TheKarirí languages, generally considered dialects of a single language,[4][5][6] are a group of languages formerly spoken by theKiriri people ofBrazil. It was spoken until the middle of the 20th century; the 4,000 ethnic Kiriri are now monolingual Portuguese speakers, though a few know common phrases and names of medicinal plants. A revival of theDzubukuá variety has been ongoing since 1989.[2]
After the Dutch were expelled fromNortheast Brazil in the 17th century, Portuguese settlers rapidly colonized the region, forcing Kariri speakers to become widely dispersed due to forced migrations and resettlement. Hence, Kariri languages became scattered acrossParaíba,Ceará,Pernambuco,Bahia, and other states.[7]
There area short grammatical description[8] anda catechism[9] in Kipeá, a catechism in Dzubukuá,[10] and word lists for Kamurú and Sabujá.[11] Modern grammatical descriptions are available for Kipeá[12] and Dzubukuá.[5] Ribeiro established through morphological analysis that Kariri is likely to be related to theJê languages. This is now disputed.[13]
Below is a full list of Kiriri languages and dialects listed byLoukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties.[15]
Kiriri /Quipea /Quiriri - originally spoken in theSerra dos Velhos, Paraíba state, later at the old missions ofMissão Velha,Missão Nova,Milagres,Crato, and others, in the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco and Ceará. Now entirely extinct, and the survivors speak only Portuguese.
Kariri /Dzubucua /Cariri - extinct language once spoken on the islands of theSão Francisco River nearCabrobó, Pernambuco. Now extinct, and the last survivors spoke only Portuguese.
Sapuyá /Sabuya - extinct language originally spoken in the SerraChapada, later inCaranguejo, Bahia
The original language of theTumbalalá [pt], now extinct, is effectively unattested and unclassified, but words for Tumbalalá ritual objects used in their traditionaltoré religion appear to be of Kariri origin, namelypujá,kwaqui, andcataioba.[16]
The namesKariri andKiriri were applied to many peoples over a wide area in the east of Brazil, in the lower and middleSão Francisco River area and further north. Most of their now-extinct languages are too poorly known to classify, but what is recorded does not suggest that they were all members of the Kariri family. Examples are:
Kaufman (1990) classified it asKatembri–Taruma. It appears to be a Kariri language with some substratum from an unidentified language, generally assumed to be that of the Katembri.[17][18]
Ramirez et al. (2015) notes that Kariri languages display some lexical similarities withCariban languages. Similarities withKatembri (also known asKariri of Mirandela) or possiblyKaimbé may be due to either a Kariri superstratum or substratum in Katembri.[7]
This articleshould specify the language of its non-English content using{{lang}} or{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used - notablykzw for Karirí-Xocó.See why.(June 2025)
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Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Kariri languages.[15]
^Ribeiro, Eduardo Rivail.On the inclusion of the Karirí family in the Macro-Jê stock: additional evidence. Paper presented at SSILA 2011 (Pittsburgh), January 7, 2011.
† indicates anextinct language,italics indicates independent status of a language,bold indicates that a language family has at least 6 members, * indicates moribund status
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