Gramática do Kamaiurá, Língua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu
Encyclopedia
Gramática do Kamaiurá, Língua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu, by Lucy Seki
Lucy Seki
Lucy Seki is a Brazilian linguist specializing in indigenous languages of the Americas. She is the author of a highly-regarded grammar of the Kamayurá language.-Biography:...

, is an authoritative and comprehensive description of Kamayurá
Kamayurá language
The Kamayurá language belongs to the Tupi–Guarani family , and is spoken by the Kamayurá people of Brazil – who numbered about 290 individuals as of the year 2004.-Vowels:-Consonants:...

, an indigenous language
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...

 of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

.

Kamayurá is spoken by the people of the same name
Kamayurá people
The Kamayurá are an indigenous tribe in the Amazonian Basin of Brazil. The name is also spelled Kamayura, and Kamaiurá in Portuguese; it means "a raised platform to keep meat, pots and pans." The Kamayurá language belongs to the Tupi–Guarani family...

, which number about 290 as of 2005, living in two villages in the Xingu National Indian Reservation, Brazil.

Book description

The book has 482 pages of text, plus 17 pages of color photos of the Kamayurá. Its thoroughness and completeness set it apart from most other books on American Indian languages, which usually give only an incomplete overview of their subject.

The book covers all aspects of the language, from phonology to anaphora and discourse structure. Moreover, the book is written in precise but readable Portuguese, avoiding the unnecessary use of technical jargon and theoretical discussions. While not a textbook, this feature makes it accessible to non-linguists who have only basic knowledge of grammatical concepts.

The information given in the book was provided by native Kamayurá speakers, some of them monlingual. The author recorded, transcribed an analyzed a corpus of over 40 narratives in Kamayurá. The text includes 16 pages on the history and culture of the Kamayurá, two maps of the Xingu reservation and its Indian villages, a lexicon with some 1200 words, about 1500 examples of analyzed phrases and sentences, a 10-page bibliography, and a fully analyzed 100-line excerpt from one of those narratives.

Testimonials

From the preface by linguist Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on Caucasian languages....

: The Kamayurá Grammar of Dr. Seki is one of the best grammars of a living Brazilian indigenous languages that I had the privilege of reading [...] It is also the first modern comprehensive descriptive grammar of a Brazilian indigenous language written by a Brazilian.

From the back cover endorsement by linguist R. M. W. Dixon
R. M. W. Dixon
Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland, and formerly Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.In 1996, Dixon and another linguist, Alexandra Aikhenvald,...

: In fact, Dr. Seki's book on the Kamayurá is the first comprehensive grammar of an Indian language by a Brazilian since Anchieta
José de Anchieta
José de Anchieta was a Canarian Jesuit missionary to Brazil in the second half of the 16th century. A highly influential figure in Brazil's history in the 1st century after its discovery on April 22, 1500 by a Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, Anchieta was one of the founders of...

's description of Tupinambá in 1595.
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