Karajá language
Karajá, also known as Iny rybè, is spoken by the Karajá people in some thirty villages in central Brazil.
There are distinct male and female forms of speech; one of the principal differences is that men drop the sound, which is pronounced by women.
Karaja is a verb-final language, with simple noun and more complex verbal morphology that includes noun incorporation. Verbs inflect for direction as well as person, mood, object, and voice.
Dialects
Dialects are Northern Karajá, Southern Karajá, Xambioá, and Javaé.Karajá proper is spoken on the main course of the Araguaia in and around the Bananal Island. Phonologically, it is set apart from the other dialects by the occurrence of the vowel /ə/, which corresponds to a full vowel in Javaé and Xambioá whose quality is a copy of the vowel of the next syllable. For example, Karajá bdi /bədɪ/ ‘honey’, -dkỹ /-dəkə̃/ ‘causative suffix’, -tka /-ɗəka/ ‘to tie’, kbò /kəbɔ/ ‘banzeiro’, kdò /kədɔ/ ‘termite’, rkù /ɾəkʊ/ ‘gourd’ correspond to Javaé and Xambioá bidi /bɪdɪ/, -nỹkỹ /-də̃kə̃/, -taka /-ɗaka/, kòbò /kɔbɔ/, kòdò /kɔdɔ/, rùkù /ɾʊkʊ/. Another phonological feature unique to Karajá proper is the progressive palatalization of /k/ and /ɾ/ following an /i/: compare Karajá ritxòrè ‘offspring’, itxòrò ‘fox’, ritxoko ‘Ritxoko clay doll’, idjasò ‘arowana’ and Javaé/Xambioá rikòrè, ikòrò, rikoko, iraso. Examples of lexical differences between Karajá proper and other dialects include lei ‘annaconda’, tõsõ ‘woodpecker’, makiti ‘sugarcane’, corresponding to Javaé and Xambioá rei, sõsõ, biditi.
Karajá proper is further subdivided into Northern and Southern Karajá. Southern Karajá is spoken in the Fontoura village and further to the south, whereas Northern Karajá is spoken in the São Domingos village and further to the north. There are few differences between Northern and Southern Karajá. Examples of lexical differences include N jiarỹ / S diarỹ ‘I’, N wi / S wiu ‘song.♂’,, N adèrana / S wdèna ‘prostitute’, N bdòlèkè / S bdòkùjkè ‘pirarucu fish’, N butxi / S boti ‘clay pot’, N õritxi / S uritxi ‘curassow’, and other word pairs. Northern Karajá also differs from Southern Karajá in using different habitual markers for different persons, whereas Southern Karajá uses -mỹhỹ for all three persons. In addition, there is a difference regarding the occurrence of the centripetal prefix in the first person of the realis mood. In Northern Karajá, it occurs only once, after the first person prefix: ãdiwyde ‘I brought it’. In Southern Karajá, it occurs twice, both before and after the person prefix: nadiwyde ‘I brought it’.
Javaé is currently spoken by the Javaés River, a smaller branch of the Araguaia, though historically the Javaé inhabited the interior of the Bananal island, until at least the first half of the 20th century. The Javaé are referred to by the Karajá proper as ixỹju, a term otherwise used to non-Karajá indigenous peoples such as the Xavante, but clearly speak a variety of Karajá. Javaé has more Apyãwa loans than other Karajá dialects. Phonologically, Javaé is characterized by the occurrence of /e/ corresponding to Karajá /ə/ and Xambioá /i/ preceding a syllable which contains a /i/: Javaé -tebiè ‘to raise, to feed’, hetxi ‘bottom, buttocks’, exi ‘soft’, -teji ‘to put’ correspond to Karajá -tbiè, htxi, àxi, tdi; Xambioá -txibiè, hitxi, ixi, tidi. In addition, Javaé has less genderlectal differences than Karajá and Xambioá, as in many cases the Javaé women systematically use forms that are restricted to the male genderlect in other dialects.
Xambioá is spoken on the east bank of the Araguaia, close to the mouth of the Maria River, which makes it the northernmost variety of Karajá. Ribeiro reports that there were only 8 fluent speakers in 1998, all of them elderly. Phonologically, Xambioá is characterized by the progressive palatalization of /k/ to following an /i/, as in ikòrò ‘fox’.. Another phonological feature of Xambioá is the occurrence of the oral allophone of /a/ where other dialects have : Xambioá habu ‘man’, ati ‘Pimelodus|mandi fish’, awò ‘canoe’ vs. Karajá hãbu, hãti, hãwò. Some Xambioá words are not found in other dialects, such as the Língua Geral Amazônica borrowing mabèra ‘paper’.
