Brazilian Portuguese

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Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR as language code, português brasileiro or português do Brasil in Portuguese) is a group of dialects of Portuguese written and spoken by virtually all the 184 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a couple of million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan, and Paraguay.

The differences between European Portuguese and standard Brazilian Portuguese are comparable to those one might find when comparing British and American English. The Brazilian formal written standard, which is defined by law and international agreements with other Portuguese-speaking countries, is actually very similar to the European one; but there are nevertheless many differences in spelling, lexicon, and grammar. European and Brazilian writers also have markedly different preferences when choosing between supposedly equivalent words or constructs.

Nevertheless, the cultural prestige and strong government support accorded to the written standard has maintained the unity of the language over the whole of Brazil and ensured that all regional varieties remain fully intelligible. Starting in the 1960s, the nationwide dominance of TV networks based in the southeast (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) has made the dialects of that region into an unofficial standard for the spoken language as well.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Portuguese legacy

The existence of Portuguese in Brazil is a legacy of Portuguese colonization of the Americas. The first wave of Portuguese-speaking immigrants settled in Brazil in the 16th century, yet the language was not widely used then. For a time Portuguese coexisted with Língua Geral, a lingua franca based on Amerindian languages that was used by the Jesuit missionaries; as well as with various African languages spoken by the hundreds of thousands of slaves brought to the country between the 17th and 19th centuries.

By the end of the 18th century, however, Portuguese had affirmed itself as the national language. Under the Marquis of Pombal administration, Brazil started to use only Portuguese, for he prohibited the use of Nhengatu, or Lingua Franca.

The aborted colonization attempts by the French in Rio de Janeiro in the 16th century and the Dutch in the Northeast in the 17th century had negligible effect on Portuguese. Even the substantial non-Portuguese-speaking immigration waves of the late 19th and early 20th century — mostly from Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, and Lebanon — were linguistically integrated into the Portuguese-speaking majority within a couple of generations, except for some areas of the three southern states (in the case of Germans and Italians) and rural corners of São Paulo (Japanese).

[edit] Influences from other languages

The evolution of Brazilian Portuguese has certainly been influenced by the languages it supplanted: first the Amerindian tongues of the natives, then the various African languages brought by the slaves, and finally the speeches of the European and Asian immigrants. The influence is clearly detected in the Brazilian lexicon, which today is full of words of Tupi-guarani and Yoruba origin, among others.

From South America, words deriving from the Tupi-Guarani family of languages are particularly prevalent in place names (Itaquaquecetuba, Pindamonhangaba, Caruaru, Ipanema). The native languages contributed the names for most of the plants and animals found in Brazil, such as arara ("macaw"), jacaré ("South American alligator"), tucano ("toucan"), mandioca ("manioc"), pipoca ("popcorn"), abacaxi ("pineapple"), and many more. Many of these words entered the Brazilian Portuguese lexicon in the 16th century, and some of them were eventually borrowed by European Portuguese and later even into other European languages.

The African languages provided many words too, especially related to food, such as quindim, acarajé, moqueca; and household concepts, such as cafuné ("caress on the head"), curinga ("joker card"), and caçula ("youngest child"). Capoeira, marimba, and samba are also African (Bantu) words borrowed by Brazilian Portuguese that gained popularity, and these were also gained by European Portuguese and English.

There are also many borrowings from other European languages such as English (especially words connected to technology and finance), French (food, furniture, and luxurious fabrics and concepts), German and Italian, and, to a lesser extent, Asian languages such as Japanese. The latter borrowings are also mostly related to food and drinks or culture-bound concepts, such as ‘’quimono’’, from Japanese kimono.

The influence of these languages in the phonology and grammar of Brazilian Portuguese have been minor. Also, it is claimed that the virtual disappearance of certain verb inflections in Brazil, such as the past pluperfect and second person plural, and the Brazilian's marked preference for compound tenses, recall the grammatical simplification that is observed in the formation of pidgins.[citation needed] However, the same or similar processes can be verified in the European variant. Regardless of these borrowings, it must be kept in mind that Brazilian Portuguese is not a Portuguese creole, since both grammar and vocabulary remain real Portuguese.

[edit] Written and spoken languages

The written language taught in Brazilian schools has historically been based on the standard of Portugal, and Portuguese writers have often been regarded as models by Brazilian authors and teachers. Nonetheless, this closeness and aspiration to unity was in the 20th century severely weakened by nationalist movements in literature and the arts, which awakened in many Brazilians the desire of a true national writing uninfluenced by standards in Portugal. Later on, agreements were made as to preserve at least the orthographical unity throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, including the African and Asian variants of the language (which are typically more similar to EP, due to a portuguese presence lasting into the end of the 20th century).

On the other hand, the spoken language suffered none of the constraints that applied to the written language. Brazilians, when concerned with pronunciation, look up to what is considered the national standard variety, and never the European one. Moreover, Brazilians in general have had very little exposure to European speech, even after the advent of radio, TV, and movies. The language spoken in Brazil has evolved largely independently of that spoken in Portugal.

[edit] Formal writing

The written Brazilian standard differs from the European one to about the same extent that written American English differs from written British English. The differences extend to spelling, lexicon, and grammar. Several Brazilian writers were awarded with the highest prize of the Portuguese language. The Camões Prize awarded annually by Portuguese and Brazilians is often regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in Literature for works in Portuguese.

