Guató language

Guató (Guató: go-t͡ʃéuvɨ́ i-ótɨ́) 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

Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages, but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro. Martins (2011) also suggests a relationship with Macro-Jê. Nikulin (2020) excludes this possibility.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Bororo, Tupi, and Karib language families due to contact.

Distribution

Today, Guató is spoken in Guató Indigenous Territory and Baía dos Guató Indigenous Territory.

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

Phonology

Vowels

The Guató vowel system, like that of Macro-Jê languages, collapses a three-way distinction of height in oral vowels to two in nasal vowels.

	Oral	Nasal
	Front	Central	Back	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u	ĩ	ɨ̃	ũ
Mid	e		o	ẽ	ã
Open	ɛ	a	ɔ

Consonants

	Labial	Denti- alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar	Labio- velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ	ɡʷ
voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	kʷ
Fricative	f					h
Sonorant	w	ɾ	j

Tone

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

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.

External links

(online dictionary)