Language contact
Ribeiro finds a number of Apyãwa loanwords in Karajá ’, tarawè ‘parakeet ’, txakohi ‘Txakohi ceremonial mask’, hyty ‘garbage as well as several Karajá loans in Apyãwa, Parakanã, and Asuriní of Trocará. Some loans from one of the Língua Geral varieties have also been found, including jykyra ‘salt’, mỹkawa ‘firearm’, brùrè ‘hoe’, kòmỹta ‘beans’, mabèra ‘paper ’, ĩtajuwa ‘money.Karajá has also contacted with the distantly related Mẽbêngôkre language. Ribeiro identifies a number of Karajá loanwords in Mẽbêngôkre, especially in the dialect spoken by the Xikrin group; the source of these loanwords is thought to be the Xambioá dialect. Examples include warikoko or watkoko ‘tobacco pipe’, rara ‘kind of basket’, wiwi ‘song, chant’, bikwa ‘relative, friend’, bero ‘puba flour’, borrowed from Karajá werikòkò, lala, wii, bikòwa, bèrò.
Loanwords from Brazilian Portuguese, such as nieru ‘money’ and maritò ‘suit, jacket’, are also found.
Jolkesky notes that there are lexical similarities with the Karib, Puinave-Nadahup, and Tupi language families due to contact.
Phonology
Karajá has eleven oral vowels,, and three nasal vowels,. is nasalized word initially and when preceded by or a voiced stop: → 'grass', → 'armadillo'; this in turn nasalizes a preceding or : → 'group', → 'my mother'.| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i, ĩ | ɨ̘ | u |
| Near-close | ɪ | ɨ | ʊ |
| Close-mid | e | ə, ə̃ | o, õ |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
This language has vowel harmony that matches vowels' tenseness to the vowel of the following suffix.
V → / _ -V
There are only twelve consonants, eight of which are coronal:
Men's and women's speech
Some examples of the differences between men's and women's speech, especially the presence or lack of /k/, follow. Note that men maintain /k/ in at least one grammatical ending.| Women | Men | Gloss |
| kotù /kɔɗʊ/ | òtù /ɔɗu/ | turtle |
| kòlùkò /kɔlʊkɔ/ | òlùò /ɔluɔ/ | labret |
| karitxakre /kaɾitʃa-kɾe/ | ariakre /aɾia-kɾe/ | I will walk* |
| bèraku /bɛɾaku/ | bero /beɾo/ | river |
| anona /adõda/ | aõna /aõda/ | thinɡ |
| kabè /kabɛ/ | abè /abɛ/ | coffee |
The first aɾə̃/; Southern Karajá: ♀ dikarỹ, ♂ diarỹ /dɪ and third person pronouns differ based on gender of the speaker, but the second person pronoun kai /kai/ is an exception to this rule, and is pronounced the same by men and women.
It is hypothesized that in the past this process of the k-drop became a sign of masculinity and females resisted it in order to keep a more conservative form of speech.
Morphology
Verb
The verb in Karajá grammar always agrees with the subject of the sentence, as it does in French for example; these agreements are determined by the past and present tense or future, potential, and admonitory tenses. Verbs have no lexical opposites and direction is represented through inflection; all Karajá verbs can inflect for direction. Verbs are either transitive or intransitive and the valence of each verb, therefore, may increase or decrease depending on their status as transitive or intransitive.Noun
Nouns can be incorporated into verbs to create noun-verb compounds with the noun being placed into the verb. Any noun can be turned into a verb with the use of a suffix and action nouns can be created with the use of the verb stem.Pronoun
There are three personal pronouns:- First person : ♀ jikarỹ /dikaɾə̃/, ♂ jiarỹ /diaɾə̃/
/dɪaɾə̃ aõkõ, kai=ɗa/
I NEG you=ASSERT
‘Not me, but you instead.’
- Second person : kai /kai/
/dɪaɾə̃ aõkõ, kai=ɗa/
I NEG you=ASSERT
‘Not me, but you instead.’
- Third person : tki /ɗəkɪ/
/ɗəkɪ ɔhã ∅-ɾ-ɪ-ɾɔ=kõ=ɾ-e/
he armadillo 3-CTFG-TRANS-eat=NEG=CTFG-IMPERF
‘He doesn’t eat armadillo.’
- These pronouns can be pluralized with the use of the pluralizer ‘boho’. When pluralized, the first person plural has both an inclusive and exclusive interpretation as in the following examples:
/dɪaɾə̃ boho kədʊɾa a-ɾ-ɪ-ɾɔ=ɾɛdə̃=kɾe/
I PL fish 1-CTFG-TRANS-eat=CTFG-PL=FUT
‘We will eat fish.’
Iny boho kdùra rkiròrènykre.
/idə̃ boho kədʊɾa ɾək-ɪ-ɾɔ=ɾ-ɛdə̃=kɾe/
Karajá PL fish 1PL.INCL-TRANS-eat=POT
‘We will eat fish.’
Possessive pronouns are not used but are instead marked by affixes and there are three demonstrative pronouns:
- ka - ‘this’
- kia - ‘that ’
- kùa - ‘that ’
Direction
- Centrifugal:
/∅-ɾ-∅-ʊɾʊ=ɾ-e/
3-CTFG-INTR-die=CTFG-IMP
‘He died.’
- Centripental:
/∅-d-∅-ʊɾʊ=d-e/
3-CTPT-INTR-die=CTPT-IMP
‘He died.’
