 groups included, almost half are isolated languages, 25 are extinct, and at least 10 more are on the verge of extinction. The most important groups are Macro-Chibchan, Arawakan, Cariban, Tupian, Macro-Ge, Quechumaran, Tucanoan, and Macro-Pano-Tacanan.

Macro-Chibchan

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableMacro- Chibchan languages, which form the linguistic bridge between South and Central America, are spoken from Nicaragua to Ecuador. Spread compactly in Central America and in western Colombia and Ecuador, they include approximately 40 languages spoken by more than 400,000 speakers. The group is probably more differentiated than a stock, languages not belonging to Chibchan being strongly differentiated. In the Colombian Andes a now extinct Chibchan language was the language of the highly developed Muisca culture. Important present-day languages include Guaymí (about 20,000 speakers) and Move (about 15,000) in Panama, Kuna (600) and Páez (37,000) in Colombia, and Chachi and Tsáchila (6,000), in Ecuador. A connection with Cariban has been suggested, and it is possible that such a relationship could be found through Warao (Warrau) and Waican (Waikan) on the one hand and through Chocó (Cariban) on the other.

Arawakan (Arawakan languages)

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableArawakan languages formerly extended from the peninsula of Florida in North America to the present-day Paraguay–Argentina border, and from the foothills of the Andes eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. More than 55 languages are attested, many still spoken. Around 40 groups still speak Arawakan languages in Brazil, and others are found in Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana, and Surinam. Taino predominated in the Antilles and was the first language to be encountered by Europeans; although it rapidly became extinct, it left many borrowings. As did most languages of the tropical forest, the Arawakan languages receded with the influx of Spanish and Portuguese, mainly through group extinction; thus, 14 groups became extinct in Brazil between 1900 and 1957. Important languages still spoken are Goajiro (52,000 speakers) in Colombia, Campa (41,000) and Machiguenga (11,000) in Peru, and Mojo (more than 15,000) and Bauré (4,500) in Bolivia. Although most Arawakan languages have been recognized as such for a long time, they are greatly differentiated. They are most probably related to both the Macro-Pano-Tacanan and Macro-Mayan language groups.

Cariban (Cariban languages)

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableCariban languages, numbering approximately 50, were spoken chiefly north of the Amazon but had outposts as far as the Mato Grosso in Brazil. The group has undergone drastic decline, and only about 22,000 people speak Cariban languages today, mostly in Venezuela and Colombia; they have disappeared from the Antilles and have been much reduced in Brazil and the Guianas. The most important group today—Chocó in western Colombia—is distantly related to the rest of the stock. Other languages are Carib in Suriname, Trio in Suriname and Brazil, and Waiwai, Taulipang, and Makushí (Macusí) in Brazil. A relationship with Tupian seems certain.

Tupian

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableWith the exception of Emerillon and Oyampi of French Guiana and northeastern Brazil, Tupian languages were spoken south of the Amazon, from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean and down to the Río de la Plata. There are approximately 50 attested languages related on the stock level and subdivided into eight families. Tupinambá, the language spoken along the Atlantic coast at the time of discovery, became important in a modified form as a lingua franca, and the closely related Guaraní became the national language in Paraguay, being one of the few Indian languages that does not seem to yield under the influence of Spanish or Portuguese. At the time of discovery, Tupí-Guaraní (Tupí-Guaraní languages) tribes were moving everywhere south of the Amazon, subjugating other tribes; some of these tribes adopted Tupí-Guaraní. Both Tupí and Guaraní are among the languages that have exerted a great influence on Portuguese and Spanish language. Tupí groups have declined markedly, 26 groups becoming extinct in Brazil between 1900 and 1957, and at least 14 languages disappearing during the same period. The westernmost language, Cocama in Peru, is still spoken by about 19,000 speakers, and Guaraní in Bolivia has about 20,000 speakers. Other languages have a much smaller number of speakers; there are 19,000 speakers for the 26 surviving groups in Brazil. The total number of Indian speakers of Tupian languages is approximately 60,000, but there are also about 3,000,000 culturally non-Indian speakers of Guaraní in Paraguay. Besides the connection with Cariban, further relationships possibly exist with Macro-Ge, various small families like Zamuco and Wichí-Maccá and isolated languages like Cayuvava.