João Cabral de Melo Neto, Rachel de Queiroz, Jorge Amado, Antonio Candido, Autran Dourado, Rubem Fonseca and Lygia Fagundes Telles are Brazilian writers recognized for writing the most outstanding work in the Portuguese language.

[edit] Spelling differences

Further information: Spelling reforms of Portuguese

The Brazilian spellings of certain words differ from those used in Portugal and the other Portuguese-speaking countries. Some of these differences are merely orthographic, but others reflect true differences in pronunciation.

A major subset of the differences relates to words with c and p followed by c, ç, or t. In many cases, the letters c or p have become silent in all varieties of Portuguese, a common phonetic change in Romance languages (cf. Spanish objeto, French objet). Accordingly, they stopped being written down in BP, but are still written in other countries. For example, we have EP acção / BP ação ("action"), EP óptimo / BP ótimo ("optimum"), and so on, where the consonant is silent both in BP and EP, but the words are spelled differently. Only in a small number of words is the consonant silent in Brazil and pronounced elsewhere or vice versa, as in the case of BP fato, but EP facto.

However, BP has retained those silent consonants in a few cases, such as detectar ("to detect"). In particular, BP generally distinguishes in sound and writing between secção ("section" as in anatomy or drafting) and seção ("section" of an organization); whereas EP uses secção for both senses.

Another major set of differences is the BP usage of ô or ê in many words where EP has ó or é, such as BP neurônio / EP neurónio ("neuron") and BP arsênio / EP arsénico ("arsenic"). These spelling differences are due to genuinely different pronunciations. In EP, the vowels e and o may be open (é or ó) or closed (ê or ô) when they are stressed before one of the nasal consonants m, n followed by a vowel, but in BP they are always closed in this environment. The variant spellings are necessary in those cases because the general Portuguese spelling rules mandate a stress diacritic in those words, and the Portuguese diacritics also encode vowel quality.

Another source of variation is the spelling of the [ʒ] sound before e and i. By Portuguese spelling rules, that sound can be written either as j (favored in BP for certain words) or g (favored in EP). Thus, for example, we have BP berinjela / EP beringela ("eggplant").

[edit] Formal versus informal registers

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The linguistic situation of Brazil can be described as one of diglossia, the intimate coexistence of two varieties or "registers" of the language — formal and informal — which are used simultaneously, mixed in continuously varying proportions depending on the speaker and occasion. While diglossia inevitably develops in every literate society, it is much more striking in Brazil than in English or in European Portuguese.

The formal register of Brazilian Portuguese has a written and spoken form. The written formal register (FW) is used in almost all printed media and written communication, is uniform throughout the country, and is the "Portuguese" officially taught at school. The spoken formal register (FS) is basically a phonetic rendering of the written form; it is used only in very formal situations like speeches or ceremonies, by educated people who wish to stress their education, or when reading directly out of a text. While FS is necessarily uniform in lexicon and grammar, it shows noticeable regional variations in pronunciation. Finally the informal register (IS) is almost never written down (basically only in artistic works or very informal contexts such as adolescent chat rooms). It is used to some extent in virtually all oral communication outside of those formal contexts — even by well educated speakers — and shows considerable regional variations in pronunciation, lexicon, and even grammar.

For example, consider the following sample of formal written Portuguese (FW), as it would be written by a secretary, and its formal spoken version (FS) in the São Paulo dialect and semi-literal English translation (EN):

EN: "We need to inform everybody that there won't be power in the elevators."
FW: Precisamos informar a todos que faltará energia nos elevadores.
FS: [presi'zɐ̃muz infor'mar a 'todus ki falta'ra ener'ʒia 'nus eleva'doris]

Here is how the same person could deliver the same message orally, in informal spoken register (IS):

IS (as it would be written): (A gente) tem que falar pra todo mundo que vai faltar luz nos elevador.
IS (IPA): [a 'ʒentʃi 'tẽĩ ki fa'la pra 'todu 'mũdu ki vai fal'ta luz nus eleva'dor]
EN: "(The people) have to tell 'all the world' that there is not gonna be light in the elevators."

This example shows that FS and IS can differ in

lexicon: precisamos ("we need to")→ temos que ("we have to"), informar ("to inform")→ falar ("to talk") - in IS there won't be a big difference between "falar" (talk/speak) and "dizer" (say). energia ("energy")→ luz ("light")
change of grammatical person: temos (verb "ter" conjugated in the first person plural) → (a gente) tem (the expression "a gente" (lit. "the people"), in this case omitted, replaces the pronoun "nós" (we) in IS; also, the verb shall be conjugated in the singular (which in general causes confusion among uneducated speakers)
choice of verbal form: faltará → vai faltar (the form "ir" (go) + infinitive is used in IS rather than the simple future);
contractions: para os → pros ("for the");
loss of final -r: [fa'lar] → [fa'la].
use of singular nouns (instead of plural nouns) after plural articles: "os elevador".
  • Change of existential verb: há → tem (both can be transalated as "there is/are", but the second one uses the verb "ter"(have)in a sense of existence, whereas it is not possible in the in FW);

This example is somewhat extreme and hypothetical: the speech of most people will be some mixture of the informal (IS) and formal (FS) spoken registers, the proportions varying according to the speaker's education and the situation. Thus, for example, the same person may deliver something close to the FS version when speaking in a TV interview. The adjustment is largely unconscious, and it is not unusual to hear informal and formal constructs mixed in the same speech, or even in the same sentence. As is usually the case in diglossic communities, an educated person who has to write down a spoken text (e.g. a secretary taking dictation) will unconsciously translate IS into FW, and back again when delivering the message in person.