Syntax
Valence
Karajá language is characterized both by the reduction of valence and by the increase in valence. Valence increase happens through causitivization and through oblique promotion while valence decrease happens through reflixivatization, passivization, and antipassivization.Valence increase
Unergative verbs may be causativized by means of suffixing the causativizer suffix -dkỹ plus the verbalizer suffix -ny to the nominalized verb. In the example below, the verb rika ‘to walk’ is first nominalized by means of the process of consonantal replacement, yielding rira, and then causativized.Hãbu kùladù ririradkỹnyrèri.
/habu kʊladʊ ∅-ɾ-ɪ-ɾia-dəkə̃-də̃=ɾ-ɛɾɪ/
man child 3-CTFG-walk-CAUS-VERB=CTFG-PROGR
‘The man is making the child walk.’
The man in this example is the causer who makes the child, the causee, walk.
Valence-decreasing morphology
In Karajá, it is possible to demote a patient of a transitive verb to peripheral status by means of the antipassive prefix ò-:Nadi ròsùhòrèri.
/d-ādɪ ∅-ɾ-ɔ-θʊhɔ=ɾɛɾɪ/
REL-mother 3-CTFG-ANTI-wash=CTFG-PROGR
‘My mother is washing.’
Reflexivity in the Karajá language is marked by the reflexive prefix with two allomorphs, exi- ̣ and ixi- :
Dikarỹ karexisuhokre.
/dɪkaɾə̄ ka-ɾ-eʃi-θʊhɔ=kəɾe/
I 1-CTFG-REFL-wash=FUT
‘I will wash myself.’
Hãbu iximy robire.
/habu iʃi=bə̄ ∅-ɾ-∅-obi=ɾ-e/
Man REFL=LOC 3-CTFG-INTR-see=CTFG-IMPERF
‘The man saw himself.’
In these examples, the patient is coreferential with the agent.
Passivization
Passives are described as the change of a clause from a transitive to an intransitive sentence through the demotion of the subject. Passive verbs are marked either by the prefix a- :Nadi watky risùhòrèri.
/d-ãdɪ wa-ɗəkɨ ∅-ɾ-ɪ-θʊhɔ=ɾ-ɛɾɪ/
REL-mother 1-clothes 3-CTFG-TRANS-wash=CTFG-PROGR
‘My mother is washing my clothes.’
Watky rasùhòrèri.
/wa-ɗəkɨ ∅-ɾ-a-θʊhɔ=ɾ-ɛɾɪ/
1-clothes 3-CTFG-PASS-wash=CTFG-PROGR
‘My clothes are being washed.’
Here, the subject ‘mother’ is demoted in the second example.
Number
When referring to nouns, plurality is expressed through three processes: reduplication, the pluralizer -boho, and the use of the noun mahãdù ‘people, group’. In verbs, plurality is marked through the use of the pluralizer -eny.Reduplication
Reduplication refers to the repetition of word categories to convey a certain meaning. In the case of the Karajá language, reduplication occurs with nouns and is used to convey plurality:iròdu iròdu
/irɔdʊ irɔdʊ/
animal animal
‘animals’
Pluralizer ''-boho''
The pluralizer -boho is used to pluralize the three personal pronouns:Diarỹ boho kdùra ãriròrènykre.
/dɪaɾə̃ boho kədʊɾa a-ɾ-ɪ-ɾɔ=ɾɛdə̃=kɾe/
I PL fish 1-CTFG-TRANS-eat=CTFG-PL=FUT
‘We will eat fish.’
Iny boho kdùra rkiròrènykre.
/idə̃ boho kədʊɾa ɾək-ɪ-ɾɔ=ɾ-ɛdə̃=kɾe/
Karajá PL fish 1PL.INCL-TRANS-eat=POT
‘We will eat fish.’
In addition, the latter example shows how the pluralizer –boho, when combined with the noun for people, functions as a first person plural inclusive pronoun to include those outside of a specific group. According to Ribeiro, iny serves the same function as the phrase a gente, commonly found in Brazilian Portuguese.
''mahãdù''
In contrast to the pluralizer -boho, the noun word mahãdù is not used with pronouns but rather functions as a noun to pluralize a group of people, as shown in the following example:Iny mahãdù tamy ròrùnyre.
/idə̄ bãhãdʊ ɗabə̃ ∅-r-a-ɔrʊ-də̃=r-e/
people group 3.AL 3-CTFG-INTR-run-VERB=CTFG-IMPRF
‘Firing their guns, the Karajá ran after them, it is said.’
In the above sentence, ‘Karajá’ becomes pluralized through the use of bãhãdʊ.
Pluralizer ''-èny''
As mentioned above, the pluralizer -èny functions to pluralize verbs as shown in the following example:Tamyle dòidènyde tuijyymy.
/ɗabə̄=le ∅-d-∅-ɔɪ=d-ɛdə̄=d-e ɗʊ=idʒɨɨ=bə̄/
3.AL=EMPH 3-CTPT-move=CTPT-PLURAL=CTPT-IMP 3.LOC=story=LOC
‘They came to him to tell the story.’
‘Came’, in this example, is pluralized to indicate that many individuals came.