Northwestern Amazonian Spanish as a macro-region: Current Research and Future Directions

The Amazon rainforest, home to many and diverse indigenous language populations, expands over a vast territory in South America, the most extensive river system in the world. In the western area, Spanish coexists with many indigenous languages since colonial times. New varieties of Amazonian Spanish emerged in this context of long-term language contact. These varieties are understudied, although research has increased in the last decade. Recent works show that Spanish linguistic features are shared across political borders and point to a macro-region. This paper discusses the socio-historical and linguistic contexts of the expansion of the Northwestern Amazonian Spanish in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, emphasizing the contextual relationship between the Andes and Western Amazon. It also highlights the roles and responsibilities that (socio)linguists have in linguistic documentation in increasing the visibility of linguistic varieties that emerged under intense contact with indigenous languages

Semantically-Oriented Vowel Reduction in an Amazonian Language

While it is an interesting phenomenon, semantically-oriented vowel reduction has only been demonstrated in studies with English-speaking participants. The primary objective of the current endeavor is to establish whether or not there is cross-linguistic evidence for semantically-oriented vowel reduction. In order to do so, we will consider some recently-collected data from Karitiâna (K henceforth). K is a Tupí­ language spoken in southwestern Amazonia. It is a natural subject for the current study since the author regularly conducts phonetic research on the language, and since there are a number of recent phonetic studies available in the literature on the language (Everett in press a, 2008a, inter alia). An ancillary objective for this study is to contribute to the growing acoustic-phonetic literature on the language and on Amazonian languages more generally (see discussion in Everett in press b)

A linguística amazônica hoje

O presente artigo apresenta uma síntese das áreas de pesquisa mais ativas da linguística amazônica nos últimos dez anos. Abordam-se temas tais como os classificadores nominais, os sistemas de numeração, o tempo verbal e nominal, a evidencialidade, os diferentes sistemas de alinhamento sintático, problemas ligados à ordem de constituintes, as diversas formas da subordinação, as relações entre gramática, discurso e cultura, e a história e a classificação das línguas amazônicas. O artigo não privilegia nenhuma abordagem teórica em particular, mas procura pôr em relevo as linhas de pesquisa que interagem com disciplinas conexas, tais como a antropologia e a arqueologia, ou que exercem influência sobre a teoria linguística de um modo global. O artigo conclui com uma breve avaliação da situação atual das línguas indígenas faladas na Amazônia e do estado atual da linguística amazônica

Everything has its Jaguar. A narratological approach to conceptualising Caribbean Saladoid animal imagery

This dissertation is a contribution to the conceptualisation of the Caribbean Saladoid zoomorphic iconography (i.e., a ceramic series dating 200/800 BCE to 400/600 CE). To this end, indigenous South American narratives have been analysed, serving as a framework in order to investigate the imagery on display. It is with reason that we humans tell stories from the very moment we are able to speak: storytelling is a strategy through which we make sense of the world around us. In addition, narratives are a means to share and transmit knowledge. They therefore themselves provide information not only on the people that tell them but also on how they perceive the world. Caribbean archaeologists aim to understand past Caribbean cultures by means of their material culture, in the broadest sense. We seek to reconstruct political and social structures, belief systems and the everyday lives of communities. The focal point of the archaeological study presented here is the Saladoid zoomorphic iconography, in particular ceramic modelled and incised animal/human figurines or head lugs (adorno). Identified zoomorphic adornos have been introduced as case studies in order to answer the central question: what does this imagery tell us about the indigenous peoples who created it? Archaeology of the America

A Survey of Contemporary Research on Amazonian Languages

Amazonian languages have long confounded linguists. The languages represent a large number of linguistic families, including Tupí, Jê, Carib and Arawak, and the languages exhibit a wide variety of typologically‐remarkable structural characteristics. Since the inception of the European colonization of Amazonia over four hundred years ago, missionary linguists have attempted to document the languages of the region. It is only relatively recently, however, that a large number of linguists at academic institutions have undertaken in‐depth field research in the region. The author examines the current state of Amazonian linguistics. The history of language research in the region is first outlined, though the majority of attention is devoted to surveying significant field research that has been undertaken in the last decade. Some recent studies on morphology, syntax, phonetics, and psycholinguistics are highlighted. The reader’s attention is drawn to trends, related to both the methodology and content of the research. Despite some possible areas for improvement, it is suggested that much of the recent work is of excellent quality, as evidenced by the fact that much of the research in question has drawn attention within linguistics and the cognitive sciences more generally