Mura is a language of Amazonas, Brazil. It is most famous for Pirahã, its sole surviving dialect. Linguistically, it is typified by agglutinativity, a very small phoneme inventory (around 11 compared to around 44 in English), whistled speech, and the use of tone.
Mura | |
---|---|
Bohurá | |
Buxwaray | |
Region | Amazon |
Ethnicity | 1,500 Mura people (1995)[1] |
Native speakers | 360 (2000)[1] mostly monolingual[1] |
Language family | Macro-Warpean ?
|
Dialects | |
Writing system | Latin script |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | myp Pirahã (Mura) |
Linguist List | ffg Bohura (not ISO) |
cvf Yahahi (not ISO) | |
Glottolog | pira1253 |
![]() The attested extent of Mura and Matanawi |
In the 19th century, there were an estimated 30,000–60,000 Mura[clarification needed]. It is now spoken by only 300 Pirahã people in eight villages.
Since at least Barboza Rodrigues (1892), there have been three ethnic names commonly listed as dialects of Mura, or even as Muran languages. The names are:
On the basis of a minuscule amount of data, it would appear that Bohurá (Mura proper) was mutually intelligible with Pirahã; however, for Yahahí there exists only ethnographic information, and it can be assumed they spoke the same language as other Mura. Rodrigues describes the Yahahí as having come from the Branco river, a tributary of the right bank of the upper Marmelos river. The last Yahahí are said to have joined the Pirahã.
The Mura/Bohurá endonym is Buhuraen, according to Barboza Rodrigues (1892), or Buxivaray ~ Buxwarahay, according to Tastevin (1923). This was pronounced Murá by their neighbors, the Torá and Matanawi. In his vocabulary, Rodrigues lists Bohura for the people and bhurai-ada "Mura language" for the language, from the Mura of the Manicoré River; Tastevin has Bohurai and bohuarai-arase for the same. They also record,
(Caution: these words need to be confirmed. The scanned text of Nimuendaju (1948) at the link has several errors, such as ⟨c⟩ for ⟨e⟩, ⟨h⟩ for ⟨b⟩, and ⟨d⟩ for ⟨á⟩.)
Mura is often proposed to be related to Matanawí. Kaufman (1994) also suggests a connection with Huarpe in his Macro-Warpean proposal.
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Mura language varieties.[2]
gloss | Múra | Bohurá | Pirahá |
---|---|---|---|
one | huyiː | ||
two | mukui | ||
head | a-pái | hana-pai | a-paixi |
ear | ku-pái | hane-apue | apu-pay |
tooth | aro-pái | haine-tué | atu-pay |
hand | upa | hane-uí | upai |
woman | yúehẽ | kairi | yuéhe |
water | pé | ipé | pé |
fire | foai | huai | wái |
stone | atí | atí | begé |
maize | chihuha | tihoʔahai | chifuä |
tapir | kabachí | kabatí | kauátei |
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Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Mura word list |
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