Maxakalí language


Maxakalí is a Maxakalían language spoken in fourteen villages in Minas Gerais, Brazil, by fewer than a thousand people.

Dialects

identifies six varieties of Maxakali. All but Maxakalí proper are extinct:
Maxakalí was originally spoken in the Mucuri River, Itanhém River, and Jequitinhonha River areas. Today, Maxakalí is found in four main communities of Minas Gerais, with a total ethnic population of about 2,000:
Old Machacari is attested from the 19th century. Reported varieties include Monoxó, Makoni, Kapoxó, Kumanaxó, and Panhame. After the dispersion of its speakers in the 1750s, they lived between the upper Mucuri River and São Mateus River, possibly up to Jequitinhonha in the north to the Suaçuí Grande River, a tributary of the Doce River, in the south. After 1750, the southward migration of the Botocudos forced the Machacari to seek refuge in Portuguese settlements on the Atlantic coast, in Alto dos Bois, and in Peçanha. According to Saint-Hilaire, the Monoxó lived in Cuyaté probably around 1800, before seeking refuge in Peçanha. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Panhame and other Maxakali groups allied with the Portuguese to fight the Botocudos.
Modern Maxakali is distinct from Old Machacari. It was historically spoken from the Mucuri River valley up to the headwaters of the Itanhaém River in Minas Gerais.

Phonology

Maxakalí has five vowels, occurring in both oral and nasal form.

Vowels

Consonants

Allophony

The World Atlas of Language Structures claims that Maxakalí has no contrastive fricative or nasal consonants, citing "Gudschinski et al. 1970". It is important to note that WALS did not consider to be a true fricative in this judgement.

Syntax

Word order

The most common word order in Maxakalí is SOV.

Morphosyntactic alignment

Maxakalí is an ergative language. The ergative case covers transitive subjects as well as indirect objects. The absolutive case covers intransitive subjects and transitive objects.
PersonErgativeAbsolutive
1st singãũg
2nd singxaã
3rd singtuũ
1st plur inclyũmũ’ãyũmũg
1st plur exclũgmũ’ãũgmũg

Morphology

Suppletive verb number

For some verbs, number is shown not by conjugation, but by suppletive verb stems. These verb stems can show number differences either for the subject or for the object.
Subject number
Object number

Word shortening and expanding

Noun compounding

Maxakalí nouns readily form compounds, here are some examples: