A presença indígena na toponímia mineira

Abstract

Based on the investigation and analysis of linguistic clues found in toponyms – or proper names given to geographical localities – toponomastic studies can be seen as an essential source of knowledge for a people's historical and socio-cultural facts. On the basis of such a premise, this theoretical-descriptive study aims to present the main linguistic and cultural aspects concerning the toponymic lexicon of indigenous origin found in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. To this end, this study relies on the socially constituted linguistics of Hymes (1964); on theoretical, methodological and taxonomic assumptions of onomastics postulated by Dauzat (1926), Dick (1990a and 1990c) and Seabra (2004); and on concepts of culture of Duranti (2000). The synchronous corpus used for this investigation was taken from the ATEMIG Project database - a project by the Federal University of Minas Gerais' Faculty of Letters - which has been under development for the last 17 years. The ATEMIG Project carried out, during its initial stages, the survey and toponymic classification of all physical and human features in the state's 853 municipalities from geographical maps - IBGE sources, with scales ranging from 1:50.000 to 1:250.000, currently amounting to a total of 85.391 toponyms. From this total, 9.940 place names of indigenous origin were analysed. The results demonstrate that 73,8% of these names are of Tupi origin and that the predominant toponymic motivation in Minas Gerais is vegetation focused, or phyto-toponyms, with 50,9% of data. This research also corroborates what was once stated by Sampaio (1987) and other toponymy researchers, such as Andrade (2006): that the toponyms of Tupi origin in the Central Plateau, more specifically here those in Minas Gerais, were not, in their majority, named by the indigenous population as may initially be assumed; but by the Bandeirantes who spoke the Tupi language and travelled the region assigning place names.