[edit] Lexicon

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The vocabularies of Brazilian and European Portuguese also differ in a couple of thousand words, many of which refer to concepts that were introduced separately in BP and EP.

Since Brazilian independence in 1822, BP has tended to borrow words from English and French. However, BP generally adopts foreign words with minimal adjustments, while EP tends to apply deeper morphological changes. However, there are instances of BP transliterating English words, whereas EP retains the original form - hence estoque and stock. Finally, one dialect often borrowed a word while the other coined a new one from native elements. So one has, for example

BP mouse ← English "mouse" versus EP rato ← literal translation of "mouse" in Portugal, but means "rat" in Brazil
BP esporte (alternatives: desporto, desporte) ← English "sport" versus EP desporto ← Spanish deporte
BP jaqueta ← English "jacket" versus EP blusão ← EP blusa ← French blouse
BP concreto ← English "concrete" versus EP betão ← French beton
BP grampeador ("stapler") ← grampo ← German Krampe versus EP agrafador ← agrafo ← French agrafe.

A few other examples are given in the following table:

Brazil Portugal English
abridor de latas abre-latas can opener
aeromoça hospedeira flight stewardess
água-viva alforreca jellyfish
AIDS SIDA (Síndrome de Imuno-Deficiência Adquirida) AIDS
alho poró alho-porro leek
aquarela aguarela watercolor
aterrissagem aterragem landing
banheiro, toalete, lavabo, sanitário casa de banho, lavabos, sanitários bathroom
bonde eléctrico streetcar (US), tram (UK)
freio, breque travão, freio brake
brócolis brócolos broccoli
café da manhã pequeno almoço breakfast
caminhonete, van, perua (obsolete) camioneta station wagon (US), estate car (UK)
câncer cancro cancer (the disease)
carona boleia ride, hitchhiking
carteira de habilitação, carteira de motorista carta de condução driver's license (US), driving licence (UK)
carteira de identidade bilhete de identidade ID card
telefone celular (or simply "celular") telemóvel cell phone (US), mobile phone (UK)
canadense canadiano Canadian
caqui dióspiro persimmon
Cingapura Singapura Singapore
dublagem dobragem dubbing
durex, fita adesiva fita gomada, fita-cola, fita adesiva Scotch Tape
Band-Aid penso rápido plaster (UK), band-aid (US)
time, equipe equipa, equipe team
favela bairro de lata slum, shanty-town
ferrovia caminho de ferro, ferrovia railway
fila bicha, fila line (US), queue (UK)
fones de ouvido auscultadores, auriculares headphones
gol golo goal (in sports)
grama relva grass (lawn)
Irã Irão Iran
Islã Islão Islam
israelense, israelita israelita Israeli
maiô fato de banho woman's swimsuit
mamadeira biberão, biberon baby bottle
metrô metro, metropolitano underground, subway (US), tube (UK)
Moscou Moscovo Moscow
ônibus autocarro bus
polonês polaco Polish
rúgbi, rugby râguebi, rugby rugby
secretária eletrônica atendedor de chamadas (telephone) answering machine
tcheco checo Czech
trem comboio train

Some of the words shown in only one column (like comboio, atendedor de chamadas, and mamadeira) do exist in the other dialect, but are rarely used.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Syntactic and morphological features

[edit] Progressive

Portuguese makes extensive use of verbs in the progressive aspect, almost as in English.

BP seldom has the present continuous construct estar a + infinitive, which, in contrast, has become quite common in EP. In BP, the present continuous must be expressed by estar + gerund. Thus Brazilians will always write ela está dançando ("she is dancing"), never ela está a dançar. The same restriction applies to several other uses of the gerund: BP always writes ficamos conversando ("we keep on talking") and ele trabalha cantando ("he sings while he works"), never ficamos a conversar and ele trabalha a cantar as is the case in most varieties of EP.

It must be noted, however, that BP retains the combination a + infinitive for uses that are not related to continued action, such as voltamos a correr ("we went back to running"), and that some dialects of EP (namely from Alentejo) will also tend to use estar + gerund in the same way as Brazilians.

[edit] Ter instead of haver

In a few compound verb tenses, BP uses the auxiliary ter (originally "to hold", "to own"), where EP would normally use haver ("to have, shall / will"). In particular, the EP construction há de cantar ("he will sing" or "he shall sing") is hardly ever used in BP. BP also uses ter in existential sense, whereas EP would use haver, hence "não tem dinheiro" ("it has no money") in addition to "não há dinheiro" ("there is no money").

