Nheengatu, also known as Modern Tupi, Língua Geral Amazônica (Amazonian General Language), and Amazonic Tupi, is a Tupi–Guarani language. It is spoken throughout the Rio Negro region among the Baniwa, Baré, and Warekena people in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, and the state of Amazonas, Brazil.
The language has been one of Amazonas' official languages since 2002. Outside of the Rio Negro region, the Nheengatu language is spoken across the Baixo Amazonas region among the Sateré-Mawé, Maraguá, and Mura people. In the Baixo Tapajós and the state of Pará, Nheengatu is mainly spoken among the Borari and the Tupinambá peoples.
A 2010 study by UNESCO estimated the number of Nheengatu speakers at around 10,000. , Thomas Finbow, a professor at the University of São Paulo, estimated that there were between 5,000 and 7,000 speakers in Brazil, and fewer than 10,000 globally, including small communities in Venezuela and Colombia. Nheengatu is sometimes used to study language change, as it has documentation that spans several centuries.
Name The name of the language derives from the words (meaning "language" or "word") and (meaning "good"). Nheengatu is referred to by a wide variety of names in literature, including Nhengatu, Tupi Costeiro, Geral, Yeral (in Venezuela), Tupi Moderno, Nyengato, Nyengatú, Waengatu, Neegatú, Is'engatu, Língua Brasílica, Tupi Amazônico, Ñe'engatú, Nhangatu, Inhangatu, Nenhengatu, Yẽgatú, Nyenngatú, Tupi, and Lingua Geral. It is also commonly referred to as the (LGA) in Brazil.
Classification Nheengatu descended from the extinct Tupinambá language and belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch of the Tupi language family. The Tupi–Guarani language family contains languages such as Xeta, Siriono, Arawete, Kaapor, Kamayura, Guaja, and Tapirape.
Portuguese Ancient Tupi Yẽgatu (Nheengatu from Rio Negro) Traditional Nheengatu Tapajoawaran Nheengatu 1st person singular plural exclusive inclusive 2nd person singular plural 3rd person singular plural
Eduardo de Almeida Navarro, a Brazilian philologist specializing in Nheengatu, argues that with its current characteristics, Nheengatu would have only emerged in the 19th century as a natural evolution of the Tupi language.NAVARRO, Eduardo de Almeida. Artificial Indigenous Place Names in Brazil: a Classification of Tupi Origin Names Created in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Revista Letras Raras. Campina Grande, v. 9, n. 2, p. 252-267, jun. 2020. EnglishPortugueseAncient TupiYẽgatu(Nheengatu from Rio Negro)Traditional NheengatuTapajoawaran NheengatubirdmanwomanhappinesscityhammockwaterIn addition to the now extinct general language of São Paulo, Nheengatu is closely related to ancient Tupi, and to Guarani of Paraguay.
History Belonging to the Tupi–Guarani linguistic family, Nheengatu emerged in the 18th century, descending from the now extinct Amazonian Tupinambá, a regional Tupi variant that originated in the Odisséia Tupinambá. The exodus of that nation, fleeing from Portuguese invaders on the Bahia coast, entered the Amazon and settled first in Maranhão, and from there to the Guajará Bay (Belém), the mouth of the Tapajós river, to the Tupinambarana island (Parintins), between the borders of Pará and Amazonas. The language of the Tupinambás became a lingua franca, hence why the Arawak peoples of the Parintins region came to be called Tupinamba Ranas (meaning "fake Tupinambá").
By the early 17th century, the Portuguese had conquered the Amazon and established the colonial state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, whose capital, Belém, was known as Cidade dos Tupinambás or Tupinambá Marií. In pursuit of catechism, Franciscan and Jesuit priests codified the grammar and orthography of the local lingua franca, which over time developed into the Northern General Language, also known as the Amazonian General Language. Its development occurred in parallel with that of the São Paulo General Language. Nheengatu subsequently spread throughout the Amazon as a tool of colonization, Portuguese dominion, and linguistic standardization. Many peoples came to adopt it as their primary language at the expense of their own; the Hanera, better known as the Baré, are one such example; their shift to Nheengatu ultimately led to the extinction of their native tongue. The Maraguá people, themselves longstanding Nheengatu speakers, have more recently undertaken efforts to revitalize their own language, and today Maraguá is taught alongside Nheengatu in local schools.
Speakers of other languages vastly outnumbered the Portuguese settlers in the Amazon, to the point that the Portuguese themselves adapted to the native language. A Portuguese colonist stated: "To speak or converse in the colony of Grão Pará, I had to use Nheengatu; if not, I would be talking to myself, since no one used Portuguese, except in the government palace in Belém and among the Portuguese themselves."
The General Language was established as the official language from 1689 to 1727 in Grão Pará and Maranhão. In order to erase the Amazonian identity, the Portuguese language was promoted, but did not see much success. In the mid-18th century, the Amazonian General Language, along with the related São Paulo General Language, was used throughout the colony. At this point, Tupinambá remained intact, but as a chiefly liturgical language, while the General Language was used for communication. By the mid-18th century, the Amazon and Tupinambá General Languages were already distinct.