Macro-Ge

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableMacro-Ge is geographically the most compactly distributed of the big South American language families. Ge (Ge languages) proper extends uninterruptedly through inland eastern Brazil almost as far as the Uruguayan border. There are about 10 Ge languages with a total of 2,000 speakers. Most of the other families, now extinct, were located closer to the Atlantic coast, from where they probably were displaced by Tupian expansion. The Bororan family is represented by Bororo in Brazil and by the Otuké language in Bolivia. It seems likely that Macro-Ge has its closest relationship with Tupian.

Quechumaran

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableQuechumaran, which is composed of the Quechuan (Quechuan languages) and Aymaran (Aymaran languages) families, is the stock with the largest number of speakers—7,000,000 for Quechuan and 1,000,000 for Aymaran—and is found mainly in the Andean highlands extending from southern Colombia to northern Argentina. The languages of this group have also resisted displacement by Spanish, in addition to having gained in numbers of speakers from the time of the Incas to the present as several other groups adopted Quechuan languages. Cuzco-Bolivian Quechua is spoken by well over 1,000,000 speakers, and there are around seven Quechuan languages in Peru with almost 100,000 speakers each. Although most Quechuan languages have been influenced by Spanish, Quechuan in turn is the group that has exerted the most pervasive influence on Spanish. No convincing further genetic relationship has been yet proposed.

Tucanoan

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableTucanoan, which is spoken in two compact areas in the western Amazon region (Brazil, Colombia, and Peru), includes about 30 languages with a total of over 30,000 speakers. One of the languages is a lingua franca in the region.

Macro-Pano-Tacanan

       South American Indian Language Groups, Table South American Indian Language Groups, TableMacro- Pano-Tacanan, a group more distantly related than a stock, includes about 30 languages, many of them still spoken. The languages are located in two widely separated regions: lowland eastern Peru and adjoining parts of Brazil and lowland western Bolivia on the one hand, and southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego on the other. In the latter region the languages are practically extinct.

      By number of component languages, or by number of speakers, or by territorial extension, the other language groups are not as significant as those just listed. Most of these small families and isolated languages are located in the lowlands, which form an arch centred on the Amazon from Venezuela to Bolivia and include the bordering parts of Brazil.

Lingua francas (lingua franca) and cultural tongues

      Lingua francas as well as situations of bilingualism arose mainly under conditions furthered or created by Europeans, although a case like that of the Tucano language, which is used as a lingua franca in the Río Vaupés area among an Indian population belonging to some 20 different linguistic groups, may be independent of those conditions. Quechua, originally spoken in small areas around Cuzco and in central Peru, expanded much under Inca rule, coexisting with local languages or displacing them. It was the official language of the Inca Empire, and groups of Quechua speakers were settled among other language groups, although the language does not seem to have been systematically imposed. The Spaniards, in turn, used Quechua in a great area as a language of evangelization—at one period missionaries were required to know the language—and continued to spread it by means of Quechua speakers who travelled with them in further conquests. During the 17th and 18th centuries it became a literary language in which religious, historical, and dramatic works were written. Today its written literary manifestations are not spontaneous, but there is abundant oral poetry, and in Bolivia radio programs are broadcast entirely in this language.

      Dispersion of Tupí-Guaraní dialects, taking place shortly before the arrival of Europeans and even after it, resulted not from imperial expansion—as for Quechua—but from extreme tribal mobility and the cultural and linguistic absorption of other groups. Under Portuguese influence the modified form of Tupinamba known as língua-geral (“general language”) was the medium of communication between Europeans and Indians and among Indians of different languages in Brazil. It was still in common use along the coast in the 18th century, and it is still spoken in the Amazon. Tupí, now extinct, was an important language of Portuguese evangelization and had a considerable literature in the 17th and 18th centuries. Another dialect, Guaraní, was the language of the Jesuit missions and also had abundant literature until the middle of the 17th century when the Jesuits were expelled and the missions dispersed. Nevertheless, Guaraní survived in Paraguay as the language of a culturally non-Indian population and is today the only Indian language with national, although not official, status—persons not speaking Guaraní being a minority. Paraguayan Guaraní is also a literary language, not so much for learned works—for which Spanish is used—but for those of popular character, especially songs. There is a more or less standardized orthography, and persons literate in Spanish are also literate in Guaraní. A great mutual influence exists between Guaraní and Spanish.