[edit] Personal pronouns

Main article: Portuguese personal pronouns

In some Brazilian regions, informal spoken BP has a particular construction, 2nd person singular personal pronoun (tu) + verb in 3rd person singular (ele), used to express a possible future situation (like a conditional situation - "Tu vai cair se não se segurar direito" - You going to fall down if you don't hold on tight) or to ask somebody to do something ("Tu me dá esse livro?" - Would you give me this book?). Formal BP seldom uses the personal pronoun "tu" (except in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul due to Spanish influence), using the pronoun "você" instead. In most regions, the use of "você" is hegemonic, both informally and in formal writing.

[edit] Syntax

Brazilians normally place the object pronoun before the verb (proclitic position), as in ele me viu ("he saw me"). In many such cases, the proclisis would be considered awkward or even grammatically incorrect in EP, in which the pronoun is generally placed after the verb (enclitic position), namely ele viu-me. However, formal BP still follows EP in avoiding starting a sentence with a proclitic pronoun; so both will write Deram-lhe o livro ("They gave him/her the book") instead of Lhe deram o livro., though it will seldom be spoken in BP (but would be understood).

[edit] Contracted forms

Even in the most formal contexts, BP never uses the contracted combinations of direct and indirect object pronouns which are sometimes used in EP, such as me + o = mo, lhe + as = lhas. Instead, the indirect clitic is replaced by preposition + strong pronoun: thus BP writes ela o deu para mim ("she gave it to me") instead of EP ela deu-mo; the latter may well not be understood by Brazilians without formal training in grammar.

[edit] Mesoclisis

The mesoclitic placement of pronouns (between the verb stem and its inflection suffix) is viewed as archaic in BP, and therefore is restricted to very formal situations or stylistic texts. Hence the phrase Eu dar-lhe-ia, still current in EP, would be normally written Eu lhe daria in BP. Incidentally, a marked fondness for enclitic and mesoclitic pronouns was one of the many memorable eccentricities of former Brazilian President Jânio Quadros, as in his famous quote Bebo-o porque é líquido, se fosse sólido comê-lo-ia ("I drink it [liquor] because it is liquid, if it were solid I would eat it")

[edit] Reflexive verbs

Brazilian Portuguese often treats as intransitive certain verbs that in EP are reflexive, and therefore would require a reflexive weak pronoun. Thus, for example, BP would often say ele lembra ("he remembers") instead of ele se lembra, or eu deito "I lie down" instead of eu me deito. An exception to the rule may be the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where such verbs are often used as reflexive, possibly because of influence from Spanish as spoken in neighboring Argentina and Uruguay. Note that in European Portuguese the examples above would be ele lembra-se and eu deito-me.

[edit] Preferences

There are many differences between formal written BP and EP that are simply a matter of different preferences between two alternative words or constructions that are both officially valid and acceptable.

[edit] Simple versus compound tenses

A few synthetic tenses are usually replaced by compound tenses, such as in:

future indicative: eu cantarei (simple), eu vou cantar (compound, "ir"+infinitive)
conditional: eu cantaria (simple), eu iria/ia cantar (compound, "ir"+infinitive)
past perfect: eu cantara (simple), eu tinha cantado (compound, "ter"+past participle)"

Also, spoken BP usually uses the verb ter ("own", "have", sense of possession) and rarely haver ("have", sense of existence, or "there to be"), especially as an auxiliary (as it can be seen above) and as a verb of existence.

written: ele havia/tinha cantado (he had sung)
spoken: ele tinha cantado
written: ele podia haver/ter dito (he might have said)
spoken: ele podia ter dito

[edit] BP/EP differences in the formal spoken language

[edit] Phonology

In many ways, compared to European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is conservative in its phonology. This also occurs in Angolan Portuguese, São Tomean Portuguese, and other African dialects.

[edit] Vowels

Brazilians generally pronounce vowels more openly than Europeans. In the syllables that follow the stressed one, BP generally pronounces o as [u], a as [ɐ], and e as [i]. Some dialects of BP also follow these rules for vowels before the stressed syllable. In contrast, EP elides some unstressed vowels, or reduces them to a very short, near central unrounded vowel [ɨ], a sound that does not exist in BP. Thus, for example, the word setembro is [seˈtẽbɾu] in BP but [s(ɨ)ˈtẽbɾu] in EP.

[edit] Consonants

One of the most noticeable tendencies of BP is the palatalization of /d/ and /t/ in some regions, which are pronounced as [dʒ] and [tʃ], respectively, before /i/. The word presidente "president", for example, is pronounced [pɾeziˈdẽtʃi] in these regions of Brazil, but [pɾɨziˈdẽt(ɨ)] in Portugal. This pronunciation began in Rio de Janeiro and is often still associated with this city, but is now standard in other major cities such as Belo Horizonte and Salvador, and has spread more recently to some regions of São Paulo (due to the migrants from other regions), where it is common in most speakers under 40 or so. It has always been standard among Brazil's Japanese community, since this is also a feature of Japanese.

