Talk:Brazilian Portuguese

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[edit] Brazilian Portuguese is not wrong, it's only archaic

Brazilian Portuguese, as many Portuguese think, is not wrong, but rather archaic, or at least nearer to archaic Portuguese. The pronunciation and some phrasal constructions are quite close to the archaic Portuguese, spoken in the XVI/XVII century. There are those who say that Brazilian Portuguese is wild, but sweet. Wild and sweet at the same time. (Há quem diga que o Português do Brasil é selvagem, mas doce. Selvagem e doce ao mesmo tempo.)


  • If it was archaic and the pronunciation closer to archaic Portuguese spoken in XVI/XVII century you would not be pronouncing many vowels, just like the Portuguese do at least since the times of Galician-Portuguese.
  • Notice how many vowels are missing in the written texts:

Século XIII

Mandad' ei comigo, ca ven meu amigo: e irei, madr' , a Vigo. Comigu' ei mmandado, ca ven meu amado: e irei, madr' , a Vigo. Ca ven meu amigo e ven san' e vivo: e irei, madr' , a Vigo. Ca ven meu amado e ven viv' e sano: e irei, madr' , a Vigo. Ca ven san' e vivo e d' el-rei, amigo: e irei, madr' , a Vigo. Ca ven viv' e sano e d' el-rei privado: e irei, madr' , a Vigo.

[Martim Codax ]

Século XVI

Que, se m'ele defendera ca seu filho não amasse, e lh'eu nam obedecera, entam com rezam podera dar m'a morte qu'ordenasse; mas vendo que nenhú'hora, dês que naci até'gora, nunca nisso me falou, quando se disto lembrou, foi-se pola porta fora

[Garcia de Resende]

Século XV-XVI

AMA: E que falas tu lá só? MOÇA: Falo cá co'esta cama. AMA: E essa cama, bem, que há? Mostra-m'essa roca cá: siquer fiarei um fio. Leixou-me aquele fastio sem ceitil.


AMA: Ha ah ah ah ah ah!

Est'era bem graciosa, quem se vê moça e fermosa esperar pola irá má. Hi se vai ele a pescar meia légua polo mar, isto bem o sabes tu, quanto mais a Calecu: quem há tanto d'esperar? Melhor, Senhor, sê tu comigo. À hora de minha morte, qu'eu faça tão peca sorte. Guarde-me Deus de tal p'rigo. O certo é dar a prazer. Pera que é envelhecer esperando polo vento? Quant'eu por mui necia sento a que o contrário fizer.

[Gil Vicente]


Wrong. These vowels are missing not because that was the way Portuguese people pronounced those words, but simply because this is a piece of poetry, and for the sake of metrics some of the vowels could be "merged". The same thing happens in Italian, French and German poetry.

And, BTW, many of these pronunciations found in Gil Vicente's works CAN be found in Brazilian Portuguese, such as "quant'eu" and "co'esta". 201.81.190.154 18:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original Research

Okay, I've added an Original Research tag.

I've never read any of this anywhere else and, what a shocker, this article has no sources whatsoever. (Coincidence? I don't think so.)

In my humble opinion, people are pulling this out of their asses... and, by the looks of it, they're no brazilians (nor linguists, for that matter), otherwise it would not be so heavily implied that grammatical errors this grave are condoned (instead of condemned, which it's the actual case) in Brazil.

In addition to that, they took the lowest common vernacular denominator for representing the "average" brazilian dialect... well, like describing an "average dialect" for a country as big and diverse as Brazil wouldn't be over-simplificating enough, they had to have taken the lowest common denominator... that's like saying cockney is Standard British English and "hillbilly southern" is Standard American English.

People, don't pull things out of your asses. I wouldn't even mind this article not being written by actual brazilians (which is CLEARLY the case) if you at least get some source backing this up (other then then your asses ;-)).

My humble sugestion is getting a real linguist (brazilian or otherwise, as long as this subject matter is in his area of expertise) to rewrite this and turn it into a real article.

(My criticism is directed at the "lexicon" section onwards)

[edit] Miscellaneous discussion

Actual doesn't mean atual, dammit. To Portuguese it can be translated as "real", "verdadeiro", but never as atual/actual, ie. "current".

Comment by Pedrovsk: You're partly wrong though. "actual"(used in European Portuguese)and "atual"(used in Brazilian Portuguese) are both translated to "current" in English. However when "actual" is used in English it does mean "real", "true"(verdadeiro).

I think Portuguese people should not edit Brazilian Portuguese page because they do not respect our language, they consider our language usage incorrect and want to impose they colonial language on us, afresh. Please back off. Que pena amor, cai fora!!!

It would be out of the question to say British people should not edit something about American English! I'm Portuguese and I love Brazilian Portuguese (which is also my language, just as European Portuguese is also Brazilian's language - the language is the same) and I do not feel Brazilian Portuguese variants are wrong. They are correct, just like color is correct in U.S.A. Brazilians and Portuguese people all speak the same language and this divisiveness from both sides only weakens both countries. Marco Neves 05:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Just a remark regarind colonial usage: Brazilians retained most forms used when Portuguese people arrived at Brazil. Colonial usages are those used in Brazil. European Portuguese underwent many changes during 19th century. Brazilian Portuguese is more conservative, linguistically speaking and Camões would understand better a Brazilian than a Portuguese (again, just like American English, where spoken language is closer to Shakespeare's than British English).


  • If Camões could understand a Brazilian better than a Portuguese is a very interesting question. Camões in his writings does not write all the vowels skipping them as it happens in the spoken European Portuguese.


Luis de Camões

Vós que, d'olhos suaves e serenos,

com justa causa a vida cativais,

e que os outros cuidados condenais

por indevidos, baixos e pequenos;

se ainda do Amor domésticos venenos

nunca provastes, quero que saibais

que é tanto mais o amor despois que amais, quanto são mais as causas de ser menos.

E não cuide ninguém que algum defeito,

quando na cousa amada s'apresenta,

possa deminuir o amor perfeito;

antes o dobra mais; e se atormenta,

pouco e pouco o desculpa o brando peito;

que Amor com seus contrairos s'acrescenta.


êI believe this article is extremely biased and inaccurate. We should stick to describing the particularities of the dialect, rather than just saying that the French linguists are wrong and putting words in the mouth of all Brazilians. Just as there are different articles for the English language dialects (eg British English, Australian English), we could have different articles for Portuguese. Discussing whether Brazilian Portuguese should be considered a different language or not would be out of the scope of this article. vbs


  • I agree the article is biased and inaccurate, but for somewhat different reasons. Back when I was a student in the United States, I used to interact almost on a daily basis with native speakers of European Portuguese and I never had any problem understanding them (I'm Brazilian BTW). Now that I am back in Brazil, I sometimes watch RTP International or SIC (i.e. Portuguese TV) on cable and also have no major problem understanding it. It is true that unstressed vowels, particularly "e" and to a lesser extent "a", are pronounced quite differently in Brazil and in Portugal, but for educated Brazilians at least, I don't think that has ever been an obstacle to mutual intelligibility. In fact, it is probably more difficult for me to understand someone with a thick "caipira" or "nordestino" accent than it is to understand someone from Lisbon. Keep in mind that I say so even though my ethnic background is only marginally Portuguese: my father's family is mixed Italian and Spaniard; my mother's family is partially of "recent" Portuguese origin (arriving in Brazil in the early 20th century) and partially "old Brazilian" (tracing its roots in Brazil back to the 17th century).

I respectfully disagree. Brazilian Portuguese is really widely called simply Brésilien in the Francophonie, and regarded as a separate language; while Brazilians do laugh at the notion.

French people also say "Americain". That doesn't mean they think English is not a unified language.Marco Neves 05:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I've NPOV it. That about the French lunguists its obviously false, But I dont doubt that some French said that. Obviously that is not encyclopedic. I've eard many things in life. I'll add more info soon. I'll put more different lexicon. And I'll talk about what else is different between the two writing forms. Brazilians dont laugh at European Portuguese, they normally get excited because they eard it. And laught in the front of TV, but not because its odd, because they are very curious about it. I think leandro is reading a Xenophobic site on the internet writen in English about Portugal. Cheers Pedro 22:16, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

i tried to make the article a bit more neutral. both rio and sao paulo dialects are seen merely as regional dialects and do not actually have higher status in brazil, so i deleted that claim. i also made use of some interesting points that were previously added by 195.29.131.90 but which were as expected reverted by PedroPVZ (funnily enough, he took quite a while and had already made unrelated edits before deciding to revert these points claiming "vandalism"). Vbs 10:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Determining whether "paulistano" (not "paulista") or "carioca" have indeed a higher social status or not is quite tricky. Traditionally, sociolinguistics tend to identify the high-prestige dialects with those that are most often heard on TV, particularly newscasts. If that is the criterion, then "paulistano" and "carioca" have indeed higher status as they are the varieties of Brazilian Portuguese that dominate all major national TV news programs, most of which BTW are broadcast from either São Paulo or Rio. Incidentally, when visiting Fortaleza, it struck me that the local TV news anchors do not speak with a "nordestino"/"cearense" accent, but use instead some form of neutral accent closer to "paulistano". That seems to be similar to what happens (or used to happen at least) in the southern United States where local TV news also uses a neutral, sort of general/midwestern American English, as opposed to the more characteristic southern American English dialect.

i hadn't actually read the recent changes of the whole article but now that i did I AM TOTALLY SHOCKED!!

  • "standard: Eu vou convosco (I'm going with you) Vernacular (Brazil): Eu vou com vocês Vernacular (Northern Portugal): Eu vou com vós"

PedroPVZ, you shouldn't even try to write about things you know nothing about!! that sentence is plain absurd, not even THE MOST PURIST brazilian would claim "Eu vou convosco" to be standard brazilian portuguese!!! you will only find that kind of thing IN THE BIBLE at best!! vernacular??!!! smell the coffee PedroPVZ! Vbs 08:53, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • On top of what has already been said, "Eu vou com vocês" is standard Portuguese, accepted as correct by any school grammar. "Eu vou convosco" is on the other hand considered wrong, unless you address the people you are talking to by "vós". The use of 2nd person plural forms like "vosso" or "convosco" with "vocês" and the corresponding 3rd person verb forms is a non-standard characteristic of modern vernacular European Portuguese. Broadly speaking, the "vocês/vosso" combination in Portugal is somewhat analogous to the use in Brazil (e.g. in Rio and in the city of São Paulo) of "você" with "te" ("contigo" or "teu" with "você" is somewhat more rare in Brazil, but it is still heard, particularly in Rio). BTW, as someone said, "vós", "vosso", "convosco", in southeastern Brazil at least, are found only in the Bible and heard only in the Catholic mass. In the Northeast, I know that "vosso" is sometimes used in formal address (I've heard some Northeastern politicians use it occasionally).

[edit] portuguese domination on wikipedia

discussions about the biases in this article and in the "Portuguese Language" article have been going on recently here and previously here.

