Kaingang language

Kaingang language is an indigenous language spoken in the Southern Brazil. The Kaingang nation has about 30 thousands people, and about from 60 to 65% speak the native language (the great majority speak Portuguese too). Tha Kaingang language is classified as a member of the Ge family, the most important linguistic family in the Macro-Ge stock (see Aryon Rodrigues 1986). The Kaingang territory was distributed by the (actual) States of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul (and, until the begining of the XXth century, also life in Misiones - Argentina). Today they live in around 30 indigenous lands (similar to 'reservation'), specially at Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná. In the 60s of the last century, by a missionary interest (conducted by SIL - Summer Institute of Linguistics), the language was studied by Ursula Wiesemann (see references), and she was proposed an orthography for the language, which is in use (in spite of some troubles). The Kaingang alphabet is that in the box, with the main phonetical values. About this alphabet see: [1]. Informations about sources respect to the Kaingang language are available in [2] About the phonology of Kaingang and its relations with Macro-Ge languages, see D'Angelis available in [3]

References: D'ANGELIS, Wilmar R. (1998). Traços de modo e modos de traçar geometrias: línguas Macro-Jê & teoria fonológica. Campinas: IEL-Unicamp. Tese de Doutorado, 2 vols.; RODRIGUES, Aryon Dall'Igna (1986). Línguas brasileiras. Para o conhecimento das línguas indígenas. São Paulo: Ed. Loyola; WIESEMANN, Ursula (1972) Die phonologische und grammatische Struktur der Kaingáng-Sprache. Mouton: The Hague.