Tupi-Guarani

Tupi–Guarani is the most far-flung branch of the Tupian family of South America, embracing around fifty languages, among them Old Tupi and Guarani. Linguists place its ancestral speech near the lower Tocantins and Xingu rivers in eastern Amazonia; by the sixteenth century Tupi–Guarani languages lined nearly the whole Brazilian coast and reached the Río de la Plata.

Old Tupi, the language of the coastal Tupinambá, was adopted as the língua brasílica, the common tongue of Indians and Portuguese settlers. Jesuits gave it a grammar and a written literature from 1575 onward, José de Anchieta compiling the first grammar and Jean de Léry recording whole dialogues.

The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759 began its decline, leaving Nheengatu as its living descendant. Guarani is spoken in the Paraná and Paraguay basins.