The lexicon of Calunga and a lexical comparison with other forms of Afro-Brazilian speech from Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Bahia

The Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) at The University of New Mexico (UNM) is one of the nation's leading foreign language and area studies centers. More than 130 UNM faculty specializing in Latin American research and teaching are members of the Faculty Concilium on Latin America and Iberia and are the primary constituency of the LAII. The LAII's Research Paper Series and Occasional Paper Series provide refereed forums for the timely dissemination of research on Latin American topics. Authors also gain the benefits of comment and criticism from the larger research community if they intend to later submit their work to other publications.Recent scholarship by Bonvini (2008a:54, 2008b:101) estimates that there are perhaps 4,000 words from African languages attested in Brazilian Portuguese. In his analysis, these Africanisms originated from code-switching speakers of various African languages and Portuguese within Brazil (Bonvini 2008b:117). However, in spite of the formerly wide distribution of African languages in Brazil, only little is known about them. In the words of Bonvini and Petter (1998:74): What do we really know about the African languages spoken in Brazil? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is close to nothing (Bonvini 2008a:21; Castro 2001:71).Latin American and Iberian Institute, The University of New Mexic