Language Classification, Language Contact, and Amazonian Prehistory

Abstract

The linguistic map of Amazonia presents a startling jumble of languages and language families. While some families – most notably Carib, Arawak, Macro‐Jê, and Tupí– are distributed widely throughout the region, their spread is interspersed with many dozens of tiny, localized families and language isolates, particularly in the Amazonian periphery. At the same time, distributions of lexical, grammatical, and phonological features suggest that this linguistic patchwork is overlaid in places by contact regions, where multilingualism has fostered lexical and/or structural resemblances among languages. This complex distribution of languages and linguistic features presents many challenges to our understanding of Amazonian prehistory. How did Amazonia's language families arrive at their present distribution? Why did some families spread over huge distances, while others came to occupy only tiny geographical pockets or are limited to a single language? What kinds of interactions among peoples led to the formation of contact zones, and how are these regions defined? Complicating these questions further is the fact that very little is known about many Amazonian languages, and relationships among them are in many cases a matter of conjecture. This article surveys our current understanding of language classification and language contact in Amazonia, and addresses various perspectives concerning the implications of these relationships for Amazonian prehistory.

Evolutionary history of partible paternity in lowland South America

“…46 has the current state of Amazonian linguistics). Therefore, we rely on expert classifications (47) of the linguistic relationships among lowland societies.…”

The Amarna Stone Village Survey and life on the urban periphery in New Kingdom Egypt

“…Integrating linguistic data with the archaeological record, Anthony used reconstructed proto-language as a source of analogy for archaeological research as he modeled migration in the archaeological record (Anthony 1990). Although the Amazon Basin does not have as long a history of the study of the association between linguistic groups and the archaeological record as in the Old World, archaeologists in the Amazon stand to benefit from interdisciplinary research on this topic (Crevels and van der Voort 2008;Epps 2009;Dixon and Aikhenvald 1999;Haude 2006).…”

A Survey of Contemporary Research on Amazonian Languages

“…2002). Nevertheless, more research is required to definitively establish Amazonia‐wide linguistic characteristics (see Epps 2009:590), such as the recent efforts focused on delineating linguistic areas within more restricted Amazonian regions (e.g. Crevels and van der Voort 2008; Fausto et al.…”