The Karirí languages, generally considered dialects of a single language, were a group of languages formerly spoken by the Kiriri people of Brazil. 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.
History
After the Dutch were expelled from Northeast 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 across Paraíba, Ceará, Pernambuco, Bahia, and other states.[1]
There are short grammatical descriptions of Kipeá and Dzubukuá, and word lists for Kamurú and Sabujá. Ribeiro established through morphological analysis that Kariri is likely to be related to the Jê languages.
Below is a full list of Kiriri languages and dialects listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties.[3]
Kariri / Quipea / Cariri - originally spoken in the Serra dos Velhos, Paraíba state, later at the old missions of Missão Velha, Missão Nova, Milagres, Crato, and others, in the states of Paraíba, Pernambuco and Ceará. Now entirely extinct, and the survivors speak only Portuguese.
Kiriri / Dzubucua / Quiriri - extinct language once spoken on the islands of the São Francisco River near Cabrobó, Pernambuco. Now extinct, and the last survivors spoke only Portuguese.
Sapuyá / Sabuya - extinct language originally spoken in the Serra Chapada, later in Caranguejo, Bahia
Calabaça - the Portuguese name of an extinct language of the Salgado River, Ceará. (Unattested)
Cariú - once spoken between the Cariús River and Bastiões River, Ceará. (Unattested)
Corema - formerly spoken on the Piancó River, state of Paraíba. (Unattested)
Jucá - once spoken south of the sources of the Jaguaribe River and near Arneiroz, Ceará. (Unattested)
Ichú / Ansus - once spoken on the sources of the Salgado River in the state of Ceará. (Unattested)
Ariú / Peba - extinct language formerly spoken on the Piranhas River and Sabugi River in the state of Paraíba. (Unattested)
Bultrin - extinct language of the Serra da Borborema of the state of Paraíba. (Unattested)
Quixexeu - once spoken on the Jaguaribe River, Ceará. (Unattested)
Quixelu - once spoken on the Jaguaribe River, Ceará. (Unattested)
Aracapa - extinct language once spoken on Aracapa Island in the São Francisco River, Pernambuco. (Unattested)
Tumbalalá, now extinct, is an unattested and unclassified language, but words for Tumbalalá ritual objects used in their traditional toré religion appear to be of Kariri origin, namely pujá, kwaqui, and cataioba.[4]
The names Kariri and Kiriri were applied to many peoples over a wide area in the east of Brazil, in the lower and middle São 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:
Ramirez et al. (2015) notes that Kariri languages display some lexical similarities with Cariban languages. Similarities with Katembri (also known as Kariri of Mirandela or Kaimbé) may be due to either a Kariri superstratum or substratum in Katembri.[1]
Syntax
Unlike most Macro-Jê languages which are SOV, Karirí languages are verb-initial and make use of prepositions.[6]
Vocabulary
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Kariri languages.[3]
^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.
