Matis language

Matís is an indigenous language of the Brazilian Amazon basin which belongs to the Panoan language family.

Matis Language

Matis is spoken in the Amazonas state of Brazil, which is situated in the northeast corner of the country. There is currently an estimated 350 Matis speakers (PIB). Matis is not considered an endangered language due to the large amount of young people speaking the language. There is a high level of transmission, as it is generally only at the end of teen years where Matis youth learn Portuguese. Portuguese is only taught at an adult age to those who intend on interacting with the outside world with intentions of benefitting the Matis community. This includes males who adventure to urban areas to purchase goods to bring back.

History

The Matis were completely unknown and undocumented until 1974. Their first documented contact with non-indigenous peoples came two years later in 1976. They were contacted by the Fundação Nacional do Índio which installed a post near a river bank where the Matis could pick up food and tools. This post eventually lead to contact and by 1983 the Matis population had been decimated to 87, meaning that 35% of their population was wiped out due to this contact. Thankfully cultural practices and rituals were resumed and the Matis people thrived. Efforts to protect the language have proved fruitful and rituals once abandoned such as face tattoos are once again being performed.

Language Family

The Matis language belongs to the Pano family. It is one of the twenty eight languages which the Pano family comprises. The Pano language family is one of the four main language families in Brazil, along with Aruak, Karib and Tukanu (Rogério, pg.27). Suzi 10/17/2016 10:39 PM Comment [1]: 8 Suzi 10/17/2016 10:39 PM Comment [2]: For the final version of your Wikipedia article, please include the reference for this information. Recently, research on the Matis language has gathered steam, largely thanks to the work of Vitória Ferreira and her husband Rogério. Vitória published a book on Matis phonology while Rogério published a book studying morphosyntax. Rogério’s book goes into extreme linguistic detail about grammatical rules as well as offering a brief background description about the indigenous community. Vitória’s research focused more on pronunciation and word sequences.

Language Documentation Projects

Rogério Ferreira and his wife Vitória Ferreira have a series of books which represent the only official documentation project concering the documentation and study of the Matis language. According to Vitória Ferreira, this neglect of Pano languages is due to an overemphasis on the larger language families (Tupi, Jê, Aruak and Karib). This particular language project by Rogério Ferreira and Vitória Ferreira was supported by FAPESP which is a São Paulo research foundation which funded this joint dissertation project by the couple.

Morphology

Present a 1-paragraph summary of the aspects that are listed under “morphology” in thegrammar that you are investigating (use the table of contents).

1. The book titled Língua Matis (Pano): Aspetos Descritivos da Morfossintaxededicates its analysis to the grammatical aspects of the Matis language. After a briefphonological table, Rogério Spanghero Ferreira explains the grammatical classes ofnouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns.

While his wife’s book Língua Matis (Pano): Uma Análise Fonológica, shifts itsfocus to phonological processes and syllable structures.

Pronouns

In the Matis Language there are personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, reflexivepronouns, possessive pronouns and interrogative pronouns.

Examples:

Personal Pronoun: mi means you

Demonstrative Pronoun: nekit- means that

Reflexive Pronoun: Reflexive pronoun is formed with the use of the suffix (–ben).mi+ben means yourself

Possessive Pronoun: nuki- means ours

Interrogative Pronoun: awɨ- means what.

Morphological Aspects

a.) Nouns in the Matis language constitute an open class and are characterized bythese morphological principles – case, gender, number- There are three cases for nouns- ergative, absolute and comitative

b.) Verbs in the Matis Language fall under two tenses: time which has not yet passedand time that has passed. This second category can be broken up intosubcategories which detail how much time has passed.- To distinguish how much time has passed the Matis language uses words such as nebi (now), uxtokin (yesterday) and inden (long time ago/ back in the day).

Case and Agreement:

Matis is an ergative-absolute language.

The subject of intransitive and transitive verbs marked in the same way. The agent iswhat stays fix depending on the sentence structure.

examples:

uʃtokin tumi -n unkin -Ø tonk -a

yesterday tumi killed the pig

“Yesterday, Tumi killed the pig”

papi -Ø uʃ -e -k dukek

man -abs sleeps -n.pass. –declar, deit

“The man sleeps (hanging)”

abad -e -k bina -Ø

runs -n.pass. –declar. Bina -abs

“Bina runs”

Verb Tense

Verbs in the Matis language are broken down into two tenses: time not yet passed, and past. The past tense is broken down into three categories: time immediately passed, timerecently passed, and distant time passed.

Past tense: suffixes –a, -bo and –bo are used in the verb and are tied to the time in which the actionoccurred. Speakers use temporal words: nebi (now), uxtokin (yesterday), inden (longtime ago, back in the day) to reference the time of the action.

a.) time immediately passed is marked by the suffix –a

ɨ -n -bi I Ø tʃe -a -k

I -erg -sg eel -abs ate -past.im -declar.

“I ate eel”

b.) time recently passed is marked by the suffix -bo

nu -ki -Ø tʃo -b

I -pl -abs come -past.recent

“We arrived (today)”

c.) distant time passed

kidipi -n mates -Ø tanawa -bonda -ʃ

Fillipe -erg. matis -abs. know -past. distant -3

“Fillipe knew how to speak Matis”

d.) Time not yet passed. This includes present and future tenses. There is no specific suffix for this tense, however it is marked by the morpheme –e.

rogeriu -n datonkete -Ø ʃik -e -k

Rogério -erg shirt -abs. clean -n.past. –declar.

“Rogério cleans clothes”

setkeʃ madiwin -Ø tʃ0 -I -k

tomorrow mariwin -abs. come -n.past. –declar.

“Tomorrow, Mariwin comes”