BP tends to break up clusters where the first sound is not /r/, /l/, or /s/ by the insertion of /i/ (although clusters ending in /l/ or /r/ are allowed, as are /ks/ and sometimes /kt/), and similarly to eliminate words ending with consonants other than /r/, /l/, or /s/ by the addition of /i/. Syllable-final /l/ is pronounced [u], and syllable-final /r/ is weakened in most regions to [χ] or [h] or dropped (especially at the ends of words). This sometimes results in rather striking transformations of common words. The brand name "MacDonald's", for example, is rendered [mɛ̝kiˈdõnawdʒis], and the word "rock" is rendered as [ˈhɔki]. (Initial /r/ and doubled 'r' are pronounced in BP as [h], as with syllable-final [r].) Combined with the fact that /n/ and /m/ are already disallowed at the end of syllables in Portuguese (being replaced with nasalization on the previous vowel), this makes BP have a phonology that strongly favors open syllables.

Nasalization is much stronger in BP than EP. This is especially noticeable in vowels before /n/ or /m/ followed by a vowel, which are pronounced in BP with nasalization as strong as in phonemically nasalized vowels, while in EP they are nearly without nasalization. For the same reason, open vowels (which are disallowed under nasalization in Portuguese in general) cannot occur before /n/ or /m/ in BP, but can in EP. This sometimes affects the spelling of words. For example, EP, harmónico "harmonic" [ɐɾˈmɔniku] is BP harmônico [aɦˈmõniku]. It also can affect verbal paradigms—for example, EP distinguishes falamos "we speak" [fɐˈlɐmuʃ] from 'falámos' [fɐˈlamuʃ] "we spoke", but BP has falamos [faˈlɐ̃mus] for both. An important exception to this is the country's largest city, São Paulo, where, due to the influence of Italian, nasalization of stressed vowels before a nasal consonant does not occur. Thus, the word homens 'men' is pronounced with an open, non-nasal 'o' in São Paulo, as opposed to the close, nasal 'o' to be heard in the rest of Brazil. This is relevant since São Paulo is a major media hub, and this open pronunciation is thus used on nationally-broadcast TV shows.

Related to this is the difference in pronunciation of the consonant written nh. This is [ɲ] in EP but [̃j̃] in BP, a nasalized /j/, which nasalizes the preceding vowel[citation needed].

BP did not participate in many sound changes that later affected EP, particularly in the realm of consonants. In BP, /b/, /d/, and /g/ are stops in all positions, while they are weakened to fricatives [β], [ð], and [ɣ] in EP. Many dialects of BP maintain syllable-final [s] and [z] as such, while EP consistently converts them to [ʃ] and [ʒ]. Whether such a change happens in BP is highly dialect-specific. Rio de Janeiro is particularly known for such a pronunciation; São Paulo and most Southern dialects are particularly known for not having it. Elsewhere, such as in the Northeast, it is more likely to happen before a consonant than word-finally, and varies from region to region.

Another change in EP that does not occur in BP is the lowering of /e/ to [ɐ] before palatal sounds ([ʃ], [ʒ], [ɲ] [ʎ] and [j]) and in the diphthong em /ẽĩ/, which merges with the diphthong ãe /ɐ̃ĩ/ in EP but not BP.

An interesting change that is in the process of spreading in BP, probably originating in the Northeast, is the insertion of [j] after stressed vowels before /s/ at the end of a syllable. This began in the context of /a/—for example, mas "but" is now pronounced [majs] in most of Brazil, making it homophonous with mais "more". The change is spreading to other vowels, however, and at least in the Northeast the normal pronunciations of voz "voice" and Jesus are [vojs] and [ʒeˈzujs]. Similarly, três "three" becomes [tɾejs], making it rhyme with seis "six" [sejs]; this may explain the common Brazilian replacement of seis with meia ("half", as in "half a dozen") when spelling out phone numbers.[1]

[edit] BP/EP differences in the informal spoken language

There are various differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese, such as the dropping of the second person in everyday usage and use of subject pronouns (ele, ela, eles, elas) as direct objects. Portuguese people can understand Brazilian Portuguese well. However, some Brazilians find European Portuguese difficult to understand at first. This is mainly due to the fact that European Portuguese tends to compress words to a greater extent than in Brazil -- for example, tending to drop unstressed /e/ -- and to introduce greater allophonic modifications of various sounds.

[edit] Grammar

Spoken Brazilian usage differs considerably from European usage in many aspects. Between Brazilian Portuguese, particularly in its most informal varieties, and European Portuguese, there can be considerable differences in grammar as well. The most prominent ones concern the placement of clitic pronouns and use of subject pronouns as objects in the third person. Nonstandard inflections are also common in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese.

[edit] Affirmation and negation

Spoken Brazilian Portuguese rarely uses the affirmation adverb sim 'yes' in isolation. Instead the verbal form é 'is' is preferred, or the verb used in question:

EP:
—Já foste à câmara municipal?
—Sim, fui ontem.
BP:
—Você já foi na prefeitura?
—É, fui ontem.

or

—Você já foi na prefeitura?
—Fui.
"Have you gone to the City Hall yet?"
"Yes, I went there yesterday."

It is common in spoken BP to negate statements twice, with não 'no' at the beginning and end of the sentence:

BP:
—Você fala inglês?
—Não falo não.
"Do you speak English?"
"I don't speak [it], no."

In some regions, the first "não" of a "não...não" pair is pronounced as [num].

In some places, however, like Northeastern Brazil, the first of these two não's is being viewed as redundant, resulting in a word order for negation opposite to the one still prevailing in European Portuguese:

EP:
—Você fala inglês?
—Não falo.
BP (Northeastern variant):
—Você fala inglês?
—Falo não.
"Do you speak English?"
"No, I don't."

