Guató () is a language isolate spoken by two of the Guató people of Brazil. It has variously been claimed to be of Macro-Jê or isolate affiliation. Guató is a VSO language, has agglutination, and has ergative alignment.

Classification Terrence Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages, as did Aryon Rodrigues (1999) and Martins (2011),Martins, Andérbio Márcio Silva. 2011. Uma avaliação da hipótese de relações genéticas entre o Guató e o tronco Macro-Jê. Doutorado em Linguística. Universidade de Brasília. but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro and Hein van der Voort (2010). Andrey Nikulin (2020) excludes this possibility.

History

Documentation The Guató language is first documented in a number of wordlists, beginning with François-Louis Laporte, comte de Castelnau's 1851 publication, and followed by others through 1959. The only substantial grammar of Guató was written by Adair Pimentel Palácio and published in 1984.

Language contact Marcelo Jolkesky (2016) identifies lexical similarities with the Bororo, Tupi, and Karib language families, which, according to him, are due to contact.

Geographical distribution Today, the Guató mainly reside in Guató Indigenous Territory and Baía dos Guató Indigenous Territory. All residents speak only Portuguese, and the two remaining speakers live elsewhere.

Loukotka (1968) reported that as of 1964, in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, Guató was spoken on the banks of the Paraguay River and up the São Lourenço River, along the Bolivian border. It was also spoken at Uberaba Lake in Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia.

Phonology

Vowels The Guató vowel system, like that of the Macro-Jê languages, collapses a three-way distinction of height in oral vowels to two in nasal vowels. Eight oral and five nasal vowels are present in Guató.

Oral Nasal Front Central Back Front Central Back Close Mid Open-mid Open

Consonants 17 consonants are present in the language. Labial Denti-alveolar Post-alveolar Velar Labio-velar GlottalPlosive voiceless voiced Affricatevoicelessvoiced Fricativevoiceless voiced Nasal Vibrant Glide

Tone Guató is a tonal language, possessing a high and low tone.

Morphology Typologically, Guató is agglutinative, and has ergative alignment.

Syntax Guató is a VSO language.

Vocabulary For more extensive vocabulary lists of Guató by Palácio (1984) and Postigo (2009), see the corresponding Portuguese article.

Numerals Guató uses a quinary (base-5) system up to 20, where a decimal system is used for large numbers.

Loanwords A number of Portuguese loanwords are present in Guató: +Portuguese loanwords in GuatóglossGuatóPortuguesepapayaomamõmamãolemonoɾimãolimãocowvakavacakeytʃavechavesoldier, policemansoɾodavesoldado Loanwords undergo a phonetic adaptation in Guató.

References

Further reading

External links Portal Japiim (online dictionary)