Grammatical characteristics

      Diversity rather than common traits characterizes the grammar of South American Indian languages. Features commonly encountered seem to reflect facts of frequency in general typology rather than traits specific to this area. The greatest number of languages are probably suffixing languages like Quechumaran and Huitotoan, or use many suffixes and some prefixes like Arawakan and Panoan. Also very numerous are those languages having few prefixes and suffixes, such as Ge, Carib, or Tupian. Languages employing only prefixes to show grammatical distinctions have not been reported. There are a few with many prefixes but still more suffixes (Jebero, or Chébero); others, like Ona and Tehuelche, with almost no affixing, are also rare.

      Similarly, the complexity of words varies a great deal. In Guaraní words with three components and in Piro (Arawakan) words with six elements are of average complexity for the respective languages. In languages like the Cariban or Tupian ones, word roots are nominal (nouns) or verbal (verbs) and may be converted into the other class by derivational affixes; in languages like Quechua or Araucanian, many word roots are both nominal and verbal. Languages like Yuracare form many words by reduplication (the repetition of a word or a part of a word), a process that does not occur systematically in the Tupian languages. Compounding, the joining of two or more words to form new words, is a very widespread type of word formation, but it can be nearly absent, as in the Chon languages. Verb stems in which the nominal (noun) object is incorporated are also rather frequent. Many languages are of the agglutinative type (Quechuan, Panoan, Araucanian); i.e., they combine several elements of distinctive meaning into a single word without changing the element. Others (Cariban, Tupian) show a moderate amount of change and fusion of the elements when combined in words.

      Grammatically marked gender in nouns occurs in Guaycuruan (Guaicuruan), and a difference in masculine and feminine gender in the verb occurs in Arawakan, Huitotoan (Witotoan), and Tucanoan, but genderless languages are more common. Singular and plural in the 3rd person (“he, she, it”) is not obligatorily distinguished in Tupian and Cariban, but languages like Yámana and Araucanian have singular, dual, and plural. A very common distinction is that between inclusive 1st person (“you and I,” hearer included) and exclusive 1st person (“he and I,” hearer excluded). Pronominal forms differentiated according to categories that indicate whether the person is present or absent, sitting or standing, and so forth occur in Guaycuruan languages and Movima. Case relations in nouns are generally expressed by suffixes or postpositions; the use of prepositions is rare. Possession is indicated predominantly by prefixes or suffixes, and systems in which possessive forms are the same as those used as the subject of intransitive verbs and as the object of transitive ones are rather common. Classificatory affixes that subclassify nouns according to the shape of the object occur in the Chibchan, Tucanoan, and Waican groups.

      Very frequently the verbal forms express the subject, object, and negation in the same word. The categories of tense and aspect seem to be about evenly represented in South American languages, but the specific categories expressed vary a great deal from language to language: Aguaruna (Jívaroan) has a future form and three past forms differentiated as to relative remoteness, while in Guaraní the difference is basically between future and nonfuture. Other languages like Jebero express fundamentally modal categories. Very common are affixes indicating movement, chiefly toward and away from the speaker, and location (e.g., in Quechumaran, Záparo, Itonama), and in some stocks like Arawakan and Panoan there are many suffixes in the verb with very concrete adverbial meaning, such as “by night,” “during the day.” Classificatory affixes indicating the way the action is performed—by biting, striking, walking—occur in Jebero and Tikuna (Ticuna). Actions done individually or collectively are differentiated paradigmatically in Carib, while in Yámana and Jívaro different verbal stems are used according to whether the subject or the object is singular or plural. There are also various languages (Guaycuruan, Wichí, Cocama) in which some words have different forms according to the sex of the speaker.

      Equational sentences are very common. These are formed by juxtaposing two nominal expressions (nouns) without a linking verb, a fact that usually correlates with the absence of a verb “be” for expressing identification or location (e.g., “John good man,” “my house there”). Sentences in which the predicate is a noun inflected like a verb with the meaning “being” or “having” that thing designated by the noun also occur in Bororo and Huitoto (Witoto); e.g., “I–knife” = “I have a knife.” Sentences in which the subject is the undergoer of the action are frequent, but true passive sentences in which the undergoer and the agent are expressed are rare, though they do occur in Huitoto. Subordinate sentences are rarely introduced by conjunctions; subordination is usually expressed by postposed elements or special forms of the verbs such as gerunds, participles, or subordinate conjugations.