PedroPVZ, you shouldn't insist on making claims about things you don't know about!! "band" is one of the 5 NATIONAL channels, the MOST IMPORTANT ones (less important are the various regional channels, MTV for example, is a regional channel in Brazil) and it's not a small channel at all!! my own claim that "Most Portuguese movies and soap operas are only broadcast in Brazil after being subtitled or dubbed" is even a euphemism! the only portuguese soap operas ever broadcast in brazil were on band channel and they were all dubbed, and almost no portuguese stuff at all is broadcast in brazil! i have never known of anything else besides the soup operas on band. i only put "Most" because it's simply impossible to be 100% sure of everything that's on television. for instance, there is one channel called "cultura" (although not very popular is one of my favorites), which is a culture and education driven channel (as the name suggests). cultura is well known for the practice of broadcasting movies or even documentaries without dubbing (as opposed to all the other national channels which dub everything), and if a portuguese movie happened to be broadcast in that channel, it would probably only be subtitled. so theoretically it would be possible that a movie could be broadcast without being dubbed. the claim that rio de janeiro is the standard is simply wrong! you don't seem to notice that as brazil is such a huge country, claiming rio's dialect is the standard, is quite similar to claiming that british english is the standard and american english isn't. it just doesn't work like that!! PedroPVZ obviously likes to claim BP to be based on the rio de janeiro dialect because he wants to take advantage of the fact that rio's esses ("s") are pronounced like the portuguese esses (ie "sh"), and so claim more similarities between BP and EP. Vbs 12:05, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

I think the info on this article should be moved to an article that deals with the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese as a whole. It's pretty clear there's much more info here than it pertains BP alone. – Kaonashi 22:37, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

i agree. people might be interested in brazilian portuguese but might have no knowledge or interest whatsoever in european portuguese, so this article would be no good for them. actually, that article about the differences used to exist but was moved here. the talk pages related to the previous names that the article had still exist here and here. i think if moved it should be called "Differences between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese". as it has been shown in previous discussions, the uses of the terms "dialect" and "variety" are far from universally agreed (some people even get offended with one or the other) and therefore should be avoided as much as possible. they are simply not needed, anyway. although someone might do, most people wouldn't say "American English dialect" nor "American English variety". most people would just say "American English" and that also goes for "British English", etc. just have a look at the wikipedia articles related to the english language and you'll see what i mean. but i do think we should have an article about brazilian portuguese, and that would probably have to be a completely brand new one. and the article should be about brazilian portuguese AS IT IS, not how certain people WANT it to be. Vbs 08:45, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Contrary to what you wrote above, both Quebec French and Rioplatense Spanish are referred to in their respective Wikipedia articles as "dialects". American English on the other hand is referred to as the "distinct form" of the English language spoken in the United States. Personally, I have no objection to Brazilian Portuguese being called e.g. "the distinct variety of the Portuguese language used in Brazil". I would object however to the use of the reference "the dialect of Portuguese spoken in Brazil" not because I consider the word "dialect" pejorative, but rather because Brazilian Portuguese is actually a collection of several dialects ("paulistano", "carioca", "nordestino", "caipira", etc...).

I would like to make a few remarks:

1) The use of the gerund to indicate the progressive tenses (e.g. "eu estou escrevendo") is NOT gramatically incorrect. Quite the contrary, the gerund was the standard form used for the progressive tenses in classical Portuguese. Likewise, both medieval and classical Portuguese favored the placement of clitics before the verb (like BTW French and Spanish), in line with the current Brazilian standard.

2) The use in (southeastern) Brazil of "te"/"teu" with "você" is analogous to the use in Portugal of the possessive pronoun "vosso" with "vocês". In other words, if one labels the Brazilian "você/te" combination as gramatically "incorrect", by the same token, the same label must apply to European Portuguese use of the combination "vocês/vosso".

3) Other "gramatically incorrect" features of spoken European Portuguese include: (a) the improper use of the pronoun "si" in situations where "você" would be required in the standard language (e.g. "Esse presente é para si" instead of "Esse presente é para você"); and (b) the improper replacement of conditional verb forms with the imperfect (e.g. "Gostava de saber ..." instead of "Gostaria de saber..."). Note that, in the case (a), "si" can only be used in standard written Portuguese as a reflexive pronoun, e.g. "Joana guardou para si os biscoitos que a sua mãe preparara". "Si" CANNOT be used however to refer to someone other than the subject of the sentence.

I've just completed a major rewriting of much of this article. This article was obviously written by someone from Portugal, and much of the info was irrelevant, biased, out-of-date or wrong. This is what I've done:

  • Fix a lot of unidiomatic English.
  • Remove lots of redundant stuff.
  • Rewrite the section on pronunciation.
  • Remove references to things being "grammatically incorrect".
  • Remove stuff specific to EP. I've stuck this on a new EP page, which needs work.
  • Correct things I know to be incorrect.
  • Add various other differences I've noticed between EP and BP.

I am not a native Brazilian, so I'd welcome one of them to go over and make sure what I've said is correct.

Benwing 02:58, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, it can be done. But, we are unable to achieve an agreement with Portugal, for quite a lot of time. And, we can't agree with ourselves, over the standards of our own language. In my (I'll be truthful) not so humble opinion, this article will never satisfy either Portugal, or Brazil. I am a native Brazilian, from the south. And, as the article said, we're biased on our own interpretation of the language. Even if the "Carioca" accent does sound more like European portuguese. We are in a big country, without resources to go abroad. Our only standards for our language, are what we learn at school, something not all can do. Other than school, there's television. And, definitely, it does not help. For, even in "erudite" programs, you'll still hear grammatically incorrectness. My point is that, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese are very close to being different languages. That's just a personal opinion, not a call for anything to be done about it. It's just that, I feel that sometimes Spanish is easier to understand than Portuguese from Lisboa. Frmoraes 02:02, 30 Oct 2007 (UTC)

Dear Frmoraes, I understand that this is your personal opinion, but I think that the sentence "I feel that sometimes Spanish is easier to understand than Portuguese from Lisboa" shows that you have never been to Portugal. Believe me, I am Brazilian and I have been in Portugal and had no problem understanding people after a little time. In contrast, any Brazilian without training in Spanish will be completely lost in any Spanish-speaking country. To say that "Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese are very close to being different languages" is also widely off the mark. Just try to read Fernando Pessoa or Eça de Queiróz and tell me if it is as difficult as reading Garcia Márquez in Spanish. My feeling is that Brazilian people, for some reason, love to over-emphasise the differences between BP and EP. Fsouza 19:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First wave of immigrants

The first wave of Portuguese-speaking immigrants was settled in Brazil in the 15th Century

I corrected that to 16th Century. Brazil was only reached in the last year of the 15th Century (1500) and, even then, as I understand, Portugal only started settlement/colonization efforts in the 1530s.

Sorry about the confusion on the edits; my first edit mistakenly subtracted, not added, 1 from the century, and I even entered the wrong description for the edit.

About the pronunciation of rock/hockey: they do NOT sound the same in BP. Rock, spelled like the english word, ends abruptly (?) (róqui). Hockey, however, has been transformed to portuguese (aportuguesado) hóquei and ends smoothly (? too).

To that point, I'd say some usual Brazilian Portuguese pronunciations of rock and hóquei (hockey) would be, respectively, /ˈɦɔki/ and /ˈɦɔkeɪ/ (or, sometimes, simply /ˈɔkeɪ/) AbelChiaro 11:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "However, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are as inteligible as different national dialects of the same language should be."

This statement is silly and should not be in the article. vogensen 14.44 15 December 2005

  • Having waited a reasonable period of time for a correction I proceeded to cut the above. If you disagree please state your case as I wouldn't want to offend anyone. Maybe the statement can be worked on to improve it. rvogensen 9.19 16 December 2005
  • I agree with the removal for the mere fact that it is not true. Unlike other dialect differences (like US/UK English, Spain/Latin America Castellano), Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are not inteligible, specially when it comes to slang, but not exclusively. One example of this is that, although many Brazilian soap operas ("telenovelas") are broadcast in Portuguese TV stations "as is", Portuguese soap operas are dubbed to Brazilian Portuguese (e.g. Morangos com Açúcar). In fact, there is a commonly known story of a Portuguese talk show that Globo started broadcasting live, with a Portuguese host, and the network got lots of phone calls complaining about "broadcasting programs in foreign languages without either dubbing or subtitles". Muukalainen 12:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Québécois movies are also frequently subtitled on French TV. Yet, very few people in Québec or France would claim Québécois French and standard (Parisian) French are separate languages. A Brazilian Portuguese speaker may indeed have some trouble understanding certain European Portuguese dialects, just like American English speakers occasionally have a hard time understanding Scottish, Irish, or even working-class (European) English accents. That doesn't mean though that US and UK English or, for that matter, Brazilian and European Portuguese are not mutually intelligible. BTW, in case you have access to European Portuguese channels on satellite TV, I suggest you spend some time watching Portuguese newscasts, talk shows and soap operas. If you do so (as I did), you will realize that, like any educated Brazilian, you might occasionally miss one or two words, but, in general, you will perfectly understand what is being said. Moreover, you will notice that, contrary to popular belief, most of the vocabulary and grammar used on Portuguese TV is actually identical to what you would hear in educated colloquial BP, except of course for the second-person singular verb forms (which are not a major barrier to intelligibility anyway). In fact, I would say intelligibility between BP and EP is probably higher than mutual intelligibility among, let's say, different dialects of German or Dutch (Netherlandic) spoken in the same country. Mbruno 00:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Portuguese from Portugal, and Portuguese from Brazil, are quite alien. Your own argument draws a point I will take. If, the difference from PB to EB (Portuguese from Brazil, compared to European Portuguese) can be compared from the differences from Scottish, or Welsh, from English. You'll lose your point. These languages are quite unintelligible, from any speaker's point of view. A similar thing is happening, in the past four centuries, with BP and EP. As a matter of fact, sometimes is easier to understand Spanish, than Portuguese from Portugal. We're alienating the two languages, slowly, through the centuries. Our culture now, holds very little common ground. We've estranged ourselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frmoraes (talk • contribs) 02:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The differences between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are comparable to those one might find when comparing British and American English.

What the hell?--- I know more Brazilians who can understand Argentinians speaking Spanish than Brazilians who can actually communicate with our mates from Portugal... Shouldn't this kind of statement be backed up with a reference? --200.232.138.40 (talk) 19:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Maranhão having most correct Portuguese"

I took the liberty of editing the sentences that said in rather poor English that in Maranhão people spoke the most correct Portuguese. This has no scientific basis and is more a statement of popular myth than anything else. In linguistics there is no "more" correct way of speaking for a native speaker. That is a belief held in the classroom or by our social peers. In modern linguistics the speech of the caboclo in Minas or Goiás is just as "correct" as the speech of the President--which coincidentally or not in Brazil's case has many similarities (no offense intended) rvogensen 9:11 16 December 2005

[edit] Examples of Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese

The sentences below might be of interest to illustrate the most significant differences in grammar between (educated) colloquial Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and standard European Portuguese (EP) or standard written BP.

