Obsolescência linguística em Xerente Akwén: diglossia, empréstimo e codeswitching

Abstract

Diglossia, borrowing and codeswitching are considered to be one of the major threats to indigenous languages when in contact to non indigenous and presti gious languages, generally the official language of a country. Although some times invisible to their speakers, borrowings and codeswitchings pervade the indigenous language to a point that it is almost impossible to distinguish which of them is the basic language. This article deals such subjects with the Xerente Akwén, a highly bilingual people. The Xerente Akwén is an indigenous lan guage of the Jê family, spoken by 3,600 individuals of the same name in the state of Tocantins, Brazil. The data were collected at the local during the year of 2010 through observations, face to face interviews and questionnaires. The questionnaires were measured by using a statistical design. The results show that there is a massive number of borrowings and codeswitchings made mainly by the youngest individuals causing a situation of diglossia. Obsolescence of the language remains as an open question to be answered.