Phonological characteristics

      As in grammar, there are no phonological features common to all South American languages that would be specific to them alone. The number of distinctive sounds (phonemes) may vary from 42 in Jaqaru (Quechumaran) to 17 in Campa (Arawakan). Jaqaru has 36 consonants, while Makushí (Cariban) has 11; some Quechuan languages have only three vowels, whereas Apinayé (Macro–Ge) has ten oral vowels and seven nasal ones. A dialect of Tucano (Tucanoan) exhibits three contrasting points of articulation, while Chipaya (Macro-Mayan) has nine. Many types of contrasting sounds occur although not with equal frequency. Voiceless stops (e.g., p, t, k) occur everywhere, but voiced stops (e.g., b, d, g) may be absent, and fricatives (e.g., f, v, s, z) may be few in number. Glottalized voiceless stops—consonants made with simultaneous closure of the glottis and without vibration of the vocal cords—are rather common (Quechumaran, Chibchan), but not glottalized voiced stops (in which the vocal cords vibrate). Also less frequent are aspirated (Quechumaran) and palatalized sounds (Puinave); glottalized nasal sounds (Movima) and voiceless laterals (l-like sounds, as in Vilela) are rare. A distinction between velar and postvelar sounds occurs in Quechumaran and Chon, between velar (velarization) and labiovelar in Tacana and Siona (Sioni); palatal retroflex consonants, made with the tip of the tongue turned up touching the palate, occur in Pano-Tacanan and Chipaya.

      Systems with nasal vowels are common (Macro-Ge, Sabelan), but in several languages (Tupian, Waican) nasalization is a feature not of vowels and consonants but of whole words. There is an apparent absence of front rounded vowels (ü, ö), but central or back unrounded vowels (ɨ, ï) are common. Systems with long vowels occur in Chipaya and some Cariban languages, and glottalized vowels occur in Tikuna and Chon languages. Very common are pitch-stress systems with high and low tones on stressed syllables; e.g., in Panoan, Huitotoan, and Chibchan (Chibchan languages). More complex systems with three tones as in Acaricuara, four as in Mundurukú (Mundurucú), and five as in Tikuna are rare. Syllables are generally without complex consonant clusters.

      The typology proposed by Tadeusz Milewski, a Polish linguist, classifies American Indian languages into three types: (1) Atlantic, with few oral consonants but complex systems of nasal consonants, and oral and nasal vowels, of which the Ge languages would be typical; (2) Pacific, with complex systems of oral consonants (many contrasting points and modes of articulation) but with few nasal consonants and few vowels, as exemplified by Quechumaran; and (3) Central, with consonant systems more like the Pacific type and vowel systems like the Atlantic, of which Chibcha would be typical. The typology is probably too gross to accommodate meaningfully every language type found in South America, but it holds to a certain extent, especially for the Atlantic type (Macro-Ge, Tupian, and Cariban).

Vocabulary

      Indian languages vary significantly in the number of loanwords from Spanish and Portuguese. Massive borrowing has taken place in areas where languages have been in intense and continued contact with Spanish or Portuguese, especially where groups are economically dependent on the national life of the country and there is a considerable number of bilingual persons, as in Quechuan, or where no cultural differences correlate with language differences, as in Paraguayan Guaraní. Borrowings have not been limited to designations of artifacts of European origin but affect all spheres of vocabulary, having displaced native terms in many cases. Neither are they limited to lexical items; they include function elements such as prepositions, conjunctions, and derivative suffixes. Sound systems have also been modified. In some contact situations in which the Indian group displayed an antagonistic attitude toward the European conquest, purism developed and loans are comparatively few; e.g., Araucanian. When contact has been frequent but superficial, loanwords are usually scant, but the meaning of native terms has shifted or new descriptive terms have been coined to designate new cultural traits, as in Tehuelche.

      Borrowings among Indian languages may have been more numerous than yet reported, judging from the wide and rapid diffusion that loans from Spanish and Portuguese had through the central part of South America. Borrowings between Quechua and Aymara have occurred in great number, but the direction of borrowing is difficult to determine. Many Indian languages in the Andes and the eastern foothills have borrowed from Quechua either directly or through Spanish. In Island Carib (an Arawakan language), borrowings from Carib (a Cariban language) have formed a special part of the vocabulary, properly used only by men; these words were adopted after the Island Carib speakers were subjugated by Caribs.

