The Ofayé or Opaye language, also Ofaié-Xavante, Opaié-Shavante, forms its own branch of the Macro-Jê languages. It is spoken by only a couple of the small Ofayé people, though language revitalization efforts are underway. Grammatical descriptions have been made by the Pankararú linguist Maria das Dores de Oliveira (Pankararu),[2] as well as by Sarah C. Gudschinsky[3] and Jennifer E. da Silva, from the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul.
| Ofayé | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Mato Grosso do Sul |
| Ethnicity | 60 Ofayé people (2006)[1] |
Native speakers | 2 (2005)[1] |
Macro-Jê
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | opy |
| Glottolog | ofay1240 |
| ELP |
|
 | |
It was spoken on the Ivinhema River, Pardo River, and Nhandú River in Mato Grosso do Sul. Guachi, spoken on the Vacaria River in Mato Grosso do Sul, is a dialect.[4]
Language contact
editJolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Macro-Mataguayo-Guaykuru languages due to contact.[5]
Phonology
editThe consonantal inventory of Ofayé is as follows.[2]: 40
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar/ palatal |
Velar | Labio-velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | n | ||||||
| Stop | voiceless | t | tʃ | k | kʷ | ʔ | |
| voiced | d | dʒ | g | ||||
| Fricative | ɸ | ʃ | h | ||||
| Oral sonorant | ɾ | j | w | ||||
The vowel inventory of Ofayé is as follows.[2]: 42
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | ||
| Close-mid | e ẽ | ə | o õ |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ||
| Open | a ã |
Vocabulary
editLoukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.[4]
gloss Opaie one enex-há two yakwári tongue chü-õrá foot chü-gareyé fire mitáu tree komekatá jaguar woki house shüa white õká
References
edit- ^ a b Ofayé at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ a b c Oliveira, Maria das Dores de (2006). Ofayé, a língua do povo do mel: fonologia e gramática (Ph.D. dissertation). Maceió: Universidade Federal de Alagoas.
- ^ Gudschinsky, Sarah C. (1974). "Fragmentos de Ofaié: a descrição de uma língua extinta". Série Lingüística. 3: 177–249.
- ^ a b Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
- ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.