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Xavánte

A language of Brazil

ISO 639-3: xav

Population	10,000 (2000 SIL). 7,000 monolinguals.
Region	Mato Grosso. 6 noncontiguous reservations, 80 villages.
Language map	Brazil, reference number 104
Alternate names	A’uwe Uptabi, A’we, Akuên, Akwen, Chavante, Crisca, Pusciti, Shavante, Tapacua
Classification	Macro-Ge, Ge-Kaingang, Ge, Central, Acua
Language use	Vigorous. All domains. All ages. Positive attitude. Some also use Portuguese.
Language development	Literacy rate in L1: 10%–30%. Literacy rate in L2: 25%–50% (most men, few women). Xavante teachers of Xavante reading and writing. Dictionary. Grammar. NT: 2004.
Writing system	Latin script.
Comments	In 1950s contact with outsiders began and their diseases killed hundreds. Forced to abandon seminomadic means of survival when placed on reservations. Learned swidden agriculture. During the transition many died. OSV. Hunter-gatherers traditionally; swidden agriculturalists: rice, maize, squash, bananas. Traditional religion, Christian.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

Burgess, Eunice. 1971. "Duas análises das sílabas do xavánte."

Burgess, Eunice. 1986. "Focus and topic in Xavante."  

Burgess, Eunice. 1987. "Foco e tópico em xavánte."

Grimes, Joseph E., editor. 1986. Sentence initial devices.  

Gudschinsky, Sarah C. 1971. "Ofaié Xavánte, a Jê language."

Gudschinsky, Sarah C., editor. 1971. Estudos sôbre línguas e culturas indígenas: Trabalhos linguísticos realizados no Brasil (edição especial).

Hall, Joan, Ruth Alice McLeod and Valerie Mitchell, compilers. 2004. Pequeno dicionário: Xavante-Português, Português-Xavante.  

Hall, Joan, Ruth McLeod, and Valerie Mitchell. 1987. Pequeno dicionario: xavánte-português, português-xavánte.

Hall, Joan. 1979. "Xavante profile."

Hall, Joan. 1979. Os sistemas fonológicos e gráficos xavante e português: Análise contrastiva.

Harrison, Alec J. 2001. Xavante morphology and respect/intimacy relationships.  

Harrison, Alec. 1990. "Language learning tips."

Hollenbach, Barbara E. 1991. Review of: Sentence initial devices, by Joseph E. Grimes, editor.

McLeod, Ruth and Valerie Mitchell. 1977. Aspectos da língua xavánte.

McLeod, Ruth. 1970. "Learning Xavante monolingually."

McLeod, Ruth. 1974. "Fonemas xavánte."

McLeod, Ruth. 1974. "Paragraph, aspect and participant in Xavante."

McLeod, Ruth. 2003. "Learning Xavante monolingually."

Pini'awē, Airton and Coronel Wi'i; Alec Harrison, facilitator. 1999. Dahi'rata nhimirowasu'u: duréi wasu'u (Ancient legends of the Xavante people).