The poem Cobra Norato of Raull Bopp for the Nheengatu language

Abstract

Thinking about translating a work like Cobra Norato, by Raul Bopp ([1931] 2013) into the Nheengatu language, which is also known as the general Amazonian language, is a challenge that for us permeated reflections on a Nheengatu literary system that encompasses between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in which it took part in the Brazilian modernist movement, and which would not be as clear or in the process of being formed with an encounter with literature in the Nhengatu language between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The problematic of our translation activity goes through this issue with the feet of considering the Nheengatu language and its community of current speakers and in search of proximity to speech, we consider poetry. In this effort, we held translation workshops in an effort to work together with linguists, literati, native poets, and elders to translate poetry.