[edit] Imperative

Classical Portuguese inflected the imperative according to the grammatical person of the subject (the being who is ordered to do the action). Thus one should use different inflections when that subject is treated as tu ("you", grammatical 2nd person) or você ("you", grammatical 3rd person):

Tu és burro, cala a boca!
Você é burro, cale a boca!
"You are stupid, shut up!"

Currently, many dialects of BP have largely lost the 2nd person subjects, but the same dialects might still use the 2nd person imperative, even with você:

BP: Você é burro, cale a boca! OR
BP: Você é burro, cala a boca! (in this case, sometimes people join "cala" + "a" + "boca", resulting in você é burro, calaboca in Brazilian Informal Speech.)

Moreover, BP speakers rarely use the subjunctive for the Negative Imperative; instead they will employ the Imperative inflexion. This never occurs in EP, except for some jocular contexts or when scolding or giving incisive orders to a child. Note that 3rd person subjunctive verb forms are nevertheless frequently used in Brazil, both as Negative and Positive Imperatives, in written signs and public announcements (e.g. Não jogue papel na grama; Não fume, Dê a descarga após usar a privada), or in (printed, Internet, TV, or radio) advertising (e.g. Pague um e leve três, Emagreça dez quilos dormindo). The subjunctive form of the verb "ser" (seja) is also always used to form the Imperative, even in informal spoken language (e.g. Seja um bom menino; não seja bobo, garoto!).

[edit] Deictics

EP demonstrative adjectives and pronouns and their corresponding adverbs have three forms corresponding to different degrees of proximity.

Este 'this (one)' [near the speaker]
Esse 'that (one)' [near the addressee]
Aquele 'that (one)' [away from speaker and addressee]

In spoken BP, the first two of these adjectives/pronouns have merged into the second:

Esse 'this (one)' [near the speaker] / 'that (one)' [near the addressee]
Aquele 'that (one)' [away from both]

Example:

Esta é a minha camisola nova. (EP)
Essa é minha camiseta nova. (BP)
This is my new T-shirt.

[edit] Personal pronouns and possessives

See also: Portuguese personal pronouns

[edit] Tu and você

In most dialects of BP, 'você' (formal "you" in EP) replaces tu (informal "you" in EP). The object pronoun, however, is still te [tʃi], and other forms such as teu (possessive), ti (postprepositional), and contigo ("with you") may still remain in some regions of Brazil, especially when tu is still used. Hence, the combination of object te with subject você, for example, eu te disse para você ir "I told you that you should go". The imperative forms, however, look like the EP second-person forms, although it is argued by some that it is the third-person singular indicative which doubles as the imperative.

The forms ti/tu and contigo are replaced by você and com você. Either você (following the verb) or te (preceding the verb) can be used as object pronoun: Hence a speaker may end up saying "I love you" in two ways: Eu amo você and/or Eu te amo.

In the South (Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, parts of Paraná) and the cities of Santos (in São Paulo), and Recife (in Pernambuco), the distinction between semiformal você and familiar tu is still maintained; object and possessive pronouns pattern likewise. In Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, for instance, você is almost never used in spoken language - o senhor/a senhora is employed whenever tu may sound too informal[citation needed]. In Rio de Janeiro, parts of the Northeast (interior of some northeastern states and some speakers from the coast), and the North, both tu and você (and associated object and possessive pronouns) are used with no difference, but você is more common. Most Brazilians who use tu use it with the 3rd person verb: Tu vai ao banco.. Tu accompanied by the second-person verb can still be found in Maranhão, Piauí, and Santa Catarina, for instance, and in a few cities in Rio Grande do Sul near the border with Uruguay, with a slightly different pronunciation in some conjugations (tu vieste pronounced tu viesse), which also is present in Santa Catarina and Pernambuco. In Pará, tu is used more often than você, and always accompanied by the second-person.

In Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, the use of “tu” in print and conversation nowadays is practically nonexistent; “você” is used instead.

[edit] Third-person direct object pronouns

In spoken informal registers of BP, the third-person object pronouns 'o', 'a', 'os', and 'as', common in EP, are virtually nonexistent -- they are simply left out, or (when necessary, and usually only when referring to people) replaced by stressed subject pronouns (e.g., ele "he" or isso "that"); for example, Eu vi ele "I saw him" rather than Eu o vi.

[edit] Seu and Dele

Standard BP tends to use the third-person possessive 'seu' to mean "your" and uses 'dele', 'dela', 'deles', and 'delas' ("of him/her/them" and placed after the noun) as third-person possessive forms. In situations, however, where no ambiguity arises (especially in narrative texts), 'seu' may be used as well to mean 'his' or 'her' (e.g. O candidato apresentou ontem o seu plano de governo para os próximos quatro anos).

It must be noted, though, that both forms ('seu' or 'dele(s) /dela(s)') are considered grammatically correct in EP and BP.

[edit] Definite article before a possessive

In EP, a definite article normally accompanies a possessive when it comes before a noun: este é o meu gato 'this is my cat'. Notheastern BP dialects drop the definite article and leave the possessive alone: esse é meu gato. In Southeastern speech, especially in the standard dialects of the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the definite article is normally used as in Portugal. Formal written BP tends however to omit the definite article in accordance with prescriptive grammar rules derived from classical Portuguese.

