Wiktionary:About Old Tupi

Note: Wikitionary uses the ISO code tpw from this language, despite it being labbeled differently in other places.

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. This is a draft proposal. It is unofficial, and it is unknown whether it is widely accepted by Wiktionary editors. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

Introduction

In Wiktionary, Old Tupi serves as an umbrella heading for all Tupi dialects, namely:

• "North Tupi"
• "São Vicente Tupi"
• Tupinambá (tpn): spoken by the Tupinambá
• Tupinikin (tpk): spoken by the Tupinikin

What is not Old Tupi

• Guaraní (gn): distinct, but closely related language in the Tupi-Guarani family. Tupi and Guaraní have been mistakenly considered the same language in past centuries, when the Old Tupi lexicon was mostly unknown.
• Língua Geral: evolution of Old Tupi by further contact with Portuguese. It was split into two languages:
  • Língua Geral Paulista or Meridional (LGP), spoken in Southeast Brazil and extinct by early 20th century,
  • Língua Geral Amazônica (LGA) or Setentrional, spoken in North and Northeast Brazil. Gave origin to nowadays Nheengatu.
• Nheengatu (yrl): evolution of LGA and only living decendant of Old Tupi, spoken in Venezuela, Colombia and the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Pará. Called "New Tupi" or "Modern Tupi" by some scholars, which causes the confusion.

What to include

Cutoff dates

• Old Tupi (1500–1700): Old Tupi de facto was spoken until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. Any new coinages or semantic loans set beyond this year are considered Late Tupi and should be labelled accordingly. The end is set at 1700 following Navarro's dictionary.
• Língua Geral (1700–1854): Língua Geral Amazonica fills the gap between Old Tupi and Nheengatu. Língua Geral Paulista has no set end date as it had no decendants.
• Nheengatu (1853–Present): the “Vocabulario da lingua indigena geral para o uso do Seminario Episcopal do Pará” (1853), by Manoel Justiniano de Seixas, is consirdered the first document written in Nheengatu, although it could be considered an "Old" or "Early Nheengatu" stage, as it still had many caracteristics of LGA that would disappeard later on.

Orthography

Old Tupi entries should use the ortography proposed by Lemos Barbosa, widely applied by Edelweiss and improved by Navarro. See more about its specifics in Appendix:Old Tupi pronunciation.

Some considerations:

• The glottal stop should be indicated by an apostrophe ('), both in the entry's name and body. Don't use it to indicate stress, like some Portuguese dictionaries do.
  • In Navarro's spelling, the apostrophe is also used to indicate the omission of letters in verbal forms like the permissive and the negative.
• The hyphen (-) should not be used to separate different words or affixes in compounds. They are written in full, with no spaces. Different spellings are treated as non-lemma and should follow what is stated in Alternative forms.
  • Navarro uses the hyphen didactically in his books, as to show the parts that make up the word. The lemmas in his dictionary don't have it.
• When quoting Old Tupi from historical sources, try to keep both the original and current spelling systems. If this is not possible, give preference to the ortography described here. The uptated form is prefered because old texts usually have a complicated spelling, with inconsistent accentuation and separation of morphemes.
• Don't use Ç.

Basics

Entry name

The name of the entry should include any diacritical marks present, which are Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú Ýý Ãã Ẽẽ Ĩĩ Õõ Ũũ Ỹỹ Îî Ûû Ŷŷ.

Alternative forms

Old Tupi orthography was designed to have a one-to-one letter–phoneme correspondence. Different pronunciations, as the common ellision of final consonants in São Vicente Tupi, should have their own page with the corresponding spelling. These are considered non-lemma forms and should be handled as stated in WT:FORMS.

Inflection tables

• Adjectives: under the Declension heading using {{tpw-adecl-consonant}}. Only works with consonant-ending adjectives. More templates planned for the future. See porang.
• Verbs: under the Conjugation heading using {{tpw-conj-vi-consonant}}. Only works with intransitive,consonant-ending verbs. More templates planned for the future. See nhe'eng.
• Other parts of speech (POS) should have no inflection table.

Pluriform words

The lemma without any affixes is used for the entry name. The prefixed forms are handed differently depending on the POS:

• Pluriform nouns: listed only under the POS heading with {{tpw-noun}}.
• Pluriform adjectives: listed under the POS heading with {{tpw-adj}} and in the inflection table.
• Pluriform postpositions: listed under the POS heading with {{tpw-postp}}.
• Pluriform verb: listed under the POS heading with {{tpw-verb|pluri=1}} and in the conjugation table.

For Ib pluriform nouns i.e. the ones that have P/M alternation, the entry name should start with P, with the absolute form in M as non-lemma. See pokaba.

Possessiveness

All nouns should be listed as either possessable or unpossessable, using {{tpw-noun}}. If some senses are possessable and others aren't, they should be separated in two headings. See karaíba.