Proposal for a phonological system for the language spoken by the South Cayapó speakers settled in São José de Mossâmedes

Abstract

The existing linguistic information about the language spoken by South Cayapós was restricted to seven lists of words. Three lists were collected among those villagers gathered near Vila Boa (GO); two were recorded in 1819; one was done by Emmanuel Pohl (1772-1834) and another by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire (1779-1853). The third record is the oldest and possibly the one that was noted with less accuracy, it is a list of names in a baptism record, dated 1782. In this article, I present a proposal of graphematic analysis for the last record and I hold a discussion about the phonological system of South Cayapó language: its oppositions, processes and representation.