Tupi language

Old Tupi or Classical Tupi is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native Tupí people of Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. It belongs to the Tupi–Guarani language family, and has a written history spanning the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. In the early colonial period Tupi was used as a lingua franca throughout Brazil by Europeans as well as Amerindians and had literary usage, but it was later suppressed almost to extinction, leaving only one modern descendant with an appreciable number of speakers, Nheengatu.

The names Old Tupi or Classical Tupi are used for the language in English and by modern scholars (it is referred to as tupi antigo in Portuguese), but native speakers called it variously ñeengatú "the good language", ñeendyba "common language", abáñeenga "human language", in Old Tupi, or língua geral "general language", língua geral amazônica "Amazonian general language", língua brasílica "Brazilian language", in Portuguese.

History

Old Tupi was first spoken by a pre-literate Tupinambá people, living under cultural and social conditions very unlike those found in Europe. It is quite different from Indo-European languages in phonology, morphology and grammar and even so it was adopted by many Luso-Brazilians as a lingua franca known as língua geral.