User:Juliaa.bibik/Surui language

Suruí (of Jiparaná), also known as Paíter or Suruí-Paíter, is a Tupian language of Brazil. Suruí people live in Brazil, on the border of Rondônia and Mato Grosso. They are divided into four moieties. The Suruí of Rondônia call themselves Paiter, which means “the true people, we ourselves". They speak a language of the Tupi group and Monde language family. In Rondônia about 350 people speak the language to this day. There were 1,171 Suruí-Paíter in 2010. The Suruí engaged in many wars and conflicts with the indigenous neighbors and the white settlers. The Suruí language is very musical. It includes chants, which are used to retell historical events, which are filled with onomatopoeias and idiophones. Through songs, the Suruí people are able to retrieve important moments of the past and tell their story.

Classification

The Suruí language belongs to the Monde family. It comes from the Tupian stock. The Monde family includes Salamãy, Aruá, Gavião, Cinta Larga, Suruí, and Zoró.

History

According to a Paiter oral tradition passed down through generations, the Suruí migrated from Cuiabá to Rondônia sometime during the 19th century. The reason for the migration was to flee from the white settlers drawn to the region. The Monde area in Brazil was known for rubber, animal pelts, lumber, diamonds and gold. The migration to Rondônia continued, motivated by the exploitation of rubber in the 1920’s, building of the Madeira-Mamoré railway and telegraph lines that were installed by Rondon. Fleeing caused conflict with other indigenous groups in the region resulting in wars. For decades Suruí were at war with their neighbors. The Suruí's first peaceful encounter with outsiders occurred in 1969. This contact resulted in a measles, flu and tuberculosis outbreak, causing a rapid decline in the Suruí population. Since then, the population slowly increased. Before migration, the Suruí made their living on hunting and slash-and-burn horticulture. They lives in small, very populated villages, and moved every two to three years as the land they occupied was no longer usable. Migration led to the Suruí to give up shamanism and convert to Evangelical Protestantism.

Geographic Distribution

Suruí live in Brazil, on the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land, located on the border of Rondônia and Mato Grosso. More than 1,200 speakers of Suruí are alive today. Traditionally, they occupied only a couple of villages. Today, they occupy over 20 different villages on rainforest land.

Tupi-Monde Languages

Languages of the Monde family are all considered separate languages, however they are closely related. The Monde languages include Salamãy, Aruá, Gavião, Cinta Larga, Suruí, and Zoró. Suruí is a sister language to Zoró, Cinta Larga and Gavião. It differs the most from Cinta Larga and is most closely related to Zoró.

Phonology

Most letters are pronounced according to Brazilian Portuguese, with the exception of: g̃ velar nasal [ŋ], h means that the vowel is long, s voiceless velar [x] or dental fricative [θ], u closed front rounded vowel [y]. Tilde is used to show nasalization, acute accent is used to show high tone on oral vowels, and circumflex are used to show high tones on nasalized vowels. Oral vowels with low tone lack diacritic marks. Consonants can be located either at the beginning or end of the word according to the morpheme they proceed or follow. Most common variations are p_m, k_g, s_l_x, t_tx_n, d_j, m_∅, and w_∅.

Sound Changes in Suruí

Surui and Gavião are separate languages however because they both belong to the Monde family, they can be used as comparison for the sound change rules that apply to Suruí.

Bilabial lenition: b->m/#__ The sound /b/ becomes /m/ when it is located in the beginning of the word. This is a constant rule in Suruí.

Example:

English	Suruí	Gavião
banana	mokowa	bákóva
fish	morib	bolív
peccary	mẽbe	bebe

Rhinoglottophilia: Vh->V[nasal]h Vowels become nasalized when they are followed by /h/. This rule does not always apply.

Example:

English	Suruí	Gavião
flute	wãahp	váv
land	gõhi	gój
spider	gerpã	gérépà

Deletion: Vh->V

Example:

English	Surui	Gavião
lagoon	ikara	íkàhr
photo	ixo	pàhxo
star	txoy(kab)	gati(kúhv)

Other sound changes include:

Loss of prenasalization: ng->g/#__

Label weakening: v->w/{#}

Deaffrication: tʃ->ʃ

Suruí Oral Art

The Suruí language is filled with musical elements. Pajé chants, chants performed by a shaman who has the ability to heal through a connection with the natural spirits. Machete songs, nabekod iwai ewa, also called "contact" songs, through which conflict between outside indigenous tribes was reported. Love songs, kasarewa, meaning "passion chant" that talk about romantic relationship between the tribe and outsiders. Often sung by Suruí women about Funai workers. Battle songs, ladnĩgewewa, war chants directed towards the enemy. A common theme throughout the chants is the outsiders, non-natives, coming in and causing disorder to the tribe. Musical elements help the Suruí people share parts of their history. Just like any myths, part of the chants are based on historical accuracy while others and fables. By using spoken-chant, the Suruí are able to transform the story into another dimension. The person chanting is performing multiple roles at once: singer, actor, sound/music, performer. The story is told through nature (thunder, wind), through animals (sounds representing the dialogue of animals), along with dramatic pauses or whistles that create a happy or sad atmosphere. The narrator works all aspects of the story. This type of language differs from their everyday language.

Sound

Musicality is a big part of the Suruí language. The language is filled with onomatopoeias and ideophones, used to create sounds for the natural world, movement of animals, nature, and spiritual beings. The different sounds used when speaking the language, all have different levels of musicality. Therefore, it is impossible to accurately translate the songs into lyrics. Additionally, the sounds cannot be translated into traditional western music because the sound effects are specific to the expression and interpretation of the language, a type of sing-talk that cannot be explained in words. Paul Zumthor called this idea Vocality, a blend of words and music that provides a new understanding of the language.