Nheengatu continued to evolve as it expanded into the Alto Rio Negro region through contact with other languages such as Marawá, Baníwa, Warekana, Tucano, and Dâw.
The General Language evolved into two branches, the Northern General Language (Amazonian) and the Southern General Language (Paulista), which at its height became the dominant language of the vast Brazilian territory.
An anonymous manuscript from the 18th century is emblematically titled Dictionary of the general language of Brazil, spoken in all the towns, places, and villages of this vast State, written in the city of Pará, year 1771.
If Nheengatu was the major obstacle for the cultural and linguistic domination of Portuguese in the region, the colonizers saw that it was necessary to take it away from the people and impose the Portuguese language, which at first was not successful since the general language was very well rooted both among indigenous people and in the speech of blacks and whites themselves. The language was banned by Pombal's government, who intended to impose the Portuguese language in Brazil. Hence, many places had their names changed from the Northern General language to names of places and cities in Portugal, such as Santarém, Aveiro, Barcelos, Belém, Óbidos, Faro, Alenquer, and Moz.
A regional ban on the Northern General language came right after the Cabanagem separatist revolts; after the rebels were defeated in 1860, the regencial Brazilian government imposed a harsh persecution on the speakers of Nheengatu. Half of the male population of Grão-Pará was murdered and anyone who was caught speaking in Nheengatu was punished. The imposition of the Portuguese language this time had an effect and with the advent of Portuguese schools, the population was shepherded to the new language.
Also in the 20th century, economic and political events like the Amazon Rubber Boom, which brought huge waves of government encouraged settlers from the Northeast to the Amazon, led to an increased Portuguese presence. This again forced indigenous peoples to move or be subjected to forced labor. The language was again influenced by the increased presence of Portuguese speakers.
Nheengatu remained mainly among the most distant inhabitants of the urban centers, in the families descended from the cabanos and among unconquered peoples. Furthermore, "tapujos" (ribeirinhos) kept their accent and part of their speech tied to their language. Until 1920 it was common for Nheengatu to be used in traditional commercial centers in Manaus, Santarém, Parintins, and Belém.
Current use Nheengatu is spoken in the Alto Rio Negro region, in the state of Amazonas, in the Brazilian Amazon and in neighboring parts of Colombia and Venezuela. There are potentially as many as 19,000 Nheengatu speakers worldwide, although some journalists have reported as many as 30,000. Currently, it is still spoken by around 73.31% of the 29,900 inhabitants of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (IBGE 2000 Census), around 3,000 people in Colombia, and around 2,000 people in Venezuela, especially in the Rio Negro river basin (Uaupés and Içana rivers). Furthermore, it is the native language of the rural caboclo population of the area and is a common language of communication between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, or between Indigenous peoples of different languages. It is also an instrument of ethnic affirmation of Amazonian indigenous peoples who have lost their native languages, such as Barés, Arapaços, Baniuas, Uarequenas, and others.
Ethnologue rates Nheengatu as "changing" with a rating of 7 on the Gradual Intergenerational Interruption Scale (GIDS) (Simons and Fennig 2017). According to this scale, this classification suggests that "the population of children may use the language among themselves, but it is not being transmitted to children". According to the UNESCO Atlas of Endangered Languages of the World, Nheengatu is classified as "severely endangered". The language has recently regained some recognition and prominence after being suppressed for many years.
In 1998, University of São Paulo professor Eduardo de Almeida Navarro founded the Tupi Aqui organization dedicated to promoting the teaching of historical Tupi and Nheengatu in high schools in São Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil. Professor Navarro wrote a textbook for teaching Nheengatu that Tupi Aqui makes available, along with other teaching materials, on a website hosted by the University of São Paulo.
Official status In December 2002, Nheengatu gained official language status alongside Portuguese in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira in accordance with local law 145/2002. Now Nheengatu is one of the four official languages of the municipality. On 3 May 2021, the municipality of Monsenhor Tabosa in the state of Ceará adopted the "Tupi-Nheengatu" language, spoken by the Tabajara, Potiguara, Gavião, and peoples, as an official language, the first in the state to do so. In 2023, Nheengatu was one of 16 Indigenous languages recognized alongside Portuguese as official languages of the state of Amazonas.
Revitalization In 2007, USP established the first Brazilian university extension course dedicated to the study of Nheengatu. In 2012, the language was incorporated into the graduate program in translation studies. Consequently, in 2016 Graciliano Ramos's was translated into Nheengatu. Translations contribute to lexical revitalization; this translation of Ramos's work included linguistic and lexical research on Nheengatu, allowing for the use of obsolete words remembered only by the elders or already completely forgotten and replaced by borrowings from Portuguese, although borrowings adopted more than a century ago—now fully integrated into the language's tradition—were also employed. In 2017, The Little Prince was also translated as part of a master's dissertation supervised by USP professor Eduardo de Almeida Navarro. Likewise, in many instances the translation employed equivalent terms, adaptations, neologisms, and the revival of archaic words; for example, the tiger was replaced with (jaguar) and wheat with (corn), and the very title revived an old expression which served "to connect a word that had fallen out of use with the naming of a character in the book who was mysterious and little known".