2018/03/30 by Fernando O. de Carvalho · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory #Indigenous Health and Education #Indigenous Studies in Latin America
paper · doi:10.1086/696198
openalex publication_date 2018/03/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
Relations between Arawakan and Guaicuruan groups in the Chaco region of South America have been widely discussed in ethnohistorical and anthropological sources. This paper offers the first systematic investigation of the linguistic effects of these interactions, relying on, and contributing to, the historical study of both language families. I discuss a number of nominal lexemes in Terena, the extant descendant of Guaná, that lack plausible Arawakan etymologies, thus being candidates for items adopted from some non-Arawakan language. I show that the Terena items in question are loans from Northern Guaicuruan languages and can be traced to source forms with established Guaicuruan etymologies. I propose some linguistic markers that characterize the Guaicuruan stratum in the Terena lexicon, particularly well-represented in the domains of zoonyms and phytonyms. Consequences of these findings are discussed, including their relation to the independent claims of the ethnohistorical literature.