Example: Wuu!...wuu!...iaká mawud nã yã taje e

Meaning: Flew, flyyyying became a Nambu bird, they say. The sound wuu is used to express the movement of flying.

Grammar

Morphology

Rules to describe the morphophonemic changes in verb and noun stems.

1. voiceless stop in first person singular --> voiced nasal in first person plural

Example:

o'pake -----> pa'make

I wake up We wake up

2. voiceless dental stop (in 1st pers. sing.) --> voiced nasal in 1st person plural

voiceless dental stop (in 1st pers. sing.) --> voiceless alveo-palatal affricate in 2nd person plural.

Examples:

o'tãrã -------> pa'nãrã

I am angry We are angry

o'tãrã -------> mei'čãrã

I am angry You (pl.) are angry

3. voiceless fricative --> voiced lateral in first person plural or voiceless grooved fricative in 2nd pl.

4. voiced bilabial or velar nasal --> voiceless stop in 3rd sing., 2nd pl., 3rd pl.

5. voiced dental nasal --> voiceless stop in 3rd sing., 3rd pl. or voiceless alveo-palatal affricate in 2nd pl.

6. voiced lateral --> voiceless grooved fricative in 3rd sing., 2nd pl. or voiceless dental fricative in 3rd pl.

7. labial semi vowel --> palatal semi vowel in 2nd pl.

Exceptions to the rules include:

1. /m/ stays /m/
2. /n/ stays /n/
3. /m/ --> /y/ in 2nd. place
4. /y/ --> /s/ in 2nd. place
5. /n/ --> /ñ/ in 2nd place
6. /n/ --> /č/ in 3rd. sing.
7. /y/ --> /s/ in 3rd sing., 2nd pl., 3rd pl.
8. /l/ --> /y/ in 3rd sing.

Typological Features

Suruí is a tonal language. It utilizes pitch-based whistling, meaning that the whistles are focused on imitating the pitch go the voice, using the vibrating vocal chords to encode lexical tones.

The basic word orders of the Suruí language are as follows: genitive-noun, noun-adjective, object-verb. Majority of the time the subject comes before the object-verb group, however that is not a strictly determined position. The subject is marked by aspectual or evidential suffixes. Two classes of nouns exist in the Suruí language: obligatorily possessed and non-obligatorily possessed. The two classes of verbs are transitive and intransitive.

Writing System

In 2011, Suruí's writing system was sampled. A list of the same group of words was used as the sample. It was given to different members of the Suruí community. Upon completion the lists were compared and the results showed major inconsistencies. This is a problem for the indigenous group as they want to write down their tradition and culture before it goes extinct.

Examples

Sample sentences from a story narrated by a fifty five year old Suruí man, Agamenon G̃amasakaka from the village of Lapetanha. The story is about a Suruí attack on a neighboring indigenous village, Zoró.

Suruí: ““Nem, olobaka G̃oxoriyã” iyã” de.

Pronunciation: nem o-sob-aka G̃oxor-ya i-ya ∅-de

Translates to: Well, a Zoró killed my father.

Suruí: ““Ete oya G̃oxoribebepemaã tar ã” iyã” de, ““mixag̃ataga.””

Pronunciation: ee-te o-ya G̃oxor-ibeb-e-pe-maã tar a i-ya ∅-de mixag̃ -mataga

Translates: That time I had followed the track of a Zoró through the night.

Suruí:““Mokãyxibotorera oya xibebaã tar ã, xipemaã tar ã” iyã” de.

Pronunciation: mokãy-xibo-tor-wera o-ya xi-ibeb-maã tar a

Translates: I had followed his track carrying a torch, I had followed his path.

Bibliography

1. Dourado Pucci, Magda (2011). "Dourado Pucci, Magda Aspects Of Paiter Suruí Oral Art". Vibrant. ISSN 1809-4341.

2. van der Meer, Tine H (1985). Case marking in Suruí. Summer Institute of Linguistics.

3. Meyer, Julien (2015). Whistled Languages. ISBN 978-3-662-45836-5.

4. Yvinec, Cédric (2012). "Arousing and Mastering Feelings of Alien Inspiration in One's Own Speech: Pragmatics of the Shamanic Songs of the Suruí of Rondônia (Southern Amazonia)". 54.

5. Haspelmath, Martin. Studies in Diversity Linguistics. language science press. ISBN 2363-5568 Check |isbn= value: length (help).

6. Anonby, Stan (2013). A report and comparative-historical look at the Cinta Larga, Suruí, Gavião and Zoró languages. Simon Fraser University.

7. Figueiró Spinelli, Patrícia (2019). Astronomy across cultures: reporting experiences on the GalileoMobile education activities in the Paiter Suruí indigenous community (PDF). EPJ Web of Conferences.

8. Antônio Souza de Deus, José (2020). New Territorialities and Collective Ethnic Identities in the Brazilian Amazon Frontier, Rondonia State: Surui Paiter, Arara, and Gavião Indigenous Communities’ Land Claims and Alternative Cultural Landscapes. ISBN 978-3-030-29153-2.

9. Cambell, Lyle (2012). The indigenous languages of South America : a comprehensive guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-025513-3.

10. Walker, Robert S. "Co-father relationships among the Suruí (Paiter) of Brazil". PeerJ.

11.Bontkes, Carolyn (2009). Tentative Observations of Morphophonemic Changes in the Verbs and the Possessed Nouns of Suruí. Anápolis – GO: Associação Internacional de Lingüística SIL – Brasil. p. 7.

12.Moore, Denny; Meyer, Julien (2014). The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia.