Guató language

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title: "Guató language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["macro-jê-languages", "languages-of-brazil", "indigenous-languages-of-south-america-(central)", "endangered-indigenous-languages-of-the-americas", "language-isolates-of-south-america"] description: "Language" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guató_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Language ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Guató
nativename	go-t͡ʃéuvɨ́ i-ótɨ́
states	Brazil, Bolivia
region	Mato Grosso do Sul state: Paraguay River banks and up São Lourenço River, along Bolivian border;
familycolor	american
family	Language isolate (Macro-Jê?)
ethnicity	419 Guató people (2014)
speakers	2
date	2023
ref
iso3	gta
glotto	guat1253
glottorefname	Guató
map	Guato language.png
notice	IPA
map2	Lang Status 20-CR.svg
mapcaption2
::

| name = Guató | nativename = go-t͡ʃéuvɨ́ i-ótɨ́ | states = Brazil, Bolivia | region = Mato Grosso do Sul state: Paraguay River banks and up São Lourenço River, along Bolivian border; | familycolor = american | family = Language isolate (Macro-Jê?) | ethnicity = 419 Guató people (2014) | speakers = 2 | date = 2023 | ref = | iso3 = gta | glotto = guat1253 | glottorefname = Guató | map = Guato language.png | mapcaption = | notice = IPA | map2 = Lang Status 20-CR.svg | mapcaption2 =

Guató () is a language isolate spoken by two of the Guató people of Brazil. It has variously been claimed to be of Macro-Jê or isolate affiliation. Guató is a VSO language, has agglutination, and has ergative alignment.

Classification

Kaufman (1990) provisionally classified Guató as a branch of the Macro-Jê languages, but no evidence for this was found by Eduardo Ribeiro. Martins (2011) also suggests a relationship with Macro-Jê. Nikulin (2020) excludes this possibility.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Bororo, Tupi, and Karib language families due to contact.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities between Guató and the Zamucoan languages. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances.

Distribution

Today, Guató is spoken in Guató Indigenous Territory and Baía dos Guató Indigenous Territory.

Loukotka (1968) reported that in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, Guató is spoken on the banks of the Paraguay River and up the São Lourenço River, along the Bolivian border. It is also spoken at Uberaba Lake in Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia).

Phonology

Vowels

The Guató vowel system, like that of Macro-Jê languages, collapses a three-way distinction of height in oral vowels to two in nasal vowels.

::data[format=table]

Oral	Nasal	Front	Central	Back	Front	Central	Back	Close	Mid	Open
::

Consonants

::data[format=table] | Labial | Denti- alveolar | Post- alveolar | Velar | Labio- velar | Glottal | Nasal | Plosive | voiced | voiceless | Fricative | Sonorant | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::

Tone

Guató is a tonal language, possessing a high and low tone.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Guató.

:{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Guató |- | one || chenéhe |- | two || dúni |- | three || chumó |- | tooth || makuá |- | tongue || mundokuír |- | hand || mara |- | woman || muazya |- | water || mágũ |- | fire || matá |- | moon || múpina |- | maize || madzyéro |- | jaguar || mépago |- | house || movír |}

For more extensive vocabulary lists of Guató by Palácio (1984) and Postigo (2009), see the corresponding Portuguese article.

Numerals

Guató uses a quinary (base-5) system up to 20, where a decimal system is used for large numbers.

References

References

1. Loukotka, Čestmír. (1968). "Classification of South American Indian languages". UCLA Latin American Center.
2. Schmidt, Max. (2018). "Guató: A língua (Schmidt 2018) - Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendajú". Cadernos de Etnolingüística.
3. "Guató - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil".
4. Martins, Andérbio Márcio Silva. 2011. ''[https://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/9886 Uma avaliação da hipótese de relações genéticas entre o Guató e o tronco Macro-Jê]''. Doutorado em Linguística. Universidade de Brasília.
5. Nikulin, Andrey. (2020). "Proto-Macro-Jê: um estudo reconstrutivo". Universidade de Brasília.
6. Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery. (2016). "Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas". University of Brasília.
7. Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ''[https://asjp.clld.org/static/WorldLanguageTree-004.zip ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)]''.
8. (2023). "Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra". Walter de Gruyter.
9. {{Ethnologue25. gta. Guató
10. Palácio, Adair Pimentel. (1984). "Guató: a língua dos índios canoeiros do rio Paraguai". Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
11. Martins, Andérbio Márcio Silva. (2011). "Uma avaliação da hipótese de relações genéticas entre o Guató e o tronco Macro-Jê". Universidade de Brasília.
12. Postigo, Adriana Viana. (2009). "Fonologia da língua Guató". Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul.

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