Jorá language
| Jorá | |
|---|---|
| Hora | |
| Pronunciation | [hoˈra] |
| Native to | Bolivia |
| Region | near Baures, Beni Department |
| Ethnicity | Jorá people |
Native speakers | 0–5 (2002)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jor |
| Glottolog | jora1240 |
Jorá (Hora) is a possibly extinct Tupi–Guaraní language of Bolivia. It is closely related to Sirionó and Yuqui and is a member of Group (II). Its speakers were exterminated in a genocide perpertated against them in the mid-20th century, and survivors of the Jorá do not use the language. Only 165 entries, including words and short sentences, were documented of the language. As a consequence, little of its grammatical structure is known.
History
[edit]The Jorá people and language were never numerically large.[2]: 443 In the 1940s, the Austrian anthropologist Wanda Hanke found out that the Jorá were being "hunted like animals" in a "systematic genocide". Previously, the Jorá had lived around Jara Lake[3] near the town of Baures, inhabited by the Baure people, who feared their attacks. The Baure say they felt threatened by the Jorá and were therefore justified in their killings. The remaining Jorá were captured, "exposed like in a human zoo", and adopted by local families or sold into slavery,[4]: 3–4 and the last speaker of their language is reported to have died in 1963,[5]: 130 although the German anthropologist Jürgen Riester found five speakers as late as 1974.[1]: 21 By 1995, only five Jorá remained.[3] In 2002, Mily Crevels claimed that Jorá was "most probably extinct".[1]: 26 The remaining descendants of the Jorá do not bring up their memories, even if asked. In one case, a Jorá woman who had been found orphaned as a child next to the dead bodies of her parents had been repeatedly asked to elicit some vocabulary of the Jorá language.[4]: 4
Documentation
[edit]The Jorá language is known solely from various vocabularies, mainly collected by non-linguists, totaling 165 "items, words, and short sentences"; the first was collected by Hanke and published in 1959, another was collected by François-Xavier Béghin in 1951 and published in 1980, and secondary data was collected in 2009 and 2011 from Baure people who had lived with the Jorá in the 1940s and 1950s.[4]: 7
Classification
[edit]Jorá is a Tupi–Guarani language belonging to Group (II) of the family, within a subgroup with Sirionó and Yuqui. It has, in some classifications, been grouped as a dialect of Sirionó.[4]: 7 [2]: 442
Phonology
[edit]Vowels
[edit]Despite the fact that it is unattested in the corpus, the vowel [ɨ] was reported to have been much used by the Jorá, according to the Baure who remembered characteristics of Jorá. This vowel has been completely lost from Proto-Tupi-Guarani in Yuki and swapped with /i/ in Sirionó. It is thus assumed that [ɨ] was simply not distinguished by the collectors of the data.[2]: 446, 452
Morphology
[edit]Due to the poor attestation of Jorá, very little of the morphology can be identified of the language.[4]: 8–9
Person marking
[edit]A few personal or possessive markers may be postulated for Jorá:[4]: 8–9
se-nir
1SG.II-sister(?)
'my sister'
a-tʃi~tʃitʃa
1SG.I-RDPL~cut
'I cut myself'
| Jorá | |
|---|---|
| 1SG.I | a- |
| 1SG.II | tʃ(i)- / se- / tʃe, se |
| 2SG.I | ?? |
| 2SG.II | d- / de |
| 3.I | ? |
| 3.II | e- / Ø |
Tense–aspect–mood
[edit]The optative marker t- may be identified in Jorá:[2]: 449 [4]: 9
t-a-sa
OPT-1SG.I-go
'Let me go.'
Modifiers
[edit]Modifiers in Jorá follow the noun, as is typical for languages of Group (II) of Tupi–Guarani:[2]: 450
d-ai
2SG-finger
didin-tʃi
little-ADJ
'your little finger'
Augmentative
[edit]The augmentative suffix in Jorá is found to be productive, and derives from Proto-Tupi-Guarani *(w)atʃú 'big':[2]: 450
ti-asu
pig-AUG
'wild pig'
bi-sú
snake-AUG
'snake (presumably anaconda)'
Reflexive
[edit]The reflexive prefix in Jorá is tʃi-, identical to that of Sirionó.[2]: 450
Vocabulary
[edit]| Number | Jorá |
|---|---|
| 2 | tvku |
| 4 | agařiřa; agriřv |
| 10 | ɛřa; dutšv́ |
| 19 | sísv |
| 20 | ib̶i |
| 23 | séř-sv |
| 26 | tvʔtv |
| 27 | jířa |
| 33 | ayiři; saiyiři |
| 34 | sangi; sánkv |
| 35 | sɛntšv; santsv |
| 37 | ya |
| 41 | ɛřa |
| 46 | sake; sakį |
| 50 | tɛřuřu; sɛꟈuřu |
| 52 | sɛgvři; sɛ́yiři |
| 54 | nvřú |
| 55 | sangv |
| 57 | dɛ́l iv |
| 59 | zaku |
| 62 | díkera |
| 67 | sídɛt; ídɛt |
| 70 | tɛtvsi |
| 72 | yɛsitvʔtv |
| 74 | tɛndv |
| 80 | sinka |
| 81 | sɛřɛ |
| 82 | tša |
| 83 | atšvtšvtu |
| 86 | i |
| 91 | jura |
| 97 | iꟈia; denda |
| 98 | gvsi; yv́si |
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Crevels, Mily (2002), "Why speakers shift and languages die: An account of Language Death in Amazonian Bolivia" (PDF), Current Studies on South American Languages, Lenguas Indígenas de América Latina (ILLA), vol. 3, Leiden: Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Universiteit Leiden, pp. 9–30, retrieved 2026-06-08
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Danielsen, Swintha; Gasparini, Noé (August 2015). "News on the Jorá (Tupí-Guaraní): sociolinguistics, description, and classification". Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas. 10 (2): 441–466. doi:10.1590/1981-81222015000200012. ISSN 1981-8122.
- 1 2 "Promotora Española de Lingüística". www.proel.org. Retrieved 2026-07-29.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Danielsen, Swintha; Gasparini, Noé (2015-06-11). Discovering two almost extinct languages in Bolivia: Jorá and Guarasu. 18e Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences du Langage, 2015-06-03. Paris.
- ↑ Dixon, Robert M. W.; Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡, eds. (1999). The Amazonian languages (PDF). Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57021-3.
- ↑ Firestone, Homer L. (1965). Description and classification of Sirionó: a Tupí-Guaraní language. Janua Linguarum: Series Practica. Vol. 16. Tha Hague: Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)