[edit] Syntax

Some of the examples on the right side of the table below are colloquial or regional in Brazil. Literal translations are provided, to illustrate how the word order changes between varieties.

European Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese
(formal)		 Brazilian Portuguese
(colloquial)
placement of
clitic pronouns		 Eu amo-te.

"I love you."

 Eu te amo.

"I you love."
Responde-me! (tu)

"Answer me!" (you)

 Responda-me! (você)

"Me answer!" (you)

 Me responde! (você)1

"Me answer!" (you)
use of personal
pronouns		 Eu vi-a.

"I saw her."

 Eu a vi.

"I her saw."

 Eu vi ela.

"I saw she."

The word order in the first Brazilian example is actually frequent in European Portuguese, too, for example in subordinate clauses like Sabes que eu te amo "You know that I love you", but not in simple sentences like "I love you." But in Portugal an object pronoun would never be placed at the start of a sentence, like in the second example. The example in the bottom row of the table, with its deletion of "redundant" inflections, would be considered ungrammatical by most educated urban middle-class speakers of BP, but it is nonetheless widely heard in Brazil, especially in certain regional dialects like caipira and mineiro.

[edit] Use of prepositions

Just as in the case of English, where the various dialects sometimes use different prepositions with the same verbs or nouns (stand in/on line, in/on the street), BP usage sometimes requires prepositions that would not be normally used in EP in the same context.

[edit] Chamar de

The verb chamar 'call' is normally used with the preposition de in BP, especially when it means 'to describe someone as':

Chamei ele de ladrão. (BP)
Chamei-o ladrão. (EP)
I called him a thief.

[edit] Em with verbs of movement

When describing movement toward a place, EP uses the preposition a with the verb, while BP uses em (contracted with an article if necessary):

Fui na praça. (BP)
Fui à praça. (EP)
I went to the square. [temporarily]

In both EP and BP, the preposition para can also be used with such verbs, though with a different meaning:

Fui para a praça. (BP, EP)
I went to the square. [definitively]

[edit] Diglossia

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According to some contemporary Brazilian linguists (Bortoni, Kato, Mattos e Silva, Perini and most recently, with great impact, Bagno), Brazilian Portuguese may be a highly diglossic language. This theory claims that there is an L-variant (termed "Brazilian Vernacular"), which would be the mother tongue of all Brazilians, and an H-variant (standard Brazilian Portuguese) acquired through schooling. L-variant represents a simplified form of the language (in terms of grammar, but not of phonetics) that could have evolved from 16th century Portuguese, influenced by Amerindian (mostly Tupi) and African languages, while H-variant would be based on 19th century European Portuguese (and very similar to Standard European Portuguese, with only minor differences in spelling and grammar usage). Mário A. Perini, a Brazilian linguist, even compares the depth of the differences between L- and H- variants of Brazilian Portuguese with those between Standard Spanish and Standard Portuguese. However, his proposal is not widely accepted by either grammarians or academics.

[edit] Usage

From this point of view, the L-variant is the spoken form of Brazilian Portuguese, which should be avoided only in very formal speech (court interrogation, political debate) while the H-variant is the written form of Brazilian Portuguese, avoided only in informal writing (such as songs lyrics, love letters, intimate friends correspondence). Even language professors many times use the L-variant while explaining students the structure and usage of the H-variant; in essays, nevertheless, all students are expected to use H-variant.

While the L-variant may used in songs, movies, soap operas, sitcoms and other television shows, although, at times, the H-variant is used in historic films or soap operas to make the language used sound more ‘elegant’ and/or ‘archaic’. There is a claim that the H-variant used to be preferred when dubbing foreign films and series into Brazilian Portuguese[citation needed], but nowadays the L-variant is preferred, although this seems to lack evidence. Movie subtitles normally use a mixture of L- and H-variants, but remain closer to the H-variant.

Most literary works are written in the H-variant. There would have been attempts at writing in the L-variant (such as the masterpiece Macunaíma, written by Brazilian modernist Mário de Andrade and Grande Sertão: Veredas, by João Guimarães Rosa), but, presently, the L-variant is claimed to be used only in dialogue. Still, many contemporary writers like using the H-variant even in informal dialogue. This is also true of translated books, which never use the L-variant, only the H one. Children's books seem to be more L-friendly, but, again, if they are translated from another language (The Little Prince, for instance) they will use the H-variant only.[citation needed]

[edit] Prestige

This theory also posits that the matter of diglossia in Brazil is further complicated by forces of political and cultural bias, though those are not clearly named. Language has been made, apparently, into a tool of social exclusion or social choice.

Mário A. Perini, a famous Brazilian linguist, has said:

"There are two languages in Brazil. The one we write (and which is called "Portuguese"), and another one that we speak (which is so despised that there is not a name to call it). The latter is the mother tongue of Brazilians, the former has to be learned in school, and a majority of population does not manage to master it appropriately.... Personally, I do not object to us writing Portuguese, but I think it is important to make clear that Portuguese is (at least in Brazil) only a written language. Our mother tongue is not Portuguese, but Brazilian Vernacular. This is not a slogan, nor a political statement, it is simply recognition of a fact.... There are linguistic teams working hard in order to give the full description of the structure of the Vernacular. So, there are hopes, that within some years, we will have appropriate grammars of our mother tongue, the language that has been ignored, denied and despised for such a long time."

