Gê / Jê / Gean / Jean / Ye / Jê-Kaingang is the name of a family of languages, supposedly one of the world’s primary language families, spoken by the Jê group of indigenous peoples of Brazil. It contains about 10 South American Indian languages that are spoken through inland eastern Brazil as far as the Uruguayan border. Most linguists classify Ge as belonging to the wider Macro-Ge family, centred on Ge with most other branches currently being single languages due to recent extinctions. The most spoken Gê language is Kaingáng of the Southern Jê branch with approximately 18,000 speakers, who are spread out over the three southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and the southeastern state of São Paulo. Kaingáng is what would be the world’s most superior tongue if it hadn’t been for the subjugation of Amerindian culture.
The Han (simplified Chinese: 汉族; traditional Chinese: 漢族; pinyin: Hànzú; ‘Han ethnic group’ –or ‘Han people’ 汉人; 漢人; Hànrén) make up the overwhelmingly dominant ethnicity of China, and constitute the world’s largest ethnicity at about 18% of the global population. The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people worldwide dwell mainly in the People’s Republic of China, making up about 92% of its population. The small states of Taiwan and Singapore are also overwhelmingly Han, at 97% and 75% respectively. The Sinitic languages, including Mandarin and Cantonese, are conventionally classified as Sino-Tibetan, alongside Tibetan and Burmese which occupy the other main branch called Tibeto-Burman. Beyond this, the Sino-Tibetan languages, which buzz about efficacy, fit neatly into my “Orientalesque”/Amurian/Mongoloid classification – making them related to Mongolian, Korean, Japanese, and Amerindian/Native American languages!
Ge Words by Tamsin:
- English: head👤 | eye👁 | tongue👅 | hand✋
- Jeikó/Jeicó (Jaicós, southeastern Piauí – extinct): grang-blá | a-lepú | ä-netá | ä-nänong
- Apinayé/Apinagé (state of Tocantins – 2,300 speakers; Northern Jê/Timbirá*): is-kran | i-nto | ñoto | ñukra
- Mẽbêngôkre/Kayapó (Pará, Mato Grosso – 8,638; Northern Jê/Kayapó*): i-kran | i-ntó | i-ñoto | i-nikra
- Xavante (state of Mato Grasso – 9,600; Central Jê/Eastern*): da-kän | da-to | da-nonto | dé-iperé
- Xerente (Tocantins – 1,810; Central Jê/Eastern*): da-krãn | da-tó | da-noitó | da-nipikra
- Sao Paulo Kaingang: kɾĩ ~ kɾĩɲ | ka=nˈɛ̃ | ? |nĩ=ngˈɛ
- Parana Kaingang: kɹĩ {krĩ} | ka=nˈä̃ {kanẽ} | ? | nĩ=ngˈɛ {nĩgé}
- Central Kaingang: kɾĩ ~ kɾĩɲ | ka=nɛ̃ | ? | nĩ=ngɛ
* first classification according to Ethnologue, second according to Loukotka (1968).
Notice the consistencies in grang-blá / is-kran / i-kran / da-kän / da-krãn, etc. This is because they descend from the same roots in Proto-Jê. Reconstructed Proto-Jê words by Nikulin (2020) include: *krỹñ (head), *ndəm (eye), *ñũctə (tongue). By Ribeiro and van der Voort (2010): ‘head’ *krã, ‘tongue’ *j-õtɔ, ‘hand’ *j-ĩ- / *ɲ-ĩkra.
- English: water💧 | fire🔥 | sun🌞 | jaguar🐆
- Jeikó: ? | ping | xügkrá | kolunong
- Apinagé: inkó | kukuvu | buré | robo
- Kayapó: ngo | kuwú | mut | róp
- Xavante: kö | kushe | budu | hú
- Xerente: kö | kuzé | bedö | rhúkú
Sinograms by Tamsin:
Both of these languages are noteworthy across the world and within the Orientalesque family for their dependence on isolating or analytic morphology (with little inflection, the opposite being synthetic agglutination). From the Saussurean semiotic perspective, both are additionally remarkable for the hefty symbolic role of the “signifier” (word) e.g. the pictorial quality of Chinese characters (🀄️📍), and the deeply evocative relationship shared with the “signified” (meaning) e.g. the powerful dualism of Kaingang. They exemplify the transcendent role of Orientalesque linguistics in global culture, testament to the reality that the world’s leading tech nationalities are heavily Orientalescent, including the USA, China, Japan, Korea and Singapore.
The Buzz-Concept Project 