Brazil will soon have its first-ever copy of the 1988 Constitution in an indigenous language, as 15 indigenous translators are currently working on translating the magna carta into Nheengatu, a language spoken by various native groups across the Amazon region.
The initiative is spearheaded by the National Justice Council, a watchdog of the judiciary, and coordinated by the president of the National Library, Marco Luchesi, and José Ribamar Bessa, a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
The translation of the Constitution should be completed by October and will be presented in a ceremony in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, a municipality in the state of Amazonas where Nheengatu is an official language.
A separate project is reportedly planning to translate the Maria da Penha law, a milestone in Brazil’s legislation against gender violence, into several indigenous languages for the native population of the state of Mato Grosso.
Indigenous rights were enshrined in the 1988 Constitution, which guarantees the protection and recognition of “the culture, way of life, production, reproduction of social life, and way of seeing the world” of Brazil’s indigenous populations. The reality has often been very different, however.
There are an estimated 305 different ethnic indigenous groups in the country, speaking 274 different languages.
Nheengatu is from the Tupi-Guarani linguistic family and was once the lingua franca in the Amazon, spoken also by non-indigenous locals. It is today known as the Amazonian General Language and continues to be spoken by an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people.
There were two variations of this “general language” during Colonial Brazil: one from the Amazon, and one from São Paulo. The latter disappeared during the 18th century — but not without leaving a profound mark on the Portuguese language spoken throughout the colony. Meanwhile, the Amazonian general language remained the most-widely spoken language in Northern Brazil until the rubber boom in the late 19th century.
Two factors contributed to the spread of the general language: the miscegenation between colonizers and indigenous populations, and the enslavement of many communities. In São Paulo, the indigenous used to accept foreigners into their families by marrying them to a young woman of their community.
With time, however, the predominance of the Nheengatu came to be seen as a nuisance. Representatives of the Crown in the colony were forced to rely on translators, which created hurdles for managing their territories.
To make matters worse for Nheengatu, the general language was linked to the Jesuits, and their relationship with the Crown began to sour. In 1759, the missionaries were expelled from the colonies, and the use of any branch of the Tupi-Guarani language family was strictly forbidden.
A handful of cities have declared the Nheengatu an official language, and scholars at the University of São Paulo still teach it – and are fighting to help spread it among tribes, reaffirming their native origins.
Search