1) "Eu vi ele na praia ontem" vs Standard EP "Vi-o na praia ontem." or Standard (written) BP: "Eu o vi na praia ontem."

2) "Me dá um copo d'água" vs Standard BP/EP "Dá-me (Dê-me) um copo d'água".

3) "Não fala assim comigo, amor. O que eu fiz prá te magoar ?"

vs Standard EP "Não fales assim comigo, amor. O que fiz para magoar-te ? "

or modern standard BP "Não fale assim comigo, amor. O que eu fiz para magoar você/magoá-la ?"

4) "Não precisa ter ciúmes de mim, amor. Você sabe que eu te amo."

vs Standard EP "Não precisas ter ciúmes de mim, amor. Sabes que te amo (amo-te)."

or modern standard BP "Não precisa ter ciúmes de mim, amor. Você sabe que eu amo você/eu a amo. "

5) "Você achou o anel que te dei no Natal ? "

vs Standard EP: " Achaste o anel que te dei no Natal ?" or also standard BP " (Você) Achou o anel que lhe dei no Natal ?"

6) "Você vai me devolver o dinheiro ou vou ter que te denunciar para a polícia ?"

vs Standard written BP: "Você vai me devolver o dinheiro ou terei que denunciá-lo para a polícia ?"

or Colloquial EP: "Vais devolver-me o dinheiro ou vou ter (terei) que denunciar-te para a polícia ?"

or Standard EP: "Vai devolver-me o dinheiro ou terei que o denunciar para a polícia ?"

7) "Assisti o jogo ontem. " vs Standard BP/EP "Assisti ao jogo ontem".

8) "Crianças que não obedecem os pais não ganham presentes no Natal."

vs Standard BP/ EP "Crianças que não obedecem aos pais não ganham presentes no Natal".

9) "Ganhei um cãozinho novo e chamei ele de Phido."

vs Standard EP "Ganhei um cãozinho (?) novo e chamei-o Phido."

10) "Tem sempre muitos turistas no Rio no carnaval."

vs Standard EP/written BP "Há sempre muitos turistas no Rio no carnaval."

11) "Cheguei cansado em São Paulo depois de nove horas de vôo."

vs Standard EP/written BP "Cheguei cansado a São Paulo depois de nove horas de voo (vôo)."

Remark: The use of the object pronoun "te" in combination with the subject pronoun "você" is most common in Rio de Janeiro (and, to a lesser extent, in the city of São Paulo) and probably reflects residual European Portuguese influence. Elsewhere, e.g. in the São Paulo countryside or in the state of Minas Gerais, "você" is preferred over "te" as an object pronoun, e.g.,

"Não fale assim comigo, amor. O que eu fiz para magoar você ?"

BTW, the sentence above is now considered "correct" by most Brazilian school grammars, whereas "Não fale assim comigo, amor. O que eu fiz para te magoar ?" would be condemned by prescriptive grammar because of the "fale (3rd person)/te (2nd person)" combination. Needless to say, the "new" second person informal Brazilian imperative ("não fala assim comigo, amor"), although very common in speech at least in the Southeast, is universally rejected as incorrect by all school grammars.

  • Maybe due to the influence of TV soap operas ("telenovelas"), most of which feature "carioca" speech, it seems though that "te" is becoming increasingly more widespread in Brazil. Accordingly, the unusual "você/te" combination is often taught in "Brazilian Portuguese" classes in the US, although, ironically, it is not accepted yet by Brazilian school grammars.
    • It is interesting to note that unusual pronoun combinations also occur in other languages/dialects besides BP. For example, colloquial European Portuguese has the "vocês (subj.)/vosso (poss.)" combination (e.g. "Façam vossos pedidos" instead of standard "Façam os seus pedidos"). Rioplatense Spanish on the other hand features the combination of the archaic (2nd person sing.) subject pronoun "vos" and its corresponding nonstandard verb forms (e.g. "perdés" for "pierdes" or "amás" for "amas") with the standard Spanish (2nd person sing.) object pronoun "te". On the other hand, whereas BP uses standard subject pronouns (e.g. "ele"/"ela") as object pronouns, colloquial American English on the contrary seems to do the opposite (albeit in a much smaller scale), i.e. American speakers may occasionally use object pronouns as subjects, e.g. "Me and my girl went to the movies yesterday." (vs Standard English "My girl and I went to the movies yesterday."). Colloquial English also features the frequent use of object pronouns as predicates (e.g. "That's me" instead of "That's I").
      • My favorite example is standard Afrikaans where "ons", which is normally an object pronoun in Dutch (like "us" in English or "uns" in German), has been also standardized as a subject pronoun replacing Dutch "wij/we", e.g. "Ons is boere", literally "Us is farmers", or "We are farmers" (cf German "Wir sind Bauern" and Dutch "Wij zijn boeren"). Note though that standard Afrikaans still retains some vestiges of case distinctions in pronouns, e.g. "ek(subj)/my(obj)", "hy(subj)/hom(obj)/sy(poss/reflex)", or "sy(subj)/haar(obj)".

[edit] BP Phonology Question

I believe it is not quite correct to say that "BP maintains the five vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ fairly consistently in pre-stressed positions". My impression is that, at least in southeastern Brazil, pre-stressed "e" and "o" are frequently raised, respectively to /i/ and /u/, when the stressed syllable contains a high vowel, e.g. "menino" is often pronounced /mininu/, "dormir" sounds like /durmix/, and "bonito" is pronounced /bunitu/. In fact, many Brazilians actually misspell certain 3rd conjugation verbs (e.g. "cubriu" instead of "cobriu"), precisely because of the way they pronounce them.

I'm not quite sure what you mean "pre-stressed positions", but some Brazilians do pronounce all the vowels, mainly in Rio Grande do Sul, possibly due to the influence of Spanish speakers. The pronounce "bunitu", "cumer" (instead of "comer"), etc is more frequent in Sao Paulo, located in the southeastern region.

Alvaug, 2/6/2005


[edit] Use of Tenses (Conditional)

The claim in the article that the conditional is rare in spoken BP and is often replaced by the imperfect is not quite correct either. In fact, I tend to think the opposite is true. Brazilian speakers always say e.g. "Gostaria de saber quem quebrou o meu vaso" whereas an European speaker in the same circumstances would say "Gostava de saber". In fact, I can't remember any example from the top of my head where the conditional is ordinarily replaced by the imperfect in colloquial middle-class Rio/São Paulo speech. People would normally say for example "Acho que a situação seria bem diferente se o Serra tivesse sido eleito no lugar do Lula", or "Acho que não faria diferença já que todos os políticos são iguais". The only major exceptions I can think of are the verbs "querer" and "dever" whose imperfect forms, respectively "queria" and "devia", have effectively replaced the corresponding conditional forms "quereria" and "deveria" in the spoken language, e.g. "Devia ser assim, mas não é." I suggest that the statement in the main article about the demise of the conditional in spoken BP be either deleted or corrected.

  • As a matter of fact, the imperfect may be (and sometimes is) used as a conditional not only in spoken BP, but also in the standard literary language, both in Brazil and in Portugal. However, the semantic value of the imperfect when used as a conditional, at least in the literary language, differs from that of the standard conditional. As explained by Celso Cunha in his Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo, the standard conditional is used in the literary language to denote a probable consequence of a fact or action that did not occur, whereas the imperfect, when replacing the conditional, denotes an immediate and certain consequence. I am inclined to think that is also true in the spoken language. For example, in the sentence Minha mãe me disse que, se eu quisesse uma bicicleta, ela comprava para mim, it is implied that, if the speaker told his mother that he wanted to get a bicycle, she would for sure and right away buy him one. If he had used the verb form "compraria" instead of "comprava", the implication would have been that his mother may or may not have bought him a bicycle. Note also in the sentence above (which I actually heard yesterday), the curious null object in the last sentence ("ela comprava para mim" instead of "ela a comprava para mim" cf English "she would buy it/one for me"). Null objects are quite common in spoken BP and, I guess, in EP as well, and are considered a very peculiar feature of Portuguese syntax when compared to other closely related languages like Spanish.



[edit] Brazilian/Portuguese

I think it's wrong to say "Brazilians have some difficulty in understanding European Portuguese"...

wouldn't it be more correct and also more neutral to say "Some Brazilians may find it hard to understand "European Portuguese"? Besides there are many local accents in Portugal, to which accent are we referring to specifically.. standard? ...

Pedro

  • I have been told that some native speakers of American English also find it difficult to understand British English, so the statement about Brazilians struggling with EP doesn't come as a surprise to me. Having said that, in addition to a different phonology and differences in vocabulary, mutual intelligibility between BP and EP is further complicated IMHO by the relative isolation between the two languages. In the English-speaking world, there are much closer ties between, let's say England and the United States, than between Brazil and Portugal. Although Brits are probably more frequently exposed to American English than vice-versa, Americans are nevertheless familiar with British movies, music and TV shows, and several British actors appear in American-made motion pictures. By contrast, except for the compulsory reading of a few major Portuguese authors in High School, ordinary Brazilians have little or no exposure at all to authentic samples of European Portuguese. In the past, let's say 30 or 50 years ago, there was still a large number of Portuguese immigrants in Brazil (especially in Rio de Janeiro and, to a lesser extent, in São Paulo) and, therefore, Portuguese accents were comparatively heard more often in major Brazilian cities. Nowadays though, with the end of immigration, except for the small expatriate community of business men, there are very EP speakers in Brazil. A few Portuguese TV channels (like RTPi and, more recently, SIC International) are available in Brazil on cable or satellite TV, but I doubt they are widely watched (not least because paid TV is not widespread in Brazil yet); Portuguese cinema, on the other hand, is virtually never shown in Brazil.

-- I do agree with you but I find some incorrections in your speech. SOme Portuguese actors are now featuring in some rede Globo brazilian soap operas, where they're allowed to keep their accent (maybe in a softer form). Indeed, Portuguese cinema isn't very well-known , not just in Brazil... nor is any other cinema in Brazil other than Brazilian and American. However, film festivals in Brazil usually always have one or two POrtuguese films in exhibition (last years' Gramado for instance featured Portuguese film "Kiss me", by Antonio da Cunha Telles). SOmetimes they're subtitled, sometimes they aren't... Last years' São Paulo film Festival featured all the cinematographic work of Manoel de Oliveira, for instance (a tribute to him). The films had no subtitles. etc.


Pedro

Well, some Brazilians have some difficulty in understanding other Brazilians either. This country is huge and I'm afraid there's not something like "standard BP". People of the Northeast talk in a much different way from people of the South. If everybody understands "carioca" pronounciation (devoided of some exagerations) and "paulista" pronounciation this is mainly due to TV. I've been traveling around this country and sometimes I have the feeling I'm somewhere else.

