Artificial Indigenous Place Names in Brazil: a Classification of Tupi Origin Names Created in the 19th and 20th Centuries

• Autor(a) principal: Navarro, Eduardo de Almeida
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Letras Raras
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.editora.ufcg.edu.br/index.php/RLR/article/view/1184
• topic: Toponímia Artificial; Tupi Antigo; Línguas Gerais; Artificial Place Names; Old Tupi; General Languages

On Brazilian territory there are place names of indigenous origin with over five hundred years of existence, given byIndians themselves in the past, perhaps even before the Discovery of Brazil, together with artificial indigenous nameshaving few decades of existence. Such names appeared since the second half of the 19th century and they becamevery common until the 1950s. These artificial toponyms are often confused with spontaneous place names ofindigenous origin, deriving from ancient Tupi and the general languages originated from it, i.e. the southern generallanguage, the general Amazonian language and Nheengatu. The historical reasons for the occurrence of such phenomenon were the strengthening of political nationalisms in the last century, with reflections in Brazil, the adventof Modernism, with profound effects on Western culture in general and on Brazilian culture in particular. This paperanalyzes such artificial place names, making an attempt to classify them.