At one point, Ntogapid, Ramarama, Uruku, Urumi and Ytanga were all thought to be sister languages of Karo.
These villages are located in the Southern region of the Lourdes Stream Indigenous Land in Rondônia, which is in the central west part of Brazil.
[2] Some cultural traditions included a corn harvest festival and secluding children until the time they got married.
Although their culture has suffered, many traditions such as rites of passages for marriage and naming children have stayed similar.
The Karo people have a deep history of creating many forms of art such as bracelets, baskets, or clay pots.
Furthermore, the Karo speakers were known to interact with surrounding peoples in the areas but it was not until the 1940s when they were contacted by the Indian Protection Services (SPI).
[2] Settlers brought over new diseases such as pneumonia, measles and the flu which lead to many indigenous people dying in this time period.
[5] These lists were collected by a variety of people for different aims—a few by anthropologists and ethnographers, one commissioned by a Catholic priest and some by members of the Comissão de Linhas Telegráficas Estratégicas de Mato-Grosso ao Amazonas (Commission of Strategic Telegraphic Wires from Mato-Grosso to Amazonas) who aimed to expand the Western borders of Brazil in the mid-twentieth century.
[11] He published a phonological study in 1989 which covered the segmental and syllabic structures found in Karo as well as the morphophonemic, nasality, accentual, and tonal patterns that emerge.
[4] Over the course of two years of field work, the project produced a Karo-Portuguese dictionary and amassed 38 videos, 22 audio files and 15 documents displaying a variety of cultural activities including feasts, ceremonies, and collections of common narratives and myths among the Karo people.
The only substantial material published containing a small description of the life of the Arara can be found in anthropological works by French anthropologist, Lévi-Strauss.
A joint 2015 computational study comparing common word lists in all Tupí languages found minimal support for that theory.
The voiced stops /b g/ may be lenited to [β ɣ] in the onset of an unstressed syllable and after a vowel: yaba [ˈyaba ~ ˈyaβa] "species of rodent".
The voiceless stops /p t c k/ are geminated in the onsets of non-initial stressed syllables: itɨ [iˈtːɨ] "deer".
Conversely, they surface as pre-stopped nasals [ᵇm ᵈn ᶢŋ] in the codas of stressed oral syllables: ken [kɛᵈn] "to sleep".
This process, roughly analogous to the obligatory nasal spreading rule, appears to be the only means by which unstressed syllables can be raised to high or mid pitch.
In continuous speech Ramarama's small consonant inventory is further reduced, and simultaneously complicated, by complex morphophonological processes of assimilation (sandhi).
Karo has a class of pronouns which include four different types: personal, possessive, interrogative, and demonstrative.
The verb class in the language are typically sentence-final and are distinctly categorized into transitive and intransitive categories.
In addition, the language contains only six derivational prefixes, five which have specific functions: The remaining one pe ʔ- is an optative.
The nominalizing clitic ko= works in conjunction with the absolutive argument of ‘to perceive’ to transform whole clauses into nouns.
[12]: viii Karo possesses a system made up of five distinct prefixes all with valency affecting properties.
Karo has five derivational prefixes that appear on a verb and change the number of arguments in the a sentence constructions.
It appears most often with intransitive verbs to indicate an initiator who causes a secondary agent who performs or experiences an action or state.
[12]: 63 õnõn1SGamapəriaʔ=ma-pərəp=t3SG=CAUS-empty-IND1õn amapəriõn aʔ=ma-pərəp=t1SG 3SG=CAUS-empty-IND1‘I emptied it.’ [12]: 64 The comitative causative also occurs mainly with the intransitive but does appear on occasion with transitive verbs.
Examples of the impersonal passive: oyãyo=yãy1SG=toothbemeŋãnpe-meŋã-nIPASS-be.dirty.IND1oyãy bemeŋãno=yãy pe-meŋã-n1SG=tooth IPASS-be.dirty.IND1‘My tooth got dirty.’ [12]: 68 cĩmcĩmmeatmemaʔwabape-maʔwap-aIPASS-fry-GERcĩm memaʔwabacĩm pe-maʔwap-ameat IPASS-fry-GER‘The meat got fried.’ [12]: 69 abegahmōmaʔ=pe-kahmōm3SG=IPASS-be.quietnãnã-acop-GERabegahmōm nãaʔ=pe-kahmōm nã-a3SG=IPASS-be.quiet cop-GER‘It got quiet/calmed down.’ [12]: 69 Another valency-reducing prefix in Karo is the reflexive which can be used in both transitive and intransitive verb constructions.
Examples of the reflexive: õnõn1SGomãmnoyo=mãm-top-t1SG=REFL-see-IND1õn omãmnoyõn o=mãm-top-t1SG 1SG=REFL-see-IND1‘I saw myself.’ [12]: 69 atat3SGtomãmwĩnto=mãm-wĩ-n3R=REFL-kill-IND1at tomãmwĩnat to=mãm-wĩ-n3SG 3R=REFL-kill-IND1‘He/it killed him/itself.’ [12]: 70 owakáno=waká-n1SG=be.angry-IND1omãmkəyo=mãm-kəy1SG=REFL-DATowakán omãmkəyo=waká-n o=mãm-kəy1SG=be.angry-IND1 1SG=REFL-DAT‘I am angry at myself.’ [12]: 70 Finally, the reciprocal prefix is also considered to be valency-reducing and attaches itself to the root of transitive verbs.
Examples of the reciprocal: taptap3PLtoroyapítto=ro-yapí-t3R-REC-kill-IND1tap toroyapíttap to=ro-yapí-t3PL 3R-REC-kill-IND1‘They killed each other.’ [12]: 70 kaʔtokaʔto2PLkarorocapétkaro=ro-capé-t2PL=REC-beat-IND1ahyəahyəINTERRkaʔto karorocapét ahyəkaʔto karo=ro-capé-t ahyə2PL 2PL=REC-beat-IND1 INTERR‘Did you beat each other?’ [12]: 71 Tense in Karo is marked analytically.
The first type of construction, the intransitive verb can occur in the gerund form followed by a Noun Phrase + AUXILIARY FUTURE, which receives the indicative mood marking.
For instance: taykirtaykirNEGatat3SGa?toya?=top-t3SG=see-IND1igaigaFUTtaykir at a?toy igataykir at a?=top-t igaNEG 3SG 3SG=see-IND1 FUT‘Isn't he going to see it/him?’ [12]: 144 3IMP:third person, impersonal 3R:third person, coreferential (with subject) ADVZ:adverbializer ASSOC:associative AUX:auxiliary IND1:indicative mood suffix 1 IND2:indicative mood suffix 2 IPASS:impersonal passive NOMZ:nominalizer RPAST:remote past tense