Alvaug, 2/6/2006


Please, someone correct the grammer section, because its all wrong. In Brazil, you'd be regarded as a hill-billy if you said "Eu vi ela". I take that as offensive. No one in Brazil says that, unless their illiterate. Nor do people say "As moça voltou ontem", the correct phrase being "As mocas voltaram ontem" (the same in EP for both phrases). -K May 26 '06

If one were labeled a "hill-billy" for saying "Eu vi ela", then literally everybody in Brazil would be hill-billies considering that 99 % of the population of the country, including medical doctors and university professors, say "Eu vi ela" in colloquial speech. In fact, saying "Eu a vi" instead of "Eu vi ela" would probably sound "bookish" and pedantic in Brazil. I agree however that sentences like "As moça voltou ontem" occur only in uneducated regional dialects (like caipira) and would be considered ungrammatical by most urban middle-class speakers. 201.52.32.9 17:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong examples of colloquial pronunciation

I have edited an example of colloquial Brazilian Portuguese in the paragraph 'Formal and Informal Registers', but it is so badly made that I would suggest that it is removed altogether. It was obviously written by a person who has no familiarity with Brazilian Portuguese usage; no self-respecting dean of any university in Brazil would mispronounce o reitor for "o reitô" or as aulas for "as aula". These are mistakes made only in very localised and class-related speech, and often ridicularized by more educated Brazilians; as the article is it seems as if the person who wrote the article is a non-Brazilian Portuguese speaker who "obtained" his example from some uneducated character in a Brazilian soap (and assumed that all Brazilians therefore spoke like that in informal situations.) Lenineleal 16:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, I have good first-hand evidence — and from more than one dean. I may have got the IPA wrong in many places (I am no linguist), but one does not stop using the informal register just because one becomes a dean. The supression of redundant plurals and loss of final -r are indeed features of the local informal dialect. People sometimes make fun of it (['vo ke're un 'ʃopis i 'dois pas'tɛw] is the standard example sentence), but still speak it none the less.
But it is a universal aspect of diglossia that people are not aware of it, and strenusly deny that they speak anything other than the formal register. And yes, command of the formal register is a badge of status, that is why people try to use it in formal situations. But even then one often hears slips like a gente somos.
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 03:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not saying that all deans speak perfect Portuguese, but still I think your example was a pretty bad one. And I don't understand why you completely removed the re-working I had done of it, which in my view sounded much more truthful to colloquial educated Brazilian Portuguese. What you wrote sound as if it is being spoken by a construction worker, not someone who has attended university. Therefore I am reverting it to my version. Greetings, Lenineleal 15:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
There is no such thing as "colloquial educated Brazilian Portuguese". What we learn at school is the formal language, and that is what educated people are supposed to use in formal speeches to show that they are educated. Colloquial Portuguese is what people speak in the streets, and that does not depend on education level. It does depend a lot on the region, so for example the informal speech of people in big cities is usually closer to the formal speech (but not by much!) than that of people from smaller towns.
The fact that you added a written Portuguese transcript to the informal speech shows that you are still thinking of a formal register, only with less sophisticatd words. That is not what " informal register" means. The informal register is never written. If you hear someone say ['dois pas'tɛw] and ask him to write down what he just said, he will write dois pastéis, and swear that he said just that.
As for that being the speech of construction workers, well, unfortunately they are Brazilians too, so their language is Brazilian Portuguese. Otherwise, doesn't it seem a little bizarre to say that 90% of the Brazilians are unable to speak Brazilian Portuguese their supposedly "native" language, and that the other 10% only learn it at school, and use it only 1% of the time?
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 17:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


Of course there is "colloquial educated Brazilian Portuguese". Or do you consider that a Dean of an University in São Paulo speaks in the same way, no matter how informal the situation, as a beggar in a slum of Macapá? Colloquial Portuguese is not only what people "speak in the streets", but is a broad category comprising the Portuguese every Brazilian speaks, whether "in the streets" or inside mansions in Morumbi. Therefore to try to come up with a perfect example of spoken Colloquial Portuguese that can be applied to everyone as your example first intended to do is virtually unfeasible.
Obviously I agree that the construction worker is a Brazilian as well, but if you wanted to portray his way of speaking then you should have specified it was the construction worker instead of this "dean" (Yes, they do speak differently.). As I said before, your example is nonsense - no self-respecting Dean would speak like that, even in an informal situation. It's simply not the Colloquial Portuguese and educated person would use - and not because it's gramatically wrong, like your "dois pastel" example; that, for instance, could well be a mistake committed by this Dean (as a matter of fact, I left some of these "mistakes" which I recognize could be used even by an educated speaker in an informal situation. I just removed the ones I did not agree with; I'm yet to hear someone in an university environment - again no matter how informal the situation - say something like "começando em quinze de janeiro". "Começando quinze de janeiro" or the more often used "a partir de quinze de janeiro" would certainly be better alternatives in this case.
I also don't understand why informal register "is never written". Being not a religious person myself, I don't consider myself to be bound by any form of unquestionable dogmas. If it can be written down (as I surely did), it can be written down. Period. (And I'm sure that if you asked that there would be a lot of people who would gladly acknowledge that they did indeed say "dois pastel" instead of "dois pastéis", and they just don't care about speaking "proper Portuguese" that much.)
And BTW, I don't know where you get your figures, but to claim that only 10% of the Brazilian people are minimally educated is absolutely ludicrous, to say the very least.
Unfortunately, I guess we'll have to wait for a second opinion, otherwise this dispute will go on and on.
Greetings, Lenineleal 23:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Lenineleal, you say that "no self-respecting Dean would speak like that". Sorry, but you are just wrong. I know that first-hand; please do not insist. Once again, a person does not change the way he speaks just because he became a Dean. But since that seems to offend your "religious" respect for Deans 8-), I can replace "Dean" by "person" in the article, for peace's sake.
As for the "colloquial educated Brazilian Portuguese": as I wrote, in a situation of diglossia there are two ends of a spectrum, the "formal" and "informal" registers, and each speaker speaks some language between these two extrema, depending on his background and the occasion. So, yes, of course, some people do speak more formally than others; and even that sloppy Dean may speak fairly correct Portuguese at the University Council meeting. Now, your "colloquial educated Brazilian Portuguese" is just one random point along this continuum, fairly close to the formal end; and therefore it is not particularly interesting. What needs to be described is the other endpoint of the spectrum, the language spoken by common people. You cannot just pretend that their language does not exist.
I stand by my statement: the "informal register" is hardly ever written down, simply because in order to do so one must listen carefully to what is "actually" said (not what "should" be said) and either use IPA or invent a new orthography; which are not something one improvises on the spot. On top of that, there is a strong taboo that makes people feel uneasy when writing "wrong Portuguese". The informal register is sometimes written in artistic works, e.g.
Nôtro dia incontrêmo c'o Arnesto
que pidiu discurpa, mais nóis nun aceitêmo:
Isso num si faiz Arnesto,
Nóis num si importa,
Mais ocê divia tê ponhado um recado na porta!
And even then the taboo usually forces people to write isso intead of phonetically correct issu, etc.
As for the statistics: yes, I believe that 10% is an optimistic estimate for the number of Brazilians who would be able to speak formal Portuguese correctly if they had to. This guess is based on my experience that 50% or more of undergraduate students cannot do it. Now, how many Brazilians get to high school? If you have other estimates, let's discuss them.
As far as I can tell, the situation in Portugal is very different: the spoken informal register is very close to the formal spoken one. Ditto for the US. Indeed, English teachers in the US generally tell students to "write naturally, as one speaks". Whereas Portuguese teachers in Brazil spend 20 years telling students that almost everyting that they say is wrong.
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 07:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
PS. There was a colleague of mine who went to the US for his PhD, with family and very young kids. He worried about them having a hard time adapting at Brazilian school after they came back, so he decided to speak strictly formal Portuguese, all the time, for their benefit; and he continued to do so for about a year after his return. His grammar was impeccable, the pronunciation as good as a newscaster's --- and you can't imagine how weird it sounded. Jorge Stolfi 07:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


([The Arnesto example] isn't Standard Brazil Portuguese; it's "caipira", a extinct dialect of country areas.) User:200.175.17.91 2006-03-03 01:55:46
Of course that sample is not the "Standard" Brazilian Portuguese, which is better called the the "formal spoken register" (FS). That sample is one of the many dialectal variants of "informal spoken register" (IS). More precisely, that particular song is supposed to be the dialect of *urban* (not "caipira"!) poor worker people in São Paulo city, influenced by the broken speech of Italian immigrants in Bixiga, Brás, Moóca, etc..
The Italian influence may be null by now, but the speech of poor people in São Paulo is still very far from the FS norm. Moreover, in the interior of São Paulo the "caipira" dialect does not seem to be extinct, rather it seems to becoming more acceptable as society becomes more democratic. Try listening to what people actually say in informal contexts, it is very intersting. Jorge Stolfi 05:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • To Jorge Stolfi: If it is true that English teachers in the US tell students to "write naturally, as one speaks", how do you explain the opposition to the use of Ebonics (a.k.a. "African American Vernacular English") in American schools ? Do you think most African-Americans (or indeed low-income white southerners) speak standard American English as used in writing ? Incidentally, spoken European Portuguese also deviates from the standard language (e.g. the use of object pronoun "vos" with "vocês", the improper use of "consigo" in non-reflexive constructions, and the widespread use of the imperfect for the conditional as in "gostava de dizer" vs "gostaria de dizer").
Standard American English differs only slightly (in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar) from standard British English. Likewise, there are only minor differences between standard Brazilian Portuguese and standard European Portuguese. Conversely however, substandard varieties of American English like African American vernacular English differ considerably from standard British English in a scale that is comparable to the divergence between standard European Portuguese and the popular Brazilian vernacular. An important difference though between Brazil and the U.S. is that, in Brazil, there is also an intermediate linguistic modality, the so-called "educated colloquial language", which is used mostly by the middle-class and does not coincide with the standard language, but, at the same time, does not deviate from the standard as much as the popular vernacular does. Conversely, contrary to what happens in Brazil, the spoken language of the urban middle-class in the U.S is roughly identical in grammar (and largely in vocabulary) to the written standard language, hence Jorge Stolfi's claim that English teachers in the U.S. tell students to "write as they speak". That "admonition" from U.S. teachers does not apply though to African-American students whose spoken vernacular differs considerably from the standard. In that sense, one can say there is a state of mild diglossia between the written and spoken language among African-American students just like I would agree a state of mild diglossia also applies to popular (uneducated) vernacular speakers in Brazil. As far as Brazilian middle-class speech is concerned though, even assuming a certain degree of deviation from the standard grammar, one cannot really say that any significant form of diglossia exists between the spoken and written languages. By contrast, in a country like Switzerland for example, true diglossia holds for all social classes since the language used in schools, newspapers, TV newscasts and the federal Parliament (standard German) is literally different from and not mutually intelligible with the language (Swiss German) that is spoken at home or at work and used in ads, regional (cantonal) parliaments, TV talk shows, and soap operas. Mbruno 12:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Link proofing!

