pirapu'ã

Old Tupi

Alternative forms

Etymology

Cognate with Paraguayan Guarani pirapuã. By surface analysis, pirá (“fish”) +‎ pu'am (“standing”).[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [piˌɾa.puˈʔã]
  • Rhymes: -ã
  • Hyphenation: pi‧ra‧pu‧'ã

Noun

pirapu'ã (unpossessable)

  1. (hapax legomenon) whale (any large marine mammal in infraorder Cetacea)
    Synonym: sikurigûasu (Língua Geral Paulista)
    • [1587, Gabriel Soares de Sousa, chapter CXXV, in Notícia do Brasil (in Portuguese), Salvador; republished as Francisco Adolpho de Varnhagen, editor, Tratado descriptivo do Brazil em 1587, 2nd edition, Rio de Janeiro: João Ignancio da Silva, 1879, page 284:
      Entendo que cabe a este primeiro capitulo dizermos das balêas que entram na Bahia (como do maior peixe do mar d’ella), a que os indios chamam pirapuã […]
      I understand that in this first chapter we must tell about the whales that enter Bahia (as the biggest fish of its sea), which the Indians call “pirapu'ã”.]

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Navarro, Eduardo de Almeida (2013), “pirapu'ã”, 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 386, column 2

Further reading

  • Papavero, Nelson; Teixeira, Dante Martins (2014), Zoonímia tupi nos escritos quinhentistas europeus [Tupi zoonymy in the 16th-century European writings] (Arquivos NEHiLP; 3) (in Portuguese), São Paulo: FFLCH-USP, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 251, line 22
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