tapi'ireté
Old Tupi
Alternative forms
| Historical spellings | |
|---|---|
| d'Abbeville (1614) | tapiyre-été |
| Marcgrave (1648) | tapiirete |
Etymology
From tapi'ira (“tapir”) + eté (“true”).
Noun
tapi'ireté (unpossessable)
- tapir (Tapirus terrestris)
- Synonyms: tapi'ira, tapi'irusu, (LGA) tapi'ira ka'apora
Usage notes
- With the advent of colonization, Tupians used the names of similar native animals to call the unknown species brought by the Europeans. Neologisms were then created by using eté (“true”) and eŷmbaba / mimbaba (“domestic animal”) as a form to differentiate the old and new species, respectively.
Descendants
- Nheengatu: tapiireté
- → Brazilian Portuguese: tapiretê
References
- Georg Marcgrave, Willem Piso (1648) Historia Naturalis Brasiliae [Brazilian Natural History], Rerum Naturalium Historiae, book VI, chapter VI (overall work in Latin), Amsterdam: Elzevir, page 229: “Tapiirete”
- Claude d'Abbeville (1614) chapter XLI, in Hiſtoire de la Miſsion des Peres Capucins en L'Iſle de Maragnan et terres circonuoiſines [History of the Mission of the Capuchin Fathers in the Island of Maranhão and surrounding lands] (overall work in French), Paris: Imprimerie de François Huby, page 250: “Tapiyre-été”
Further reading
- Eduardo de Almeida Navarro (2013) “tapi'ireté”, in Dicionário de tupi antigo: a língua indígena clássica do Brasil [Dictionary of Old Tupi: The Classical Indigenous Language of Brazil] (overall work in Portuguese), São Paulo: Global, →ISBN, page 463, column 2
- Nelson Papavero, Dante Martins Teixeira (2014) Zoonímia tupi nos escritos quinhentistas europeus [Tupi zoonymy in the 16th-century European writings] (Arquivos NEHiLP; 3) (in Portuguese), São Paulo: FFLCH-USP, , →ISBN, →ISSN, page 252