Hi, before adding a link to the Brazilian Portuguese page, I'd like to have your opinion about a language directory I made. It was not built from the scracth... in fact it is a summary of many different link selections I've found in the web: http://www.bbportuguese.com/portuguese-translation/brazil-portugal-links.htm . Any thoughts on how to improve it will be highly appreciated. Luciano Oliveira

[edit] The Portuguese legacy

I think that section needs to be expanded to give a more through account of the history of the Portuguese language in Brazil. In very rough terms, I guess one could distinguish 3 moments in the emergence of Portuguese as Brazil's national language: (1) the original colonial settlement by the Portuguese between the 16th and 18th centuries; (2) the arrival of the Portuguese royal court in Rio de Janeiro in the early 19th century; and (3) the influx of a substantial number of new immigrants from Portugal (approximately 1.3 million) between the late 19th century and the middle of the 20th century. 00:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

  • According to figures I saw on the English-language Wikipedia, the total number of settlers who migrated from Portugal to Brazil during the entire colonial period (i.e., between Cabral's arrival in Bahia in 1500 and D. João VI's arrival in Rio de Janeiro in 1808) is estimated to be around 700,000. Even assuming that those figures are correct, they are still probably far below the total number of Europeans entering the 13 English colonies in North America between the 17th century and the late 18th century. Curiously though, the total number of Portuguese immigrants arriving in Brazil after independence far exceeds the original settlement figures. In fact, official Brazilian historical statistics record over 1.5 million arrivals from mainland Portugal and the Portuguese Atlantic islands between 1884 and 1960, out of approximately 4.6 million foreign nationals entering Brazil at the same period of time. Could we say then that Brazil was ironically culturally "re-Lusitanized" to a certain extent after its political ties to Portugal were severed ? Accordingly, what was the impact of late immigration from Portugal in the consolidation of Portuguese as the national language of Brazil? Do regional variations in spoken Brazilian Portuguese (closer to the European standard in coastal areas like Rio and more heavily creolized/divergent in the countryside) reflect historical patterns of Portuguese settlement/immigration in the country ?


[edit] The FW/FS/IS Classification

The FW/FS/IS classification used in the article is simplistic and ought to be changed. IMHO, a more realistic classification would be:

  1. Standard Brazilian Portuguese, which corresponds to the written language of newspapers, legal/scientific documents, and literary works, and is sometimes used in a spoken variety in TV newscasts, speeches and lectures/conferences;
  2. The educated colloquial language, which corresponds to the every-day spoken language of the urban middle-class (most notably in major cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) and is roughly the language most often heard on Brazilian TV soap operas and talk shows;
  3. The popular Brazilian vernacular, particularly widespread in the countryside/rural areas, but also common among low-income/uneducated sections of the population in big cities.

Generally speaking, category 1 (standard Brazilian Portuguese or BP) is roughly identical in writing to standard European Portuguese (EP) with only minor differences in spelling and vocabulary (akin to those between standard British and American English). When spoken, standard BP of course is pronounced quite distinctively from EP, but again, the differences in pronunciation are similar to those between British and American English. The spoken colloquial language of the urban middle-class (category 2) shows on the other hand greater deviation from the European norm, not only in pronunciation, but also in grammar (e.g. the use of "ele"/"ela" as object pronouns instead of the standard "o"/"a", and the combination of "você" and corresponding 3rd person verb forms with 2nd person pronouns like "te" and "teu"). The differences between category 2 and the European standard are still small enough though to place them well within the framework of the same Portuguese language. Finally, category 3 (the popular vernacular) is probably already a borderline case in the sense that, unlike category 2, it shows widespread simplification/regularization of verbal and nominal paradigms (e.g. "eles canta", "as casa são cara"; "ele chamou eu") as well as significant divergence in vocabulary and syntax (e.g. "o homem que eu conversei com ele" vs standard "o homem com quem eu conversei"). As of today, the use in Brazil of category 3 speech varieties actually appears to be declining as a result of increased urbanization and higher levels of schooling. At the same time though, category 2 begins to show greater divergence from the standard. In the future, some new variety between categories 2 and 3 may emerge then as the "universal" Brazilian vernacular, but that prediction is purely speculative at this point. Meanwhile, category 1 remains firmly entrenched as the official written language as seen in newspapers. Mbruno 19:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

PS: Just for the sake of illustration, I show below 3 versions of the same sentence, respectively in popular Brazilian vernacular, educated colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, and standard written Brazilian Portuguese. The popular vernacular version is actually a real sentence I heard from a BP speaker in the São Paulo state countryside.

Example 1

Popular Vernacular: Os dono quer que nóis fica na casa.

Educated Colloquial: Os donos querem que a gente fique na casa.

Standard Written: Os donos querem que nós fiquemos na casa.

English Translation: The owners want us to stay in the house.


The following example (which might be more controversial) is a made-up (artificial) sentence.


Example 2

Popular Vernacular: Os guarda falou que não conhecia ele.

Educated Colloquial: Os guardas disseram que não conheciam ele.

Standard Written: Os guardas disseram que não o conheciam.

English Translation: The guards said they didn't know him.

[edit] O senhor

The Wikipedia article claims that the use of "o senhor" as a 2nd person form of address is "not very common" in Brazil, except in "very formal situations" such as "shopkeepers addressing customers". In reality though, I believe the use of "o senhor" is actually more common than the article implies. Specifically:

  1. "O senhor" seems to be still the universal form of addressing politicians and public authorities, both in the printed media and on television.
  2. In line with remark 1, "o senhor" remains a universal form of addressing anyone who is hierarchically superior. That would include the case of low-level employees (blue-collar workers, domestic workers, secretaries) addressing their employers, as well as, in Brazil, students addressing their teachers or professors. One also normally uses "o senhor" to address clergymen (Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis) and military officers.
  3. "O senhor" also remains a common way of addressing people who are older (especially much older) than you. Senior citizens in particular are almost universally always addressed as "o senhor/a senhora" and many Brazilian children, even today, still use "o senhor/a senhora" to address their parents. Mbruno 00:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

And here's a nice contradiction:

"The EP custom of using a title or first name as a pronoun is not used in Brazil. However, we can see this form used also in working places, for example, in an office. People also use the form doutor, meaning "doctor" (also used to call people from Law) to refer to doctors and lawyers." FilipeS 19:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Differences in national varieties of the same language

With respect to the discussion that has been going on in this talk page, here is my view on the subject taking into account the (European) languages I am most familiar with:

  1. There are clear differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between Latin American and European Spanish (one can readily tell for example if a TV newscaster comes from Spain or Mexico). Nevertheless, Spanish as an international language is far more homogeneous than Portuguese, probably because the standard language is regulated by a central authority (the Madrid-based RAE) and because the European Castilian dialect still represents the model in Latin America for "proper speech". The only major exception I can think of is Rioplatense Spanish which seems to deviate more significantly from the RAE standard.
  2. British and American English differ considerably in pronunciation and vocabulary (more so than European and Latin American Spanish and in a scale comparable to the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese). The two varieties of English also differ to a lesser extent in spelling and grammar, but differences in that respect are not as broad as in the case of European and (spoken) Brazilian Portuguese. Substandard varieties of American English (like African-American vernacular English) show however greater deviation (in grammar) from the British norm. An important difference though between English and Portuguese is that, in relative terms, the international prestige of European Portuguese compared to Brazilian Portuguese is somewhat lower than that of British English as compared to American English (mostly because Portugal is not a major international media hub as the UK is). Moreover, cultural ties between the U.S. and the UK are far greater than those between Brazil and Portugal. Brazil and the U.S. are nonetheless similar in the sense that, in both countries, the corresponding European standards (respectively of Portuguese and English) are not seen as models to be emulated in the same way European Spanish is seen in most of Latin America (with the possible exception of Argentina).
  3. Spoken Québécois French and, even more so, Acadian French are quite distinct from standard Parisian French (not so much in grammar, but mostly in lexicon and phonology) to the point that Parisian speakers often find them unintelligible. However, unlike Brazilian Portuguese and American English, Canadian French lacks a written standard of its own and the (relatively small) community of 7 million or so Canadian francophones (compared to over 60 million native speakers of French in Europe) has a neglible influence on "international French" as taught as a second language in non-francophone countries and in countries where French is retained as an official language (e.g. former French or Belgian colonies in western and central Africa).
  4. Other European languages like German or Netherlandic seem to show a high degree of dialectalization, with often mutually unintelligible dialects. The written standard language, both for German and Netherlandic, is nonetheless very well-defined and is used as a common vehicle for communication among speakers of different dialects. In the Netherlandic-speaking world in particular, the old Dutch versus Flemish controversy is now pratically non-existent as far as the written standard language is concerned. On the other hand, South African Dutch a.k.a. Afrikaans is now considered a separate language even though the English Wikipedia makes the (doubtful) claim that: "Within the Dutch-speaking zones of the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, there is greater divergence among the dialects than there is between standard Dutch and standard Afrikaans". As far as German is concerned, local dialect use in Germany and Austria properly seems to be dying out; in Switzerland however, a state of diglossia exists between spoken Swiss German (viewed by most linguists as a separate language) and the written standard German. Mbruno 02:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

PS: See also the Spanish and French articles respectively on español rioplatense and français québécois for further information. There are also excellent articles in the German Wikipedia on Schweizerdeutsch and alemannische Grammatik (Alemannisch being a group of German dialects that includes Swiss German). Mbruno 13:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

You are right, according to linguist Marcos Bagno. See here, here, and also here PedroOG (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not just Rioplatense Spanish that differs from Castilian Spanish - a common feature of Latin American Spanish is the use of ustedes as the third person plural, instead of vosotros. The use of the voseo is encountered in countries to the north of Argentina, but not in Spain, unlike você in Portuguese, understood in Portugal as well as Brazil, though not as accepted. Quiensabe 06:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of 'jaqueta'

According to this dictionary, the word 'jaqueta' exists in European Portuguese as well, and it's derived from French 'jaquette', and according to the Merriam Webster Online, English 'jacket' is derived from Middle French 'jaquet'. I think someone should double check the statement that BP 'jaqueta' is derived from English. FilipeS 19:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"Jaqueta" does exist in EP, but doesn't have the same meaning as "blusão" -- it's a tradicional piece of clothe, a short jacket used by horsemen, for example. PedroOG (talk) 06:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

So its much more plausible that the word "jaqueta" came from Portugal. PedroOG (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology

What is the source of the following statements?

