Maxakalí language

Maxakalí
(Tikmũ'ũn) Yĩy'ax
Native to	Brazil
Region	Minas Gerais
Native speakers	1,300 (2006)
Language family	Maxakalían Maxakalí
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mbl
Glottolog	west2636

Maxakalí (Yĩy'ax 'language', Tikmũ'ũn Yĩy'ax 'Maxakalí language') is a Maxakalían language spoken in fourteen villages in Minas Gerais, Brazil, by fewer than a thousand people.

Dialects

Mason identifies six varieties of Maxakali. All but Maxakalí proper are extinct:

• Maxakalí
• Caposhó (Kapoxo) (†)
• Cumanashó (Kumanaxo) (†)
• Maconí (Makuni) (†)
• Monoshó (Monaxo, Monocho) (†)
• Panyame (†)

Phonology

Maxakalí has five vowels, occurring in both oral and nasal form.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, ĩ	ɯ, ɯ̃
Mid	ɛ, ɛ̃		o, õ
Low		a, ã

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m ~ b	n ~ d		ɡ ~ ŋ
Fricative		ʃ	j ~ ʒ		h

Syntax

Word order

The most common word order in Maxakalí is SOV.

	Kakxop	te	xokhep	xo’op
	child	SUB	milk	drink

"The child drinks milk"

Morphosyntactic alignment

Maxakalí is an ergative language. The ergative case covers transitive subjects as well as indirect objects. The absolutive case covers intransitive subjects and transitive objects.

Person	Ergative	Absolutive
1st sing	ã	ũg
2nd sing	xa	ã
3rd sing	tu	ũ
1st plur incl	yũmũ’ã	yũmũg
1st plur excl	ũgmũ’ã	ũgmũg

	ũgmũg	mõg	nãpet	ha	nũy	xa	hãpxop	ũm	pop
	1pl:excl:ABS	go	market	to	in-order-to	2sg:ERG	food	some	buy

"We (excluding you) are going to the market to buy you (indirect object) some food."

Morphology

Suppletive verb number

For some verbs, number is shown not by conjugation, but by suppletive verb stems. These verb stems can show number differences either for the subject or for the object.

Subject number

	tik	yũm
	man	sit (singular)

"The man sits/sat."

	tik	mãm
	man	sit (plural)

"The men sit/sat."

Object number

	tik	te	koktix	putex
	man	SUB	monkey	kill (singular)

"The man killed a monkey."

	tik	te	koktix	kix
	man	SUB	monkey	kill (plural)

"The man killed the monkeys."

Noun compounding

Maxakalí nouns readily form compounds, here are some examples:

	yĩy	kox	xax
	speak	hole	cover

"lips"

	ãmot	xuxpex
	sand	tasty

"salt"

	yĩm	kutok
	hand	child

"finger"

External links

• Proel: Lengua Mashakalí
• Maxakalí-English grammar and dictionary
• Information on Maxakalí at Etnolinguistica.Org's Catalogue of South American Languages