Baenã (Baenan, Baenán, Baena, Baênã) is a poorly attested, extinct, and unclassified language of Brazil. Only nine words have been attributed to the language.
| Baenã | |
|---|---|
| Baenan | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Bahia |
| Ethnicity | Baênã |
| Extinct | by 1961 |
unclassified | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | baen1237 |
History
editIn 1927, when the Paraguaçu Indigenous Post was founded, the small tribe called the Baenã by the Pataxó and Nocnoács by Serviço de Proteção ao Índio (SPI) officer Alberto Jacobina, resided above the reserve. They had been ignored entirely by ethologists until that point. The German-Brazilian anthropologist Curt Nimuendajú claimed he had no clue of their origins. The Baenã were forcibly moved to the post, where all of them died soon after, except for a six-year-old boy who had been "caught" as a baby and did not learn the Baenã language as of 1938. About ten Baenã were still living outside the reserve, located on the headwaters of the Ribeirão Vermelho, a tributary of the Pardo River, at the same time. Nimuendajú described their culture as being very similar to that of the Pataxó, though they were distinguished by their languages and appearance.[1] The last remaining speaker of Baenã lived in the state of Bahia, Brazil, in 1940. The language of this speaker was associated with the Baenã language as the last members of the Baenã tribe lived in Paraguaçú, Bahia, near where the language was attested.[2] By 1961, only one Baenã person was found, Rosalinda, who was married to Pataxó-Hãhãhãe language consultant Titiá;[3] she could not provide any words of the language.[4] Čestmír Loukotka claimed that only "a few individuals" could speak Baenã in 1964.[5] Today, the Baenã are integrated as one of the five primary subgroups of the Pataxó-Hã-Hã-Hãe people.[3]
Geographical distribution
editVocabulary
editThere are nine words which may be attributed to Baenã. They were recorded by Nimuendajú in 1938 and included in his manuscripts on the Kamakã language. However, the SPI inspector in Recife, R. D. Carneiro, suspected that they actually belonged to the language spoken by the Baenã. The words were subsequently published by Loukotka in 1963.[2]
| gloss | Baenã |
|---|---|
| deer | eželẽ |
| venison | bakurí |
| fire | kelemés |
| jaguar | patarak |
| black person | kadašužé |
| pig | bonikro |
| rat | pititiɲga |
| monkey | pitirát |
| bull | šẽšẽ |
References
edit- ↑ Souza, Jurema Machado de Andrade; Carvalho, Maria Rosário (2018-03-26). "Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2026-05-20.
- 1 2 Loukotka, Čestmír (1963). "Documents et Vocabulaires Inédits de Langues et de Dialects Sud-Américains" [Unpublished documents and vocabularies of South American languages and dialects]. Journal de la Société des Américanistes (in French). 52: 7–60. doi:10.3406/jsa.1963.2001.
- 1 2 Nelson, Jessica Fae (2018). Pataxó Hãhãhãe: Race, Indigeneity and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Northeast (Thesis).
- ↑ Meader, Robert E. (1978). Indios do Nordeste: Levantamento sobre os remanescentes tribais do nordeste brasileiro (in Portuguese). Brasilia: SIL International. Archived from the original on 2024-10-08. Retrieved 2025-04-12.
- 1 2 Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Wilbert, Johannes (ed.). Classification of South American Indian Languages (PDF) (4th ed.). Latin American Center, UCLA: Latin American Center, University of California Los Angeles. p. 239. ISBN 9780879031077.