| Kipeá | |
|---|---|
| Kiriri | |
.jpg) | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Itapicuru River, northeasternBahia[1] |
| Ethnicity | Kiriri people (2,806Quiriris [pt][2]) |
| Era | attested 1698 and 1699 |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | kipe1235 |
Kipeá (orKiriri) is an extinctKaririan language ofBrazil.A short grammatical treatise is available.[4][5]
Among the Kariri varieties, Kipeá is the best documented. There are two main sources for it, namely theCatecismo da doutrina christãa na lingua brasilica da nação kiriri and theArte de grammatica da lingua brasilica da naçam kiriri, both composed by Italian JesuitLuís Vincêncio Mamiani [pt].[6][7] TheCatecismo was published in 1698 with a facsimile edition issued by theBiblioteca Nacional in 1942, while theArte was published in 1699 with a new edition released in 1877 also by theBiblioteca Nacional, and a German translation byC. von der Gabelentz in 1852 under the titleGrammatik der Kiriri-Sprache.[7][a]
Jesuit João de Barros is said to have composed a catechism and a vocabulary of the language.Serafim Leite [pt] conjectured that theArte and theCatecismo were in fact the work of Barros, merely studied and prepared for publication by Mamiani.[7] However, this assumption is considered unlikely, given what Mamiani himself states at the beginning of theArte, where he writes he "did not deem it time wasted, nor an unnecessary occupation, but rather a very necessary one" to compose a grammar.[8] This is further supported by the testimonies of priests João Mateus Faletto and José Coelho, who granted approval for the publication of the work. Moreover, in theCatecismo Mamiani claims to have had "twelve years of experience with the language among the Indians".[9]
Lucien Adam published a comparative study ofDzubukuá, Kipeá,Pedra Branca, andSabujá,[b] but his work is considered not to have brought any new contribution to the knowledge of Kipeá.[9] In 1965, Gilda M. Corrêa de Azevedo completed her master's thesis on it under the supervision ofAryon Rodrigues; it was the first one on anIndigenous language ever produced inBrazil. Later that year, however, themilitary regime's intervention at theUniversity of Brasília led to the resignation of more than 200 professors, leaving only a few in the Department of Linguistics.[10]
According to Azevedo, there is no evidence that allows for reliable statements about the realization of the phonemes, since there are no oral sources, only written documents. She cautions against possible inaccuracies on Mamiani's part, given that he was a 17th-century missionary without specialized phonetic or linguistic training. Azevedo argues the phonological analysis presented in her work does not go beyond a "rudimentary interpretation" of the texts.[11]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Alveo- palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ts | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | dz | dʒ | (ɡ) | ||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Approximant | w | ɾ | j | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | eẽ | oõ | |
| Open | ææ̃ | aã | ɑ̃ |
Mamiani admits only twodiacritics in the theoretical introduction, thecircumflex and theacute, but also employs thegrave throughout his grammar. Zwartjes notes that, although the distinction between them is unclear, there was probably none at all, since on the same page one finds bothcradzó andcradzò. Mamiani also occasionally uses the symbol⟨ę⟩, but provides no information regarding this diacritic.[20] Seabra points out that an occurrence of⟨ę⟩ in a Latin sentence ("Credis Patrem omnipotentem Creatorem cęli & terræ?") allows one to conclude the symbol was used in place of⟨æ⟩ to save space in the line;[21] indeed, thetypesetter often employed thetilde to replace the letters "n" and "m" to fit the text into columns 2.8 centimeters (1.1 in) wide.[22]
There are threesyllable patterns in Kipeá: V, CV, and C1C2V, with the first two being the most frequent. The C1C2V pattern is rarer, with the C2 position being occupied only by/ɾ/. All consonants, except/dʒ/, occur in initial position before a vowel, and all occur in medial position before a vowel; only/p/,/b/, and/k/ occur before/ɾ/. No consonant occurs in final position, except for "-h", which appears in the interjections "proh" and "yuh" – a usage that Azevedo considers to be an analogy with the spelling of thePortuguese interjections "ah" and "oh". Vowels occur in initial, medial, and final positions, with some restrictions.[23]
Stress in Kipeá is considered to have a "purely demarcative, phonemically non-relevant" function, as it regularly falls on the final syllable of the word.[24] There are however some unstressed words that are interpreted asenclitics.[25]
Themorphology of the Kipeá language is predominantlyisolating andanalytic, unusual for a language native to the Americas.[26]
Clauses with one-argument verbs show the verb–intransitive subject order, and those with two-argument verbs showverb–transitive (direct) object–transitive subject, where the transitive subject is marked by theergative prepositionno.[27]
si-pa
kradzo
cow
no
karai
white.man
si-pa kradzo no karai
3-kill cow ERG white.man
"The white man kills the cow."[27]
Kipeá has prepositions but not postpositions. If anadposition relates to a pronoun, it may be prefixed to the adposition. Some adpositions have differentallomorphs when they follow a pronoun or pronominal prefix.[28]
Below, theLord's Prayer in Kipeá, according to Luís Vincêncio Mamiani in his 1698 catechism:[29]
Bo cupadzûá dibárí mó arãkié, dó netsówonhé adzé inháá; dó dí ecanghité hidyodé; dó moró acáté mó radá, moró mó arãkié; dó dí hiamítẽdé ená hidiohodé dó ighŷ; dó prieré mó hibuânghetẽdé; moró siprí hirédé dó dibuângherí hiaídé; dó dikyé ená hihẽbupídé nósumarã anhí; dó nunhé hietçãdé ená bóburété. Amen Jesu.
