When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, more than a thousand indigenous languages were spoken in what is now Brazil.
Today, there are only 180 remaining, most of which are also faced with extinction, as part of an ongoing and wider cultural and knowledge loss. Almost sure to go are the 110 langages spoken by less than 400 people. Probable survivors include 11 languages with more than 5000 speakers: Baniwa, Guajajara, Kaingang, Kayapó, Makuxi, Sateré-Mawé, Terena, Ticuna, Xavante, Yanomani and Guaraní.
Against the current, some languages are being revived. One example is Maxacali, spoken by the Pataxós near Porto Seguro in southern Bahia, where the Portuguese first landed. In the last few years, several members of the group have found written records of the language and are now teaching the basics to children in local schools.
The most likely to stay is Guaraní, part of the Tupi family of 22 languages, which has always been the dominant and most wide-spread indigenous language, originally spoken all up the coast and into the interior. Today it has 30,000 speakers in Brazil, and 7 million in South America, stretching into Uruguay and northern Argentina and being an official language of Paraguay.
For the first couple of hundred years after 1500, a creole language called Lingua Geral (mixing Tupi-Guaraní and Portuguese) was used along the coast and into the interior, where there was contact between indigenous tribes and Portuguese Jesuits, traders and bandeirante explorers. Lingua Geral was outlawed in 1758 by Portugal, but a version of it, called Nheengatu, still remains in parts of the Amazon.
Indigenous words, usually with origins in nature, still live on in place names found throughout Brazil:
Brazilian states
Amapá: Medicinal tree
Pará: River
Paraná: Sea
Paraíba: Un-navigable river
Pernambuco: Sea with reefs
Piauí: River of the Piau fish
Sergipe: Path of the river of the crabs
Tocantins: Toucan beak
Roraima: Green plateau
Ceará: Squawking macaws
Brazilian towns and cities
Aracajú: Cashew fruit of the macaws
Cuiabá: Spear-fishing spot
Corumbá: White earth
Guaratinguetá: Flock of white birds
Jurujuba: Yellow thorns
Maceió: Barrier to the swamp
Morumbi: Green hills
Niterói: Hidden waters
Brazilian beaches, rivers and waterfalls
Iguaçú: Big waters
Ipanema: Bad waters ("the girl from the bad waters" suddenly doesn't sound so appealing!).
Ipiranga: Red river
Itacoatiara: Sculpted rocks
Itaipava: Stony river
Itaipú: Rocks and noisy water
Tijuca: Muddy lake
Next post: Açaí, Arara, Jaguar, Pitanga. Indigenous words in Brazil's fauna and flora.
