The Kaingang language is an indigenous language spoken in the South of Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, belonging to the Gê

Ge languages

The Jê languages , or Jê–Kaingang languages, are spoken by the Gê, a group of indigenous peoples in Brazil.-Family division:The language family is as follows:*Jaikó...

 language family. The Kaingang nation has about 30,000  people, and about from 60% to 65% speak the language. The majority also speaks Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

.

Culture

The Kaingang language is classified as a member of the Ge family, the largest language family in the Macro-Ge stock. The Kaingang territory occupies the modern states of São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, Paraná

Paraná (state)

Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...

, Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina (state)

Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...

 and Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...

 (and, until the beginning of the 20th century, Misiones, Argentina

Misiones Province

Misiones is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamiсa region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes Province of Argentina to the southwest.- History :The province was...

). Today they live in around 30 indigenous lands (similar to Native American reservations

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

), especially at Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná.

In the 1960s, because of a missionary interest (conducted by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)), the language was studied by Ursula Wiesemann. Wiesemann proposed an orthography for the language, which is still in use (in spite of some troubles). Examples of Kaingang writing can be found on Omniglot.

External links

• Catálogo de Línguas Sul-Americanas: Kaingáng
• Portal Kaingang
• Kaingang phonology and Macro-Ge languages
• Comparison of English and Kaingang phrases
• Jolkesky, M. P. V. (2006a). Língua, lexicografia e os SILogismos em Kaingang - Português Dicionário Bilingüe. (manuscrito)
• Jolkesky, M. P. V. (2006b). Análise semiótica de um texto Kaingáng. (manuscrito)
• Jolkesky, M. P. V. (2009). Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble (RS). Anais do XIV SETA - Seminário de Teses em Andamento, 3:675-685. Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP. (anexo)
• Jolkesky, M. P. V.; Santos, L. C. (2008). Construções relativas restritivas em Kaingáng. Em: S. Telles & A. S. de Paula (orgs.) Topicalizando Macro-Jê, 247-260. Recife: NECTAR.