#maxakalí

pãm /pãm/

[noun] bread

Maxakalí-English Dictionary

Once again, today we turn to Maxakalí. Why? Because, skimming through the dictionary again, I found another word I recognised. This time I am sure that it is of Portuguese origin. The word is pãm, which means “bread”; the Portuguese for “bread” is pão and it isn’t hard to see the link. What’s more, I don’t think that the Maxakalí would have had bread before the arrival of the Portuguese and so it only makes sense to borrow the nice short word for this exciting new foodstuff.

Here’s another example sentence taken from the dictionary again:

Yeyox te pãm koxip, tu’ yãy tik xop pu’ popmãhã.

Jesus broke the bread and gave (the pieces) to his men.

ãn /ãn/

[noun] year

Maxakalí-English Dictionary

Chances are you’ve never heard of Maxakalí. It’s a small language native to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais that, allegedly, belongs to the Macro-Gê family. It’s an interesting language, both in terms of phonology and grammar (hopefully I’ll write an Idiomatick post on it in future).

Anyway, I’ve chosen the word ãn “year” because it looks like it could be a loan word from either Spanish or, more likely, Portuguese (año and ano respectively). However, I don’t actually know this for a fact and I don’t know if anyone does; it’s a small language.

Here’s an example sentence taken from the source-dictionary above:

Kakxop ãn xohix te tikoxyuk.

The child is three years old.