Geographical distribution of the Borôroan languages
The Borôroan languages of Brazil are Borôro and the extinct Umotína and Otuke. They are sometimes considered to form part of the proposed Macro-Jê language family,[1][2]: 547 though this has been disputed.[3]: 64–8
See Otuke for various additional varieties of the Chiquito Plains in Bolivia which may have been dialects of it, such as Kovare and Kurumina.
There are other recorded groups that may have spoken languages or dialects closer to Borôro, such as Aravirá, but nothing is directly known about these languages:[8]
Aravirá – extinct language once spoken on the Cabaçal River and Sepotuba River in Mato Grosso according to Loukotka (1968)
Orari (Eastern Borôro, Orarimugodoge), listed by Loukotka as a language that was spoken on the Valhas River, Garças River, and Madeira River in Mato Grosso, is another name for Bororo.
The Bororoan languages are commonly thought to be part of the Macro-Jê language family.[1][2]: 547
Ceria & Sandalo (1995) note parallels between Bororo and the Guaicuruan languages.[12] Kaufman (1994) has suggested a relationship with the Chiquitano language,[13] which Nikulin (2020) considers to be a sister of Macro-Jê.[3] Furthermore, Nikulin (2019) has suggested that Bororoan has a relationship with the Cariban and Kariri languages:[14]
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Guato, Karib, Kayuvava, Nambikwara, and Tupi language families due to contact.[16]
Cariban influence in Bororoan languages was due to the later southward expansion of Cariban speakers into Bororoan territory. Ceramic technology was also adopted from Cariban speakers.[16]: 415 Similarly, Cariban borrowings are also present in the Karajá languages. Karajá speakers had also adopted ceramic technology from Cariban speakers.[16]: 420
Similarities with Cayuvava are due to the expansion of Bororoan speakers into the Chiquitania region.[16]: 416
^ ab,Guérios, R. F. Mansur F. (1939). "O nexo lingüístico Bororo/Merrime-Caiapó (contribuição para a unidade genética das línguas americanas)". Revista do Círculo de Estudos "Bandeirantes". 2: 61–74.
^Combès, Isabelle. 2010. Diccionario étnico: Santa Cruz la Vieja y su entorno en el siglo XVI. Cochabamba: Itinera-rios/Instituto Latinoamericano de Misionología. (Colección Scripta Autochtona, 4.)
^Combès, Isabelle. 2012. Susnik y los gorgotoquis: Efervescencia étnica en la Chiquitania (Oriente boliviano), p. 201–220. Indiana, v. 29. Berlín. doi:10.18441/ind.v29i0.201-220
^Castelnau, Francis de. 1850-59. Expédition dan les parties centrales de l'Amérique du Sud : de Rio de Janeiro à Lima, et de Lima au Para exécutée par ordre du gouvernement français pendant les années 1843 à 1847, sous la direction de Francis de Castelnau. P. Bertrand. Paris
^Kaufman, Terrence. 1994. The native languages of South America. In: Christopher Moseley and R. E. Asher (eds.), Atlas of the World’s Languages, 59–93. London: Routledge.
^Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