"In some areas of Brazil, the speech is close to that of Portuguese as spoken in the 16th and 17th centuries. This also occurs in São Tomean Portuguese." FilipeS 20:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Does the statement refer to the phonology or to the vocabulary? Which areas are those? Anyway, I find strange that there are still people speaking medieval Portuguese, that would be speaking like Gil Vicente.
I haven't made the statment, but I think it is clear... and this comment wouldn't have been made if the whole article was read forehand--Rex Nihil 05:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it's a dubious and unsourced statement, and I have accordingly deleted it.FilipeS 10:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brazilian imperatives

I have deleted the following from the article:

" (Proof of this is that irregular second-person EP imperative forms such as sê "be" are not used.)"

Neither are third person imperatives such as é "is". This proves nothing. FilipeS 12:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Difference between formal written standard and formal spoken standard?

The article has the following classification: "* the formal written (FW) standard, the version of written Portuguese that is taught at schools throughout Brazil and used in almost all writing;

  • the formal spoken (FS) standard, basically a spoken form of the above, used in formal contexts or when reading from a written text;
  • the informal spoken (IS) language, used in all other occasions.

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

The formal spoken standard, being tied to the written one, has those same minor differences in lexicon and grammar, but also substantial phonological differences, with noticeable regional variation.

The informal spoken language deviates substantially from the formal standard, even in the rules for agreement; and shows considerable regional variation."

But, if the only difference between FS and FW is that the latter's phonology varies according to the speaker's region, what is the point of telling them apart? Most languages have accents, but that doesn't make their written language and their spoken language 'two standards'. FilipeS 17:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

  • See the discussion above on the FW/FS/IS classification where I propose an alternative (and, in my opinion, more meaningful) classification. Mbruno 12:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. It does make more sense than what is currently in the article (at least to me). Regarding Example 1, and without wanting to impose a Portuguese perspective on a Brazilian reality, you may be interested in this opinion. FilipeS 23:00, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tu with second-person verb forms

The article claims "tu" is used with the corresponding standard 2nd person verb forms in the state of Maranhão. However, I have also heard e.g "tu falas"/"tu falaste" in nearby Pará (in the city of Belém) and, down south, in the city of Florianópolis (Santa Catarina). Maybe more extensive research is needed before we can single out Maranhão as the only state where standard 2nd person verb forms are properly used in speech.161.24.19.82 20:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

_______________________________________________________________________

In general terms, I guess we could say Brazilian Portuguese dialects may be grouped into 4 distinct classes as far as their choice of second-person subject and object pronouns is concerned. The 4 classes are as follows:

  1. Tu (subj.) / te (both dir. and indir. obj.): that combination is characteristic of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and also appears in the normal speech of the cities of Florianópolis and Belém do Pará. It is also BTW the standard European Portuguese combination.
  2. Você (subj.) / você (dir.obj.) / para você (indir. obj.): typical of the caipira dialect of the São Paulo state countryside and the nearby mineiro dialect. Standard você is often reduced to ocê /u-'se/ in caipira pronunciation. Similarly, para você is often changed to pr'ocê.
  3. Você (subj.) / você or lhe (dir.obj.) / lhe (indir. obj.): common in various samples of Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese, especially in Bahia. In particular, lhe-ísmo, i.e. the use of lhe as a direct object, is a usual characteristic of Northeastern Brazilian speech (cf. standard Spanish). Note, however, that in certain Northeastern states like Ceará, tu is also used as a subject pronoun instead of você.
  4. Você (subj.)/ você or te (dir. obj.)/ te (indir. obj.): the most usual combination in the educated speech of Rio de Janeiro (carioca) and, increasingly, in the middle-class speech of the city of São Paulo (although carioca also features the tu/te combination, especially in youth lingo and in working-class favela speech). Given that the educated accents of São Paulo and Rio are the dialects most often heard on Brazilian national TV, one could say the você/ te combination is also a feature of "General Brazilian", used here as the BP equivalent of General American as defined in American English.

Incidentally, the multiplicity of categories above helps to explain why there are actually 3 different ways to say "I love you" in Brazil, namely: Eu te amo ; Eu amo você; or Eu lhe amo. Note also that, unlike in Portugal, the use of você as a direct object (replacing - (l)o or - (l)a) and the use of para você as an indirect object (instead of para si) are accepted as correct in standard written BP (see e.g. Celso Cunha's Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo). In particular, in standard BP, para si can only be used when si functions as a 3rd person reflexive pronoun. In all other cases, it is considered wrong in Brazil to say para si or consigo in lieu of para você or com você. Mbruno 12:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Para você is also correct in European Portuguese. FilipeS 15:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I think we should get some serious sociolinguist to write this section on the tu/você usage. I know this is a very unresearched field of study but that is much more official info on the subject than presented on this article. For example, I know from my experience of at least 5 more states where tu is used normally if not dominantly. I think the summary of "types" of combinations of pronouns someone sketched out above is perfect and should be included. And I think the form of "tu + 2nd person form" is seriously overlooked. The form mentioned as characteristic of some cities in RS (tu viesse) is very well-know to be spoken in Recife and in Santa Catarina. Florianópolis is, in my experience, even more known for adhering to second person than Rio Grande do Sul. While, gaúchos would say "tu tá", standard in Florianópolis would be "tu tás". 201.24.97.43 06:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)Radek

Hi. The summary above might be used here in this article, but I think a more appropriate article for it is Portuguese personal pronouns and possessives. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to contribute that that article. Perhaps you can do something with it. Incidentally, I agree with you that this article is still very "green". FilipeS 10:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References for the pronunciation of "nh" in BP

The article claims that "nh" (/ɲ/) is pronounced as a nasalized /ʝ/ in BP. Can anyone provide a reference for that statement ?

Thaïs Cristófaro Silva. Fonética e fonologia de Português. Editora Contexto. São Paulo.
Mário Perini. Talking Brazilian. Yale University Press.

Do they say whether it's a nasalized [ʝ], or a nasalized [j]? Also, do they say in which regions of Brazil this pronunciation replaces [ɲ]?

Another reference: "A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese", Earl W. Thomas, p. 8. This book says that this pronunciation does not occur at the beginning of a word (quite rare: "nhame", "nhoque"), where the pronunciation is like in Spanish (but "some regions of Brazil do not use this sound initially, replacing it with consonantal i: Iame, ioque"). My personal experience is that all Brazilians I have encountered use the "nasal y" pronunciation and that it is an approximant /j/, not the fricative version. (BTW this may be a historical relic, not an innovation -- cf. loss of /n/ between vowels with concomitant nasalization, and cases like "minha" < "mia".) Benwing (talk) 05:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
My guess is that these authors are talking about nordestino (=Northeastern) or carioca (=from Rio) accent, or maybe both. I'm not a linguist, but I'd say that, "in the language I speak" (I'm from São Paulo), nh is always pronounced as ɲ, no matter where it is in a word. Phonetically, it never occurs at the beginning of words: nhoque is actually pronounced as /inhoque/. (This "i-insertion" is rather common before or after "foreign sounding" consonants: advogado --> /adivogado/, absolvido --> /abissolvido/, sport --> /ispórti/.) Eumedemito (talk) 00:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You're an exception to the rule, I guess. Many Paulistas and Paulistanos have a nasal glide pronunciation of NH, singer Sandy Lima being one of them... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.1.114.184 (talk) 13:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of "r" in BP

The Wikipedia article claims that the letter 'r' in final position in a syllable is pronounced [h] (voiceless glottal fricative). I believe however that [h] may also replaced by an alveolar trill [r] (mostly in the South), by a velar fricative [x] (in Rio perhaps ?), or even by an alveolar tap [ɾ] like in Portugal.

Syllable final /r/ is an alveolar approximant in caipira, and I think the voiceless uvular fricative should be included, as it is probably the sound most often used for intervocalic r in Minas Gerais. I will have something more to add when I'm finished with this article. Macgreco 18:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Força

I disagree with the following sentence as being representative of informal spoken language:

A gente tem que falar pra todo mundo que não vai ter força pr'os elevadores.

The use of "força" in this case is not idiomatic to me. I don't think anyone would use força instead of energia. But I might be wrong. Perhaps the above sentence would be idiomatic for some speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. We might want to choose a different sentence that is more representative os BP as spoken all over the country.

Regards

Lomibz 03:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Companhia Força e Luz do Paraná, Companhia Força e Luz Cataguazes, Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz, Companhia Luz e Força Santa Cruz... I could go on and on for various energy companies all over Brazil.

Macgreco 01:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you a native speaker of the language? The fact that a few companies founded a century ago are called Força e Luz means nothing in terms of usage. I would say "faltou luz", but never "faltou força", as it seems totally unidiomatic to me. Please show me some valid usage examples, or at least mention a part of the country where the word força is commonly used by the people with this meaning. Lomibz 12:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Responding late, but whatever: yes, I am a native speaker. Why does that matter anyway? And I've heard força used in this sense in Minas Gerais and Paraíba. Not that any of this matters, since someone deleted the example.Macgreco 23:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
As a native speaker, I can confirm "força" is indeed used to mean "power" in São Paulo. It's an idiomatic use though and, accordingly, should be avoided in an encylopedia article. 200.177.9.83 22:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The delete was done recently. You can revert it, if you feel it's appropriate. FilipeS 21:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger from Diglossia

I have merged some content from Diglossia into this page. Previous discussions can be found at the Talk Page of that article. FilipeS 14:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the Diglossia section should be deleted. It contains POV and unverified claims and is not written in a scientific or encyclopedic style. Besides, the relevant information that written and spoken BP differ in various degrees depending on complex sociolinguistic factors is already mentioned elsewhere in the main article, where many of the differences between the written and spoken languages are extensively described. I suggest that we hold a vote to decide whether that section should stay or not. 200.177.48.102 10:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I agree. Although the section is disputed, there's a lot of material in it which it would be a shame to lose, and it does give some references (Bagno). Although I strongly disagree with his views, I know there's a school of thought in linguistics which sees things as he does. They have a right to be mentioned. FilipeS 19:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

But not necessarily in this particular article and with such emphasis. As I said, the relevant information for a Wikipedia reader is to know that there are differences between the written and the spoken languages in Brazil and what those differences are. That topic is extensively covered in other parts of the article though. Calling normal language variation across social groups "diglossia" is on the other hand a purely ideological position and bad science. If you want to be fair, perhaps you could include a small reference (probably no more than one sentence) along the lines "a few authors [Bagno,etc.] claim that differences between written and spoken Brazilian Portuguese are so extreme that a "de facto" state of diglossia exists in the country. That view is disputed however by most mainstream linguists." Anyway, I still think the broader Wiki community should be consulted in the form of a request for discussion followed by a vote to decide the future of the disputed section.200.177.5.94 10:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

You can ask for more opinions, if you like. I have no objections. In fact, although I have edited this article a few times lately (minor edits, mostly), I don't feel very responsible for its content. I haven't really contributed much to it, except for the merger from Diglossia (I still think the material is best placed here than there, though), and a table I added some time ago. Regards. FilipeS 11:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Check out also the previous discussions in the other page. FilipeS 15:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inacurate table

This table is wrong:

European Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese
placement of
clitic pronouns		 Eu amo-te.