      In turn, some Indian languages have been a source of borrowing into European languages. Taino (Arawakan), the first language with which Spaniards had contact, furnished the most widespread borrowings, including “canoe,” “cacique,” “maize,” and “tobacco,” among many others. No other South American Indian language has furnished such widespread and common words, although Quechua has contributed some specialized items such as “condor,” “pampa,” “vicuña.” The larger number of Arawakan borrowings results from these languages having been predominant in the Antilles, a region where Dutch, French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish were present for a long time. Cariban languages, the other important group in that region, do not seem to have furnished many words, but “cannibal” is a semantically and phonetically modified form of the self-designation of the Caribs. The influence of some Indian languages on regional varieties of Spanish and Portuguese has been paramount. Thus Tupí accounts for most Indian words in Brazilian Portuguese, Guaraní in the Spanish of Paraguay and northeast Argentina; and Quechua words are abundant in Spanish from Colombia to Chile and Argentina. In addition, Quechuan and Tupí (Tupí-Guaraní languages)-Guaraní languages account for most place-names in South America.

      No detailed studies are available concerning the relationship of the vocabularies of Indian languages to the culture. Certain areas of vocabulary that are particularly elaborated in a given language may reflect a special focus in the culture, as for example the detailed botanical vocabularies for plants of medical or dietary importance in Quechua, Aymara (Aymaran languages), and Araucanian. Shifts in cultural habits may also be reflected in the vocabulary, as in Tehuelche, which formerly had a vocabulary designating different kinds of guanaco meat that is now very much reduced, because the group no longer depends on that animal for subsistence. Kinship terminology is usually closely correlated with social organization so that changes in the latter are also reflected in the former: in Tehuelche, former terms referring to paternal and maternal uncles tend to be used indiscriminately, even replaced by Spanish loans, because the difference is not functional in the culture any more.

      Proper names, to which different beliefs are attached, offer a variety of phenomena, among them the practice of naming a parent after a child (called teknonymy) in some Arawakan groups; the repeated change of name according to various fixed stages of development, as in Guayaki; word taboo, forbidding either the pronunciation of one's own name or the name of a deceased person, or both, as in the southernmost groups (Alacaluf, Yámana, Chon) and in the Chaco area (Toba, Terena); and the use of totemic names for groups, as in Panoan tribes.

Writing and texts

      The existence of pre-Columbian native writing systems in South America is not certain. There are two examples, that of the Kuna in Colombia and an Andean system in Bolivia and Peru, but in both cases European influence may be suspected. They are mnemonic aids—a mixture of ideograms and pictographs—for reciting religious texts in Quechua and ritual medical texts in Kuna. The Kuna system is still in use.

      Although the linguistic activity of missionaries (mission) was enormous and their work, from a lexicographic and grammatical viewpoint, very important, they failed to record texts reflecting the native culture. The texts they left for most languages are, with a few exceptions, of a religious nature. Most of the folklore has been collected in the 20th century, but many important collections (e.g., for the Fuegian and Tacanan tribes) are not published in the native language but rather in translation. There are good texts recorded in the native language for Araucanian, Panoan, and Kuna, for instance, and more are being recorded by linguists now, though not necessarily analyzed from a linguistic point of view.

      Efforts are being made in several areas to introduce literacy in the native Indian languages. For some, practical orthographies have existed since the 17th century (Guaraní, Quechua (Quechuan languages)); for several others, linguists have devised practical writing systems and prepared primers in recent years. The success of these efforts cannot yet be evaluated.

Jorge A. Suárez

Additional Reading

Cestmir Loukotka, Classification of South American Indian Languages (1968), contains a full list of languages, an extensive and detailed bibliography, the location and classification of languages, and a map. J.A. Mason, “The Languages of South American Indians,” in J.H. Steward (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 6 (1950), pp. 157–317, has an extensive bibliography, general information on language groups, a discussion of classifications, and a map. Additional informative works include N.A. McQuown, “The Indigenous Languages of Latin America,” Am. Anthrop., 57:501–570 (1955), a critical appraisal of classifications with useful lists of languages and families, the location and classification of languages, and a map; C.F. and F.M. Voegelin, “Languages of the World: Native America,” Anthrop. Linguistics, vol. 6, no. 6, and vol. 7, no. 7 (1964–65), providing general information on American Indian languages, much information on groups and individual languages, and a discussion of classifications; Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 4, Ibero-American and Caribbean Linguistics, pt. 2, “Linguistics of Non-Ibero-American Languages” (1968), critical surveys of work done during the previous 20 years; Morris Swadesh, “Afinidades de las lenguas amerindias,” in Akten des 34. Internationalen Amerikanisten Kongress, pp. 729–738 (1964); and J.H. Greenberg, “The General Classification of Central and South American Languages,” in Anthony F.C. Wallace (ed.), Men and Cultures (1959), two recent classifications of South American languages.Jorge A. Suárez

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