Afro-Brazilian Cupópia
Lexical and morphosyntactic features of a lexically driven in-group code
The present paper focuses on the speech of a rural Afro-Brazilian community called Cafundó, situated 150 km from São Paulo. In 1978, when linguistic data were collected, the community constituted approximately eighty individuals, descendants of two slave women who inherited their owners’ proprieties. According to earlier studies, when the inhabitants of Cafundó spoke in their supposed ‘African language’, Cupópia, they used structures borrowed from Portuguese and a vocabulary of possible African origin. A lexical analysis shows that the etymologies match historical and demographical data, indicating that speakers of varieties of Kimbundu, Kikongo, and Umbundu dominated in the community. Through a morphosyntactic analysis, specific features were found in the data, such as copula absence and variable agreement patterns. By showing that some of Cupópia’s specific grammatical features are not derived from the Portuguese spoken by the same speakers but are instead shared with more restructured varieties, this paper defends the hypothesis that this lexically driven in-group code is not simply a regional variety of Portuguese with a number of African-derived words.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Classifications of Cupópia
- 3.Materials and methods
- 4.Social history of Cafundó
- 5.Linguistic description of Cupópia
- 5.1Lexical features of Cupópia
- 5.2Morphosyntactic features of Cupópia
- 6.Comparison with other contact languages
- 6.1Lexical features
- 6.2Morphosyntactic features
- A. Copula absence
- B. Possessive constructions with copulas
- C. Variable gender agreement
- D. Variable plural marking
- E. Bare nouns
- F. Subject-verb agreement
- G. Summary
- 7.Discussion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References
Aceto, Michael
1995 Variation in a secret creole language of Panama.
Language in Society 241. 537–560.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Alkmim, Tania & Laura Álvarez López
2009 Registros da escravidão: as falas de pretos-velhos e de Pai João.
Stockholm Review of Latin American Studies 41. 37–48.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Álvarez López, Laura
2004 A língua de Camões com Iemanjá: forma e funções da linguagem do candomblé. Stockholm: Stockholm University dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Álvarez López, Laura
2012 Lubolos, mandingas y otros ‘nombres de nación’ de origen africano en Montevideo y Rio Grande do Sul. In
Laura Álvarez López &
Magdalena Coll (eds.),
Una historia sin fronteras: léxico de origen africano en Uruguay y Brasil, 35–70. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Álvarez López, Laura & Angela Bartens
2014 The origin of African derived words in the Afro-Brazilian speech community of Cafundó. Paper presented at the
workshop Contact, Variation and Change: Focus on Afro-Latin varieties
. Aarhus University, 4-6 December 2014.
Amaral, Amadeu
1982. [1920] O dialeto caipira. 4th ed. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Avelar, Juanito Ornelas de
2014 Constituintes Preposicionais em Afro-variedades de Português e Espanhol. Variação e Mudança Induzidas por Contato. Paper presented at the
Seminário Ibero-Românico, Department of Romance Studies and Classics
, Stockholm University, 20 October 2014.
Baker, Philip
2012 Interpreting the findings. In
Angela Bartens &
Philip Baker (eds.),
Black through White. African words and calques which survived slavery in creoles and transplanted European languages, 273–286. London/Colombo: Battlebridge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bamberg, Michael, Anna De Fina & Deborah Schiffrin
2011 Discourse and identity construction. In
Seth J. Schwartz,
Koen Luyckx &
Vivian L. Vignoles (eds.),
Handbook of identity theory and research, 177–200. New York: Springer.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bartens, Angela & Philip Baker
Baxter, Alan
1998 O português vernáculo do Brasil – Morfossintaxe. In
Matthias Perl &
Armin Schwegler (eds.),
América negra: panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas, 97–134. Frankfurt am Main/ Madrid: Verveurt Verlag/ Iberoamericana.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Baxter, Alan
2002 Semicreolization? The restructured Portuguese of the Tongas of São Tomé, a consequence of L1 acquisition in a special contact situation.
Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 1(1). 7–39.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Baxter, Alan
2009 A concordância de número. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 269–294. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Baxter, Alan & Norma Lopes
2009 O artigo definido. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 319–330. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brandão, Silvia Figueiredo & Silvia Rodrigues Vieira
2012
A concordância nominal e verbal no Português do Brasil e no Português de São Tomé: uma abordagem sociolinguística
.
Papia 22(1). 7–39.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Byrd, Steven
2012 Calunga and the legacy of an African language in Brazil. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cacciatore, Olga
1977 Dicionário de cultos afro-brasileiros. 2nd ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Careno, Mary F. do
1997 Vale do Ribeira: a voz e a vez das comunidades negras. São Paulo: Editora Arte e Ciência.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Castro, Yeda Pessoa de
2001 Falares africanos na Bahia. Um vocabulário afro-brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chatelain, Heli. n.d
[
1888-1889]
Grammatica elementar do Kimbundu ou Língua de Angola (1889). Genebra: Typ. De Charles Schuchardt. Kessinger Publisher Legacy Reprints.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Couto, Hildo do
1992 Anti-crioulo.
Pápia 2(1). 71–84.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Figueiredo, Carlos
2008 A concordância variável no sintagma nominal plural do Português reestruturado de almoxarife (São Tomé).
Papia 181. 23–43.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fry, Peter, Carlos Vogt & Maurizio Gnerre
(
1984)
A comunidade do Cafundó. Mafambura e Caxapura: na encruzilhada da identidade.
Cadernos de Estudos Lingüísticos 61. 111–128.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gonçalves, Pertpétua
1997 Tipologia de 'erros' do Português oral de Maputo: um primeiro diagnóstico. In
Christopher Stroud &
Perpétua Gonçalves (eds.),
Panorama do Português oral de Maputo Volume II: A construção de um banco de ‘erros’, 37–70. Maputo: INDE.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goyvaerts, Didier
1996 Kibalele’ Form and function of a secret language in Bukavu (Zaire).
Journal of Pragmatics 251. 123–143.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Green, Katherine
1997 Non-standard Dominican Spanish: Evidence of partial restructuring. New York, NY: CUNY dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & Sandro Sessarego
Guy, Gregory
1981 Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Aspects of phonology, syntax and language history. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Holm, John
2009 Languages in contact. The partial restructuring of vernaculars. In
John Holm &
Susanne Michaelis (eds.),
Contact languages: Critical concepts in language studies, Vol. V1, 332–344. London / New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Inverno, Liliana
2009 Angolas transition to vernacular Portuguese. Coimbra: University of Coimbra dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jon-And, Anna
2011 Variação, contato e mudança linguística em Moçambique e Cabo Verde. A concordância variável de número em sintagmas nominais do português. Stockholm: Stockholm University dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Karash, Mary
1987 Slave life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lima, José Leonildo
2007 A variação na concordância do gênero gramatical no falar cuiabano. Campinas, University of Campinas dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lipski, John
2004 The Spanish language of Equatorial Guinea.
Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies. 115–130.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lipski, John
2005 A history of Afro-Hispanic language: Five centuries, five continents. New York: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lipski, John
2008 Afro-Bolivian Spanish. Madrid/ Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lipski, John
2010 Depleted plural marking in two Afro-Hispanic dialects: Separating inheritance from innovation.
Language Variation and Change 221. 1–44.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lipski, John
2015 La reconstrucción de los primeros contactos lingüísticos afrohispánicos: la importancia de las comunidades de habla contemporáneas. In
Juanito Ornelas de Avelar &
Laura Álvarez López (eds.),
Dinâmicas afro-latinas: Língua(s) e história(s), 93–127. Franfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lopes, Norma
2001 Concordância nominal, contexto linguístico e sociedade. Salvador: Universidade Federal da Bahia dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lopes Ruth & Emílio Pagozzo
2014 DPs in non-Standard Brazilian Portuguese. Paper presented at the
workshop CONTACT, VARIATION AND CHANGE: corpora development and analysis of Ibero-Romance language varieties
, Stockholm University, 7-8 April 2014.
Lucchesi, Dante
2009a A concordância de gênero. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 295–318. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lucchesi, Dante
2009b Conclusão. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 513–546. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lucchesi, Dante, Alan Baxter & Ilza Ribeiro
(eds.) 2009a O português afro-brasileiro. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lucchesi, Dante, Alan Baxter & Jorge Augusto Alves da Silva
2009b A concordância verbal. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 331–388. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lucchesi, Dante, Alan Baxter, Jorge Augusto Alves da Silva & Cristina Figueiredo
2009c O Português afro-brasileiro: as comunidades analizadas. In
Dante Lucchesi,
Alan Baxter &
Ilza Ribeiro (eds.),
O português afro-brasileiro, 75–100. Salvador: Edufba.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Matras, Yaron, Hazel Gardner, Charlotte Jones & Veronica Schulman
2007 Angloromani: A different kind of language? Anthropological Linguistics 49(2). 142–184.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McArthur, Tom
1998 Concise Oxford companion to the English language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Miller, Joseph
2001 Central Africa during the era of the slave trade, c. 1490s-1850s. In
Linda Heywood (ed.),
Central Africans and cultural transformations in the American diaspora, 21–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ortiz López, Luis
1998 Huellas etno-sociolingüísticas bozales y afrocubanas. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert/ Madrid: Iberoamericana.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Petter, Margarida
1998 Línguas especiais, línguas secretas: na África e no Brasil.
Revista da ANPOLL 41. 185–201.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Petter, Margarida
1999 A linguagem do Cafundó: crioulo ou anticrioulo? In
Klaus Zimmermann (ed.),
Lenguas criollas de base lexical española y portuguesa, 101–115. Frankfurt: Vervuert.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Petter, Margarida
2013 A Tabatinga revisitada: a manutenção de um léxico de origem africana em Minas Gerais (MG-Brasil).
Moderna Språk 1071. 89–100.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Petter, Margarida Taddoni & Dafne Zanoni
2005 Quilombos do Vale do Ribeira: variação e mudança na concordância de gênero e número.
Papia 151. 61–71.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Queiroz, Sonia
1998 Pé preto no barro branco: a língua dos negros da Tabatinga. Belo Horizonte: Editora da UFMG.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Quint, Nicolas
2012 African words and calques in Capeverdean Creole (Santiago variety). In
Angela Bartens &
Philip Baker (eds.),
Black through White. African words and calques which survived slavery in creoles and transplanted European languages, 3–29. London & Colombo: Battlebridge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Scherre, Marta Pereira
1988 Reanálise da concordância nominal em português. Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro dissertation.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sessarego, Sandro
2013 Chota Valley Spanish. Madrid/Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sharma, Devyani & John R. Rickford
Smith, Norval
2000 Symbiotic mixed languages: A question of terminology.
Bilingualism, Language and Cognition 3(2). 122–123.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swadesh, Morris
1971 The origin and diversification of language. Edited post mortem by
Joel Sherzer. Chicago: Aldine.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tavares, José Lourenço
1915 Gramática da língua do Congo (kikongo) (Dialecto kisolongo). Luanda: Imprensa Nacional de Angola.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Thomason, Sarah & Terrence Kaufman
1988 Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vogt, Carlos & Peter Fry
1983 Ditos e feitos da ‘falange africana’ do Cafundó e da ‘Calunga’ de Patrocínio (ou de como fazer falando).
Revista de Antropologia 261. 65–92.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vogt, Carlos & Peter Fry
1996 Cafundó – a África no Brasil. Linguagem e sociedade. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vogt, Carlos & Peter Fry
2005 As formas de expressão na ‘língua’ africana do Cafundó.
Ciência e Cultura 57(2). 39–42.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Winford, Donald
2003 Contact-induced changes – Classification and processes.
OSU Working Papers in Linguistics 571. 129–150.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Winford, Donald
2009 Group second language acquisition or language shift. In
John Holm &
Susanne Michaelis (eds.),
Contact languages: Critical concepts in language studies, Vol. V1, 310–331. London / New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Winford, Donald
2010 Contact and borrowing. In
Raymond Hickey (ed.),
Handbook of language lontact, 170–187. Somerset, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Álvarez López, Laura
2019.
The dialect of São João da Chapada: Possible remains of a mining language in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2019:258
► pp. 143 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.