Love Eriksen

The Tupian Expansion

This chapter explores the expansion of the Tupian peoples across greater Amazonia to better understand the mechanisms and processes of cultural and linguistic contact and change. Tupian languages are or were spoken among indigenous groups distributed from the Brazilian Atlantic coast through Paraguay to the eastern Andean slopes of Peru. The investigation uses GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to map the spatial distribution of cultural and linguistic features associated with Tupi-speaking groups in order to plot the historical expansion of the Tupians and to characterize the sociocultural context and consequences of these events, particularly relating to internal and external contact situations. Research is directed toward multi-disciplinary integration of linguistic data with cultural data derived from anthropology, archaeology, ethnohistory, and geography, in order to reach a multifaceted understanding of the history of contact and exchange of Tupian groups. The chapter breaks new ground in combining traditional studies of material culture with linguistic data, as well as in mapping and investigating the spatial distribution of linguistic features and their relationship to other cultural attributes. (Less)

The Arawakan Matrix

This chapter investigates the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the ethno-linguistic groups of the Arawakan language family, particularly relating to situations of contact and exchange. At 1492, Arawakan languages were distributed from the Greater Antilles in the north to the Gran Chaco area in the south, and from the Amazon River mouth in the east, to the eastern Andean slopes in the west. The Arawakan languages expanded successfully across and beyond the South American continent during pre-Columbian times through a powerful cultural complex emphasizing contact and exchange with neighboring groups;, the Arawakan matrix, which this chapter aims to investigate and map. The investigators uses GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to explore the geographical distribution of cultural and linguistic features of Arawak-speaking people in space and time in order to gain a more complete picture of the timing and extension of their expansion. The chapter also adds to our current theoretical knowledge about the socio-cultural mechanisms of the Arawakan diaspora and the spatial distribution of particular linguistic features characteristic of the Arawakan language family. (Less)

The languages of South America: deep families, areal relationships, and language contact

After summarizing the earlier chapters, we sketch a general overview of the different phases in the development of South America. We then explore the possibility of a continental bias for typological features characteristic of South America, which may point to the early entry of a limited set of features into the continent. Subsequently we analyze possible deep families or macro-groups in the continent, and their regional distribution. We then turn to the issue of whether different subsets of structural features yield different distance matrices for the language families studied. To further explore contact possibilities, the results for language contact in our book are charted. Finally, we conclude and take stock of what has been achieved and how further research should proceed.