Maranhense. E por que não timbira? Os adjetivos pátrios e gentílicos à luz da ecolinguística

Abstract

In the lexicon of a language, adjectives belong to a class of names that join nouns to add meaning and characteristics to them, playing a fundamental role in the description of objects and events in the world. In this lexical set the qualifier is called a demonym when referring to the nation, like “Brazilian”, in the same way “Maranhense” is associated with the territory, which does not occur with “timbira”, for example. These adjectives derive from the name of the place or the nation, which is why they designate nationality. But when thinking about certain peoples, groups of individuals with similar customs that inhabit certain localities, the concept triggered is that of ethnicity, producing ethnonyms such as “potiguar”, “gaúcho”, “capixaba”. These designative adjectives of race or region of origin may also be called gentilic. Many authors do not differentiate adjectives that refer to the place, to the nationality, to the homeland from those which refer to certain human groups of common origin. These two points of view are of great interest to an ecolinguistic analysis, a theoretical contribution that studies the interrelations between man, language and the environment or territory in its totality, the linguistic ecosystem (COUTO, 2007). From this perspective arises the importance of focusing research on the environment, the space of territorial identity in which the language takes place; on man, with the origins that institute him; and on language, which establishes the mediation of this relationship between man and his territory. With this in mind, this work aims to investigate in some grammars, both traditional and more modern, what they point out as a demonyms and as ethnonyms in order to verify this correlation with ecosystemic linguistics. The methodological procedures of this bibliographic research are inductive, with a qualitative, exploratory and explanatory type approach. The results point to the non-differentiation between demonyms and ethnonyms in most of the grammars analyzed, and the deletion of the gentilic adjectives, mainly as a result of prescriptive linguistic policies.