"I love you."

 Eu te amo.

Literally, "I you love".
Responde-me!

"Answer me!"

 Me responde!

Literally, "Me answer!"
use of personal
pronouns		 Eu vi-a.

"I saw her."

 Eu vi ela. (colloquial)

Literally, "I saw she".
inflection of nouns,
adjectives and verbs		 As moças1 voltaram ontem.

"The girls came back yesterday."

 As moça voltou ontem. (very colloquial; wrong for many people)

Literally, "The [plural] girl came back [singular] yesterday".

1Although the word moças is not often used in modern European Portuguese, the intent here is to compare the morphology.

"Eu te amo" does not mean "I you love", specially because does not mean anything. It means "I love you", just like "Amo-te". Because the grammars are different, the position of the words also differ.

Eu te amo certainly does mean something in Brazilian Portuguese! As for "I you love", it's a word-for-word translation, to highlight the syntax. FilipeS 20:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
This is completely stupid, "Eu te amo" can also be used in EP portuguese, and the translation is also "I love you", the same thing goes to "me answer". If "I you love" is left on this table, it will only seem to english speaking people that people from Brazil are dumb or something. Like on "Eu vi-a" in European POrtuguese "Eu a vi" is not that uncomon, probably "Eu vi-a" was used because the word-for-word translation of "Eu a vi" woud be, "I her saw". Rex Nihil 06:04, 16 June 2007 (GMT)
"Eu te amo", while possible in EP, is extraordinarily rare, as is "eu a vi". FilipeS 21:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent delete

I have just deleted the following from the introduction:

Brazilian Portuguese is a polemic term, since many linguistists claim the Brazilian language is a variant of Portuguese (such as the European Portuguese, Angolan Portuguese etc. - for some of them, even Galician) and not an independent language or dialect. This fight between "Brazilianists" and "Lusophonists" has been preventing the spread Portuguese language as a foreign language, since most schools in non-Portuguese-speaking countries teach either the one or the other variant.

"Brazilian Portuguese" is not a polemic (controversial) term. I have never heard of such a thing. It's normally understood as the name of the variant of Portuguese which is spoken in Brazil. Often, the word "Portuguese" is dropped in speech, and people just say "Brazilian". This does not typically imply that one is speaking of a language separate from (European) Portuguese. Whatever difficulties there may be in the teaching of Portuguese abroad do not arise from a "fight" between "Brazilianists" and "Lusophonists" (two words I have never heard), but rather from the divergent features of the two dialects, and especially the different orthographic standards. FilipeS 18:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BP mouse ← English "mouse" versus EP rato ← literal translation: "rat"

This is in general correct, except in the "literal translation". The fact is, the word "rato" has somewhat different meanings in Portugal and Brazil. In BP, a small rodent is usually known as "camundongo", while a large one is a "rato"; in EP, however, "rato" is a little rodent, i.e., a mouse, being the translation for rat "ratazana" or "rata". But beware of this last word, because it's also slang for the female sexual organ. --87.196.233.3 23:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. I have rephrased it. FilipeS 15:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TV networks

I deleted the reference to Minas Gerais as one of the southeastern Brazilian states where national TV networks are based since that statement is, as far as I know, incorrect (national TV networks are based in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, not in Minas Gerais). Besides, the deleted statement was made in the context of a discussion on how the language used on national TV has become the "de facto" standard for spoken BP. However, the spoken dialect of Minas Gerais (mineiro) is not considered standard in Brazil and, from that point of view, cannot possibly belong in the same category as paulistano and carioca as implied in the text.Mbruno 10:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Large parts of Brazil are in fact Spanish speaking

According to the Spanish language page large areas of Brazil are Spanish speaking. If you disagree please go to Talk: Spanish language.

You misunderstood the information. The map don't say that those light-blue areas of Brazil speak Spanish instead of Portuguese. It says these areas have some relevant amount of Spanish-speakers among the population.
But, I disagree with that map. The areas with some, even little, Spanish language influence are much smaller, maybe unrelevant at all. 200.255.9.38 13:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Also, I think you sew only the map of that page. You should read this: "Spanish has become increasingly important in Brazil due to proximity and increased trade with its Spanish-speaking neighbors (for example, as a member of the Mercosur trading bloc). In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, that makes Spanish available as a foreign language in the country's secondary schools. In many border towns and villages (especially along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border) a mixed language commonly known as Portuñol is also spoken."
Is that that the article says. The image is wrong, the text is correct (there are just borders towns and villages', not regions more away from the borders).
You can also see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Hispanophone_World.png there are no sources for saying that Brazil: Spanish and Portuñol speakers in the border regions between Brazil and its neighbour Hispanic American countries.
I will say it again. The text of Spanish language is right. The image is the only problem. 200.255.9.38 13:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
English has been taught as a (compulsory) foreign language in Brazilian secondary schools for quite some time now and, yet, very few Brazilians can actually speak or write it. The fact that the Brazilian president has signed a bill introducing Spanish in the Brazilian school curriculum does not automatically make Brazil or any region therein Spanish-speaking. I don't see why that information would be relevant to the discussion then. 200.177.4.116 23:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of clitic pronouns in BP an archaism ?

I believe there should be a mention to the fact that Middle and Classical Portuguese used clitic pronoun placement rules that are similar to those found in modern spoken BP. Specifically, unlike modern EP, Classical Portuguese favored the placement of pronouns before the verb, as shown for example in those excerpts from Álvaro Velho's diary of Vasco da Gama's trip to India:

"Ao outro dia depois de termos pousado que foy a quinta feira saimos em terra com o capitam moor e tomamos huũ homem daqueles, o qual era pequeno de corpo [...] E ao outro dia o capitam o vistiu mujto bem e o mandou poer em terra."
E como os vimos fomos em terra em os bates, os quaes levavamos muj bem armados, e como fomos juntos com terra o capitam moor lhes lançava cascaves na praya fora, e eles os tomavam [...]
"E o capitam moor mandou sair em terra huũ Martim Affonso que andou em Manicongo mujto tempo e outro homem com elle. E elles lhe fezeram gasalhado. "
"Em este lugar e jlha a que chamão Mõcobiquy estava huũ a que elles chamavam Collytam [...] E o capitam lhe dava muj bem de comer e lhe fez hum serviço de chapeos e marlotas e corraees e outras cousas mujtas."
"Ao dia da Pascoa nos diseram estes mouros que tinhamos cativos que em a dita villa de Mjlindes estavam quatro navios de xrstãaos [...]"

Those examples are misleading. While it's true that ancient Portuguese favored proclisis in a few cases where modern European Portuguese has enclisis or mesoclisis, nevertheless enclisis was also very common in ancient Portuguese in other instances, whereas it is next to non-existent in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. FilipeS 15:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

See Paul Teyssier (in "História da Língua Portuguesa", Sá da Costa, p. 85), "Em outros casos, o uso actual [dos pronomes átonos] representa uma inovação [em relação à conservação do uso antigo no português europeu]" PedroOG (talk) 07:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you know any statistical study showing the relative frequency of proclisis and enclisis in a large corpus of Old Portuguese texts ? I'm willing to bet proclisis is more frequent and so is the use of the gerund in lieu of the infinitive (both are well-known archaic features of Brazilian Portuguese grammar). Toeplitz 17:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

How far back in time do you wish to go? Os Lusíadas (16th century) is available online. You may also find some cantigas de amor and cantigas de amigo (medieval). As for the gerund-progressive, it's well known that it is indeed more ancient than the infinitive-progressive. In that respect, Brazilian Portuguese is recognizedly more conservative than (standard) European Portuguese. FilipeS 23:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Gerund-progressive is still widely used in the southern half of Portugal mainland (Alentejo and Algarve), and the Azores and Madeira islands PedroOG (talk) 07:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

This is a good article, but someone should proofread it beyond what I've edited.

learnportuguese 20:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the English leaves a lot to be desired, and I am even a bit more critical of the article than you: I think in its current form it's rather untidy. But you have to rememeber that Wikipedia is written piece by piece by many editors around the world whose command of English is not always as good as they believe. FilipeS 22:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Mais" and "mas" not homophonic

The words "mais" and "mas" are not homophonic as claimed in the article. The first is stressed, the second unstressed.--Abenyosef 03:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

They are homophonic in the sense that they are composed of the same sounds, disregarding stress. However, I must say that even this is only true in some Brazilian dialects... FilipeS 12:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definite article before a possessive

FelipeS, I don't understand why you reverted me. In BP it is optional to use the definite article before a possessive: esse aqui é meu/o meu gato. In EP the article is mandatory.

Here's a source:

A bem da verdade, esse tipo de crase só poderia ser dito "facultativo" em relação às regiões do Brasil, pois em alguns Estados não se usa o artigo definido diante do possessivo.
(...)
Em Portugal a crase (que é chamada simplesmente de acento grave) com os pronomes possessivos é de lei, pois o uso do artigo definido diante deles é a norma naquele país. Numa biblioteca pública de Porto, em agosto de 2001, li num manual de gramática que era "mania de brasileiro" a dispensa do artigo na frente dos possessivos![1]

Wikipedia is based on already-published sources, not on our own research. Unless you can support your contention that the definite article before a possessive is optional in EP (it's the first time in my life that I hear such claim) with an external source, I'd kindly request you not to revert me. --Abenyosef 16:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Another source:
Essa simplificação não ocorre em Portugal, onde se emprega o artigo. No português do Brasil, o artigo é dispensado antes do possessivo (meu, teu, seu, nosso, vosso, seus), mas não antes do tratamento por Sr.[2]

--Abenyosef 18:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The second source you quoted does not say that the article is mandatory. The first one seems to be Brazilian. While using the article is more common in Portugal, there is no official rule that it must be used, and in fact it is normal to omit it occasionally in high register language, such as literature or songs. FilipeS 18:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
That's why the difference is listed under the heading BP/EP differences in the informal spoken language (my emphasis). Even so, although my exposure to EP has been limited, I don't recall a single instance of definite articles being dropped before a possessive, and believe me, I do pay attention to these details. Is there any official online "doubt solver" for Portuguese, such as exists in the case of Spanish in the form of the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas? --Abenyosef 17:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Try Ciberduvidas. There are also several Brazilian websites, but I'm guessing they're not what you're looking for. Better yet, read a book: Cunha, C., Cintra, L., Nova Gramática da Língua Portuguesa.
It's ironic, though, that you're trying to hold on to the informal varieties, because from what I've heard using the article is actually more common in spoken Brazilian Portuguese than in written BP. FilipeS 01:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Curiously, you're directing me to Ciberduvidas, when the examples you doubt about were taken precisely from this site.
As for the situation in Brazil, I would say that Northeasterners never use the article, while in São Paulo and Minas the article is dropped in 60% of cases. Dropping the article is a very lively feature of spoken BP.--Abenyosef 03:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, Abenyosef, but you are wrong. As a native "paulistano", I can confirm that the definite article is almost always used before possessive pronouns in São Paulo, as is also the case in "carioca" speech and , more broadly, in "General Brazilian" (the spoken language of national TV). The definite article tends to be omitted only in formal written language (including newspaper articles) as educated Brazilians are told to do so at school. Dropping the article in ordinary speech is the norm though in "nordestino" speech, reflecting the fact that Northeastern BP is linguistically conservative compared to the mainstream Southeastern dialects. 161.24.19.82 (talk) 17:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm from southern Brazil and here almost everyone uses the article before possessives in spoken language, but ommits it in writing or formal speech. In São Paulo and Rio the situation is pretty much the same. In fact, not using the article in most contexts is considered extremely formal in Brazil. You may see this in texts, ok, but not in actual everyday speech. The most "natural" way of speaking, at least for the majority of dialects outside the Northeast, is with the article before the possessive.Giorgioz 08:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, as I said before, I have never heard any native born "paulistano" with "paulistano" parents say "esse é meu carro" instead of "esse é o meu carro". The only people who drop the article in São Paulo are probably Northeastern migrants. 161.24.19.82 (talk) 18:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You cannot say São Paulo and Rio respect the general rule, they even use articles with famous persons like: A Britney Spears, A Madonna, O Tom Cruise, A Marisa Monte, which is very nonstandard.

