Je-Tupi-Carib

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Je-Tupi-Carib is a proposed linguistic macro-phylum composed of the Je (or Gê), Tupian and Cariban language families of South America.

Linguist Greenberg first proposed a genetic relationship between the Macro-Je, Macro-Panoan, and Cariban phyla. However, although initially greeted with excitement, Greenberg's classification for the Americas was not accepted by many linguists who worked with the languages in question once they had a look at his evidence.

Eduardo Ribeiro of the University of Chicago has worked with Macro-Je and Tupian languages, and has noted that these share irregular morphology with each other and with Cariban (but not with Panoan, as Greenberg proposed). Shared grammatical irregularities are strong supporting evidence for putative language families, as they are unlikely to be borrowed or to be due to chance.

Ribeiro finds no evidence to classify Fulniô, Guató, or the Yabutian languages as Macro-Je, as Greenberg does, but adds the previously unclassified Kariri languages. His tentative classification is[citation needed]:

Je-Tupi-Carib

and possibly Otí [extinct]
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