Kambiwá ( Cambioá) is an extinct unclassified language of Brazil. The Kambiwá still refer to their original language, and they preserve a few words of it today.
History
Documentation In 1935, 27 words of Kambiwá were recorded, followed by 25 words collected circa 1955; some of the words coincide between the two wordlists. A couple dozen words were further collected by Wilbur Pickering in 1961 from two people living in Barreira, Petrolândia, Pernambuco. However, by that time the language had become extinct.
Classification Apart from two apparent borrowings from Tupi, none of the words are relatable to known languages. Czech linguist Čestmír Loukotka (1968) characterized the language as unclassifiable due to lack of data.
Vocabulary
Oliviera ms. The following vocabulary was recorded by Carlos Estevão de Oliveira in Brejo dos Padres, Pernambuco and extracted from a manuscript nearly destroyed by termites by Loukotka and published in 1963. Loukotka had identified the wordlist as Pankararú, but it is actually Kambiwá. "Kambiwa words erroneously offered as Pankararú" "Loukotka (1963, 15) erroneously attributed sixteen Kambiwá words collected in Brejo dos Padres to Pankararú"
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Kambiwá |- | ostrich || |- |potato
|sweet potato
|woman
|lightning
|man
|moon
|fly
|palm tree
|penis
|monkey
|sun, god
|giant anteater
|tatu
|tatu-bola
|vagina
Meader (1978) In 1961, two word lists of Kambiwá were collected by Wilbur Pickering from elderly rememberers in Barreira, Petrolândia, Pernambuco. The word lists are published in Meader (1978).
Word list recorded from Manoel de Souza:
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Portuguese gloss (original) !! English gloss (translated) !! Kambiwá |- | bebê indígena || indigenous baby || |- | fogo || fire || |- | fumo || smoke || |- | mulher || woman || |- | cachimbo || smoking pipe || / |- | gado || cattle || |- | homem branco (estrangeiro) || white man (stranger) || |- | negro || black man || |- | ovelha || sheep || |- | peba || six-banded armadillo || |- | porco-do-mato || collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) || |- | raposa || fox || |- | tamanduá || tamandua || |- | tatu-bola || Brazilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) ||
Word list recorded from an elderly man named Tenoro:
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Portuguese gloss (original) !! English gloss (translated) !! Kambiwá |- | fogo || fire || |- | fumo || smoke || |- | abelha || bee || |- | água corrente || running water || / |- | bebida alcoólica indígena feita de jurema-preta || indigenous liquor made from black jurema (Mimosa tenuiflora) || |- | bebida alcoólica indígena feita de murici || indigenous liquor made from murici (Byrsonima crassifolia) || |- | besta || beast || |- | homem branco || white man || |- | ovelha || sheep || |- | peba || six-banded armadillo (Euphractus sexcinctus) || |- | porco-do-mato || collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) || |- | veado || deer ||
Pompeu (1958) Estevão recorded a language in Brejo dos Padres, said to be spoken by the Indigenous people of the Serra Negra in Pernambuco. It was received by Thomaz Pompeu Sobrinho in 1940 and published 18 years later. The wordlist he collected is presented below.Pompeu Sobrinho, Thomaz. 1958. Línguas Tapuias desconhecidas do Nordeste: Alguns vocabulários inéditos. Boletim de Antropologia (Fortaleza-Ceará) 2. 3-19.
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Portuguese gloss (original) !! English gloss (translated) !! "Serra Negra" |- | sol || sun || |- | lua || moon || |- | trovão || thunder || |- | homem || man || |- | mulher || woman || |- | macaco || monkey || |- | cachorro || dog || |- | tatu-peba || six-banded armadillo (Euphractus sexcinctus) || , |- | tatu-bola || Brazilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) || |- | tatu verdadeiro || nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) || |- | tamanduá colete || southern tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla) || |- | porco || pig || |- | veado || deer || , |- | gado vacum || cattle || |- | cavalo || horse || |- | ema || rhea || |- | tabaco, fumo || tobacco, smoke || |- | bom || good || |- | rancho || ranch || |- | branco || white man || |- | negro || black man || |- | mosca || fly || |- | vaca || cow || |- | bezerro || calf || |- | Deus || God ||
Barbosa (1991)
{| class="wikitable sortable" !gloss !Kambiwá |- |smoking pipe made from jurema root
|straight ceramic smoking pipe
|deer
|striped hog-nosed skunk
|armadillo
|six-banded armadillo
|tamandua
|fox
|Brazilian three-banded armadillo
|jaguar
|skirt made from fiber
|maraca made from gourds
|caboclo
|female caboclo
|child
|black man
|smoke (tobacco)
|fire
|gua
|moon |, |- |sun
|Baccharis sylvestris
References
Meader, R. E. 1978. Indios do nordeste. Levantamento sobre os remanescentes tribais do nordeste brasileiro. SIL Internacional. pp 65–92. Fabre, Alain (2005): "Kambiwá" (Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos)]