The Pekodian languages are a subgroup of the Cariban language family. The languages are spoken in Mato Grosso and Pará states of Brazil and make up the southernmost branch of Cariban.[1]

Pekodian
Geographic
distribution
Mato Grosso and Pará, Brazil
Linguistic classificationCariban
  • Pekodian
Language codes
Glottologpeko1235

Meira and Chousou-Polydouri (2015) consider Pekodian to have descended from Cariban migrations that came from the north, as Cariban linguistic diversity is concentrated in northern South America.[2]

The term Pekodian was coined in 2005 by Meira and Bruna Franchetto on the basis of a cognate word for ‘woman’ found in these languages, respectively Bakairi pekodo and Ikpeng petkom, but not found in any of the other Cariban languages compared against them.[3]

Languages

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The Pekodian languages are:[4][5][6]

Internal classification

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Carvalho classifies the Pekodian languages as follows.[1]

The term Kampot is coined by Carvalho (2020) from the lexical innovation *kampot ‘fire’ defining the dialect cluster.

Sound changes

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A number of sound changes are shared between Bakairí and Ikpeng:[3]

  • In intervocalic position, Proto-Cariban *p becomes w, *t becomes d (further developing to r in Ikpeng), and *k becomes g.
  • Proto-Cariban *r becomes l in certain (as-yet undetermined) shared environments.
  • Proto-Cariban *w becomes p word-initially (though there are some exceptions in Ikpeng).
  • Proto-Cariban *t palatalizes to tʃ before e and i. (Bakairí further develops tʃ to ʃ, ʒ, s, or z.)
  • Possibly, the Proto-Cariban sequence *nu-ru reduced to *n-ru, yielding Bakairí nu and Ikpeng ŋ-ru, although these results can also be explained in other ways.

Loanwords

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Pekodian languages have various loanwords from non-Cariban languages, including Juruna and Arawakan languages.[1]

Pekodian may have also influenced Bororoan and other non-Cariban language families.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Carvalho, Fernando O. de (2020). Tocantins Apiaká, Parirí and Yarumá as Members of the Pekodian Branch (Cariban). Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas - RBLI. Macapá, v. 3, n. 1, p. 85-93, 2020.
  2. ^ Meira S, Birchall J, Chousou-Polydouri S. 2015. A character-based internal classification of the Cariban family. Talk presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguisticae Europaea, Leiden, Netherlands, Sept. 4.
  3. ^ a b Meira, Sérgio and Bruna Franchetto. 2005. “The southern Cariban languages and the Cariban family.” in International Journal of American Linguistics 71, pages 127-192.
  4. ^ Meira, Sérgio. 2006. A família lingüística Caribe (Karíb). Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas v.3, n.1/2, p.157-174. Brasília: FUNAI. (PDF)
  5. ^ Gildea, Spike. 2012. "Linguistic studies in the Cariban family", in Campbell & Grondona, eds, The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
  6. ^ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery. 2016. Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Brasília.