GUAICURÚ NO, MACRO-GUAICURÚ SÍ. UNA HIPÓTESIS SOBRE LA CLASIFICACIÓN DE LA LENGUA GUACHÍ (MATO GROSSO DO SUL, BRASIL)

Guachí, an extinct language once spoken near the city of Miranda (Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil), is known only by a brief vocabulary (145 items), collected in 1845. Generally, it’s classified, though (impossible otherwise) with doubts, as a part of the Guaicurúan family, which also includes Kadiweu from Mato Grosso do Sul (modern dialect of the ancient Mbayá or Guaicurú, spoken principally in the Paraguayan Chaco during the XVIIIeth and XIXeth centuries), and the Chaquean languages Pilagá, Mocoví, Toba and the extinct Abipón). The present work shows that the similarities found between Guachi and the mentioned Guaicurúan languages are not more numerous or systematic than those existing between Guachí and the languages of the Mataguayan family, including the Chaquean languages Maká, Niwaklé, Wichí and Chorote. So, the more likely classification of Guachí would be not as a Guaicurúan language, but as a member --isolated in the family level-- of the Macro-Guaicurúan language stock. Additionally, it is suggested that extinct Payaguá would be a Macro-Guaicurúan language in a similar situation about its classification.