Tupinizando

Tupinizando (lit. 'Tupinizing') is a Brazilian social media page dedicated to the promotion of the Old Tupi language, as well as related subjects. Created by student Mateus Oliveira, it had over 195,000 followers on Instagram being also available on YouTube and TikTok.

History
Tupinizando was created by then-philosophy student Mateus Oliveira, from Nazaré Paulista, São Paulo, and of a family originating from the northeast of Brazil with indigenous ancestry. According to Oliveira, the decision to start studying Old Tupi—a now dead language —occurred in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was completing high school. The student considered studying languages such as Mandarin or Italian, but chose one of the more than two hundred native languages of Brazil as a way to affirm his ancestry. The page was created on Instagram to share Oliveira's discoveries during the study of the language; he states that, since he began his studies, he has found out "Brazilians speak Tupi all day without knowing it".

"Tupi is to us, for the formation of the Brazilian people, what Latin is to European civilization, or Greek. So, I think Tupi is our classical indigenous language. It is the language that shaped our national identity in the early centuries, through the General Languages, which were much more spoken than Portuguese, at least two centuries ago in our history."

Oliveira notes that materials for studying Old Tupi are difficult to access, although this has been facilitated through the Internet, highlighting the work of the Brazilian philologist Eduardo de Almeida Navarro, author of the book .

Page and content
Through Tupinizando, Mateus Oliveira provides content related to the origins of words and grammar lessons, such as verb conjugation or the use of adjectives. The page was created on Instagram, being also available on YouTube and TikTok. Tupinizando had over 195,000 followers on Instagram, and its most viewed video had been watched by over 250,000 people—in it, Oliveira informed the meanings of the names of five Brazilian states originating from Old Tupi.