Review of Calunga and the legacy of an African language in Brazil

Calunga is a currently disappearing and ill-described Afro-Brazilian speech variety which is mainly used in and around the town of Patrocínio in the state of Minas Gerais by an estimated couple of hundred of mostly older men, the so-called 'calungadores', i.e. speakers of Calunga. The main difference between this speech variety and regional Brazilian Portuguese can be found in the lexicon, which exhibits a substantial number of items derived from Western Bantu languages. Calunga is used as an in-group language related to secrecy and solidarity. Studies on Calunga are recent, dating back to the mid-1990s