According to Milton M. Azevedo (Brazilian linguist):

"The relationship between Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese and the formal prescriptive variety fulfills the basic conditions of Ferguson's definition [of diglossia]...[...] Considering the difficulty encountered by vernacular speakers to acquire the standard, an understanding of those relationships appears to have broad educational significance. The teaching of Portuguese has traditionally meant imparting a prescriptive formal standard based on a literary register (Cunha 1985: 24) that is often at variance with the language with which students are familiar. As in a diglossic situation, vernacular speakers must learn to read and write in a dialect they neither speak nor fully understand, a circumstance that may have a bearing on the high dropout rate in elementary schools..."

According to Bagno (1999) the two variants coexist and intermingle quite seamlessly, but their status is not clear-cut. Brazilian Vernacular is still frowned upon by most grammarians and language teachers, with only remarkably few linguists championing its cause. Some of this minority, of which Bagno is an example, appeal to their readers by their ideas that grammarians would be detractors of the termed Brazilian Vernacular, by naming it a "corrupt" form of the "pure" standard, an attitude which they classify as "linguistic prejudice". Their arguments include the postulate that the Vernacular form simplifies some of the intricacies of standard Portuguese (verbal conjugation, pronoun handling, plural forms, etc.).

Bagno accuses the prejudice against the vernacular in what he terms the "8 Myths":

  1. There is a striking uniformity in Brazilian Portuguese
  2. Nearly all Brazilians speak very poor Portuguese while in Portugal people speak it very well
  3. Portuguese is extremely difficult
  4. People that have had poor education can't speak anything correctly
  5. In the state of Maranhão people speak a better Portuguese than elsewhere in Brazil
  6. We should speak as closely as possible to the written language
  7. The knowledge of grammar is essential to the correct and proper use of a language
  8. To master Standard Portuguese is the path to social promotion

In opposition to the "myths", Bagno counters that:

  1. The uniformity of Brazilian Portuguese is just about what linguistics predicts for such a large country whose population has not generally been literate for centuries and which has experienced considerable foreign influence, that is, this uniformity is more apparent than real.
  2. Brazilians speak Standard Portuguese poorly because, in fact, they speak a language that is sufficiently different from SP so that the latter sounds almost "foreign" to them. In terms of comparison, it is easier for many Brazilians to understand someone from a Spanish-speaking South American country than someone from Portugal because the spoken varieties of Portuguese on either side of the Atlantic have diverged to point of nearly being mutually unintelligible.
  3. No language is difficult for those who speak it. Difficulty appears when two conditions are met: the standard language diverges from the vernacular and a speaker of the vernacular tries to learn the standard version. This divergence is the precise reason why spelling and grammar reforms happen every now and then.
  4. People with less education can speak the vernacular or often several varieties of the vernacular, and they speak it well. They might, however, have trouble in speaking SP, but this is due to lack of experience rather than to any inherent deficiency in their linguistic mastery.
  5. The people of Maranhão are not generally better than fellow Brazilians from other states in speaking SP, especially because that state is one of the poorest and has one of the lowest literacy rates.
  6. It is the written language that must reflect the spoken and not vice versa: it is not the tail that wags the dog.
  7. The knowledge of grammar is intuitive for those who speak their native languages. Problems arise when they begin to study the grammar of a foreign language.
  8. Rich and influential people themselves often do not follow the grammatical rules of SP. SP is mostly a jewel for powerless middle-class careers (journalists, teachers, writers, actors, etc.).

Whether Bagno's points are valid or not is still open to debate (especially the solutions he recommends for the problems he identifies). Whereas some agree that he has captured the feelings of the Brazilians towards their own linguistic situation well, his book (Linguistic Prejudice: What it Is, How To Do) has been heavily criticized by some linguists and grammarians, due to his daring and unorthodox claims, sometimes even regarded as based on biased or unproven claims.

[edit] Impact

The cultural influence of Brazilian Portuguese in the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world has greatly increased in the last decades of the 20th century, due to the popularity of Brazilian music and Brazilian soap operas. Since Brazil joined Mercosul, the South American free trade zone, Portuguese has been increasingly studied as a second language in Spanish-speaking partner countries.

Many words of Brazilian origin (also used in other Portuguese-speaking countries) have also entered into English: samba, bossa nova, cruzeiro, milreis, capoeira, and especially marimba. While originally Angolan, the words "capoeira" and "samba" only became famous worldwide because of their popularity in Brazil.

After independence in 1822, Brazilian idioms with African and Amerindian influences were brought to Portugal by returning Portuguese-Brazilians (luso-brasileiros in Portuguese) [and some Amerindian Brazilians (índio-brasileiros in Portuguese), Afro-Brazilians (afro-brasileiros in Portuguese), mulatos, and cafuzos (known as zambos in English-speaking countries)], who brought rich culture mixed with African and Native American elements[citation needed].

[edit] pt-BR

pt-BR is a language code for the Brazilian Portuguese, defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag).

[edit] See also

[edit] Regional dialects

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, p. 1882

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

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