Residency period: April 4, 2022 and April 3, 2023
Resident at IEAT, Fabio Bonfim holds a PhD in Linguistic Studies from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2003). From 2009 to 2010, he served at the University of Massachusetts as a visiting professor, during which time he developed activities in projects on morphosyntax of indigenous languages, under the supervision of Professor Ellen Woolford. In 2017, he was a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, developing research with a Capes senior internship grant. He is currently an associate professor 4 and linked to the Graduate Program in Linguistic Studies / Poslin at the Faculty of Letters at UFMG. He coordinates several research projects, with the objective of studying the syntax of Brazilian indigenous languages and African languages. In his research he adopts as theoretical support, intuitions of the typological theory and recent developments of the generative theory. Research interests are: the triggering of the ergative and split systems, which are very recurrent in the indigenous languages of the Tupí Trunks (Tupí-Guarani Family) and Macro-Jê (Jê and Maxacali families). In addition to these topics, he has been active in the investigation of differential object marking systems in Bantu languages, such as Changana, Rhonga, Shimaconde and Emakhwa, which are spoken in Mozambique. In addition, he coordinates a project to document and describe the Tentehar language, whose objective is the construction of a descriptive grammar and the production of linguistic material to be used in indigenous schools.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN BRAZIL
The present proposal is justified because it seeks to investigate aspects of the grammar of minority languages spoken in Brazil, in order to test theoretical hypotheses that have been discussed in the scope of descriptive and theoretical linguistics. Another objective is to contribute to the work of describing, documenting and revitalizing these languages, as many are seriously threatened with extinction. According to Krauss (1992), 90% of the world’s languages could disappear by the end of the 21st century, a situation that then justifies practical and concrete actions in order to conduct scientific work that will help to prevent the disappearance of these languages. Legère (2015), in turn, considers that there are around 6500 languages in the world, and two thirds of these could be extinct by the end of this century. As for South America, specialists estimate that there are around 500 indigenous languages on the continent. Among these, it is estimated that there are around 420 Amerindian languages at serious risk of disappearing, either due to the pressure they suffer from the majority languages or simply because the number of native speakers is very small. Regarding Brazil, Rodrigues (2013) states that ‘although most Brazilians have the impression of living in a monolingual country, Brazil is actually a multilingual nation, as around 180 indigenous languages are learned as mother tongues’. It is supposed that the indigenous population in 1500, when the Portuguese arrived on the continent, was about three to five million, so that, in various parts of Brazil, the indigenous populations were much denser, when compared to current statistical data. It is known, for example, that in the floodplains of the great Amazonian rivers, as well as on the coast, various ethnic groups lived, such as the Tapajós Indians and the Kambeba Indians, who were completely extinct. The same situation can be observed in relation to the Tupinambá Indians who inhabited the coastal strip of Brazilian territory. Available ethnographic data indicate that the Tupinambá settlements comprised a very high population for the time and that they extended from where the state of Pará is located today to Rio de Janeiro. The exception, however, was the border between Ceará and Maranhão, the region of the mouth of the Paraíba river, the border region between the south of Bahia and the north of Espírito Santo, taking into account that, in these regions, predominated ethnic groups belonging to to the Macro-Jê Trunk. In short, actions are urgently needed to promote the work of describing and documenting the indigenous languages spoken in Brazil, as many are seriously threatened with disappearing. The expectation is that this project will contribute, in some way, to further enhance the scientific studies that I have been developing over the last twenty-five years with the minority languages spoken in Brazil and South America. Among the languages that have been investigated within the scope of this project, the Maxacali, Ka’apor, Tembé, Guajajara, Terena, Chapakura, Apâniekra, Apinajé, Parkatejê, Gavião, Kuikuro, Katukina languages, among others. I invite readers interested in the subject to visit the portals www.letras.ufmg.br/portal_laliafro and www.letras.ufmg.br/fbonfim, where part of the scientific production achieved by me and my team in recent decades on grammar of these Brazilian indigenous languages.