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Indigenous Languages in Brazil
A criterion used to distinguish indigenous groups in Brazil is a linguistic one. There are five major linguistic families: Tupi - Guarani, Je/Ge, Aruak, Karib and Pano present in about 180 spoken indigenous languages.
One can easily imagine the richness these languages represent in terms of customs, technological skills, aesthetic attitudes and worldviews. Perhaps more difficult to imagine is the fact that Brazil is still one of the few countries left where "isolated". sometimes called "autonomous" or "autochthonous" groups exist. There are some 55 groups resisting, often heroically, any contact with the expansionist process of national society by fleeing hiding themselves in the inaccessible regions of Amazonia.