Ofayé language

The Ofayé or Opaye language, also Ofaié-Xavante, Opaié-Shavante, forms its own branch of the Macro-Jê languages. It is spoken by only a couple of the small Ofayé people, though language revitalization efforts are underway. Grammatical descriptions have been made by the Pankararú linguist Maria das Dores de Oliveira (Pankararu),^[2] as well as by Sarah C. Gudschinsky^[3] and Jennifer E. da Silva, from the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul.

Ofayé
Native to	Brazil
Region	Mato Grosso do Sul
Ethnicity	61 Ofayé people (2012)[1]
Native speakers	12 (2012)[1]
Revival	effort underway[1]
Language family	Macro-Jê Ofayé
Language codes
ISO 639-3	opy
Glottolog	ofay1240
ELP	1740 Ofayé

It was spoken on the Ivinhema River, Pardo River, and Nhandú River in Mato Grosso do Sul. Guachi, spoken on the Vacaria River in Mato Grosso do Sul, is a dialect.^[4]

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Macro-Mataguayo-Guaykuru languages due to contact.^[5]

Phonology

The consonantal inventory of Ofayé is as follows.^[2]: 40

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Nasal			n
Stop	voiceless		t	tʃ	k	kʷ	ʔ
	voiced		d	dʒ	g
Fricative		ɸ		ʃ			h
Oral sonorant			ɾ	j		w

The vowel inventory of Ofayé is as follows.^[2]: 42

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ĩ
Close-mid	e ẽ	ə	o õ
Open-mid	ɛ
Open		a ã

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.^[4]

gloss	Opaie
one	enex-há
two	yakwári
tongue	chü-õrá
foot	chü-gareyé
fire	mitáu
tree	komekatá
jaguar	woki
house	shüa
white	õká