As for esse é meu carro this is normally used in Niterói (RJ) and Vitória (ES) which are hardly Northeastern cities...

[edit] Non-nasalized o's in São Paulo

Giorgioz, please don't delete sourced material. A forum may not be satisfactory to you, but it's better than the sources given for 90% of this article, i.e. none at all.

You're a Southerner, so it's understandable that you're not very much acquainted with the São Paulo speech. Also, your being a native does not give you an edge over me, since it's very well known that native speakers are not necessarily good informers about their own languages.

You claim never to have heard open o's before nasal consonants in spoken BP. For God's sake, haven't you ever watched Sílvia Popovic's show? She pronounces "homens" with a BIG open non-nasal "o."

The very fact that you have never noticed this is further proof that native speakers are not reliable informers.--Abenyosef 21:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, the fact that this article has few sources doesn't make a regular forum post worthy of mention in an encyclopedia. Now, there is no doubt that the dialect(I should say dialects) spoken in São Paulo is very complex, with several layers (it is common for some middle-age speakers to have an alveolar trill, for example; many younger speakers have an open E before nasals in closed syllables, etc.) influenced both by age and ethnic background. You mentioned one speaker, arguably a distinguished one, but not necessarily representative of the majority of speakers. No, I honestly have never heard open O's before nasals (unlike /e/ in closed syllables), but I do believe that many speakers may have such a pronounciation. It's just that it doesn't make sense to mention obscure or restricted lects when even basic descriptions of major speech communities are lacking. If this were an article about the Paulistano dialect, fine, but that is not the case.Giorgioz 23:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

What happens in Sergipe or Rondônia is not relevant in a description of General Brazilian. What happens in São Paulo, however, is worth mentioning because São Paulo is where most of the media are based, and the Paulistano speech is thus likely to influence other dialects.
The open non-nasalized e's and o's in Paulistano are described in Cunha and Cintra's Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo. Also, from my personal experience I can certify it's a general phenomenon in SP.--Abenyosef 20:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

What is this "general Brazilian" thingy, anyway? FilipeS (talk) 22:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Extreme diglossia"? BP and EP "mutually unintelligible"? Not true.

"The linguistic situation of Brazil can be described as one of extreme 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."

I think this is extremely exagerated. Spoken French is very different from literary Franch, for example. Not to mention British English. According to the French linguist Henriette Walter (see L'aventure des langues en Occident, Robert Laffont, 1994, Portuguese translation "A Aventura das Línguas no Ocidente", Terramar, 1994, p. 405-406), two distinctive features of British English among Western Europe languages is the wide variety of regional accents and the existence of an accent based on social rather than region, known as Received Pronuntiation -- remember "My Fair Lady".

Paul Teyssier, an authority in Portuguese language, did write (in 1980, long before Bagno) that "As diferenças «dialectais» no Brasil são menos geográficas que culturais. As diferenças na maneira de falar são maiores, num determinado lugar, entre um homem culto e um vizinho analfabeto que entre dois brasileiros do mesmo nível cultural originários de duas regiões distantes uma da outra» ("História da Língua Portuguesa", Lisbon: Livraria Sá da Costa, 1997, p. 79; Brazilian edition: "História da Língua Portuguesa", São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1997. But he doesn't compare to what happens in other languages.

According to Marcos Bagno, "Quem chegou ao término dessa trajetória [até ao ensino superior] pode, com toda propriedade, ser classificado de falante culto.E é aí que podemos começar a subverter os conceitos de português certo e errado que vigoram na nossa cultura. Como? Investigando a língua realmente falada e escrita pelos brasileiros cultos. O que essa investigação revelará é que existe uma distância enorme entre a norma-padrão tradicional e a língua realmente empregada pelos falantes cultos do português do Brasil." (see this at Bagno's site) So, "extreme dyglossy" may be (at least partly) a myth.


"The spoken varieties of Portuguese on either side of the Atlantic have diverged to point of nearly being mutually unintelligible"

Marcos Bagno may have written this, but it is not true. One proof is the huge sucess of Brazilian soap operas in Portugal. When the first novela was shown on Portuguese TV, thirty years ago, it had such a great impact that Portuguese Parliament interrupted sessions so that MPs could watch it. Also, Brazilian pop music is highly popular in Portugal. On the other hand, EP may be less intelligible for BP speakers, because of the reduced vowels of EP, but possibly also due to unfamiliarity of BP speakers with EP. There is now a huge Brazilian community living in Portugal, many of them working as doctors, dentists, nurses, and café and restaurants waiters, and there are no ccommunication problems with the public. PedroOG (talk) 06:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Variety instead of group of dialects

I think it would be better to define BP as a variety of Portuguese, instead of a "group of dialects", as this can lead to misunderstandings.

Also, it should be mentioned that BP is by far the most important variety of Portuguese. PedroOG (talk) 23:43, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] errors in the lexicon section

For example: "abacaxi" and "ananás" designate two kinds of pineapple; "grama" often refers to any kind of grass in a garden or urban area whereas "relva" or "relvado" refers to natural grass of forests, etc.

There's two ambiguities in this sentence. The equivalent word for BP 'grama' (meaning 'grass') in EP is 'relvado', never 'grama', in all contexts; BP 'relva' is usually referred as 'erva'. "Abacaxi" and "ananás" designate two kinds of pineapple also in EP, and both are of very common usage.

I'm going to correct this.

Also, I'm adding more words to the list.--PedroOG (talk) 03:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Please support your changes with appropriate sources. FilipeS (talk) 22:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
abacaxi | s. m. | s. 2 gén. | adj. 2 gén.

abacaxi


   do Tupi ibá, fruto + cati, cheirar bem ou mal

   s. m., Bot.,
       espécie de ananás do Brasil, produzido pela planta com o mesmo nome da família das bromeliáceas;
   s. 2 gén., Brasil,
       indígena da tribo dos Abacaxis que habitavam nas margens do rio com o mesmo nome;
   adj. 2 gén.,
       relativo a esta tribo.

in http://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/dlpo.aspx

Most of the pineapple comsumed in Portugal comes from tropical countries and is called abacaxi, as opposed to ananás that comes from Azores.

grama | s. f. | s. m. 3ª pess. sing. pres. ind. de gramar 2ª pess. sing. imp. de gramar

grama


   do Lat. gramina, pl. gramen

   s. f.,
       nome de várias gramíneas.



   do Lat. gramma < Gr. grámma, escrópulo

   s. m.,
       unidade de medida de massa, igual à milésima parte do quilograma;
       peso de um centímetro cúbico de água destilada a 4 ºC;
   Brasil,
       erva, relva.

ibidem

relva | s. f. 3ª pess. sing. pres. ind. de relvar 2ª pess. sing. imp. de relvar

relva


   do Lat. elva, raiz de elvella ou helvella, couve pequena

   s. f.,
       erva rasteira e fina;
       lugar coberto dessa erva.

camisola | s. f.

camisola


   s. f.,
       espécie de camisa curta de malha de lã ou de algodão, com mangas ou sem elas, que se veste ordinariamente sobre a pele ou cobre outra peça de vestuário;
       blusa de pano grosso, usada pelos marinheiros e operários;
   Brasil,
       vestimenta feminina, comprida ou curta, usada para dormir.


terno | adj. | s. m.

terno


   do Lat. teneru, mole

   adj.,
       mole, brando;
       suave;
       meigo;
       sensível;
       afectuoso;
       que causa dó.



   do Lat. terni, de três em três

   s. m.,
       grupo de três;
       trio;
       trindade;
       dado ou carta com três pintas;
   Brasil,
       vestuário masculino composto de paletó, colete e calças, da mesma fazenda.

ibidem


Júlio Magalhães, aliás, afirma: “Não nos passa pela cabeça decidir ‘hoje não me apetece usar gravata’.” Tal como nas outras estações, em Queluz de Baixo há uma ‘guarda-roupa’ que escolhe a indumentária dos apresentadores. “A única autonomia que temos é de dizer que não gostamos da gravata e escolhemos outra”.

Quanto a normas no vestuário dos pivôs, Júlio Magalhães afirma: “É uma regra internacional. Em todo o mundo se usa fato e gravata, que é uma indumentária mais sóbria”.

[...]

Quanto a normas no vestuário dos pivôs, Júlio Magalhães afirma: “É uma regra internacional. Em todo o mundo se usa fato e gravata, que é uma indumentária mais sóbria”.

in http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=265733&p=22&idselect=17&idCanal=17

Protagonista da performance em que ficou seminua e provocou polêmica na Assembléia, a drag queen Nick Perón promete dançar de novo na sede do Legislativo paulista, desta vez de terno e gravata. A apresentação está marcada para esta quinta-feira (29), durante ato de desagravo ao deputado Carlos Gianazzi (PSOL).

Organizador do evento realizado em 24 de outubro, Gianazzi enfrenta acusação de quebra de decoro parlamentar porque o deputado Waldir Agnello (PTB) viu na exibição de Perón um atentado contra as normas da Assembléia.

"É um ato contra a homofobia. Vai ser no plenário. Vai correr o risco de eu estar dançando de terno e gravata, sim. Já vi outras pessoas dançando em câmaras legislativas”, afirmou Nick ao G1 nesta quarta-feira (28).

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/SaoPaulo/0,,MUL196208-5605,00-AGORA+DE+TERNO+TRANSFORMISTA+PROMETE+NOVO+SHOW+NA+ASSEMBLEIA.html

Hope this is enough. These are very well known examples of lexical differences between BP and EP, at least in Portugal. I don't understand why someone erased my contributions. They are very easy to verify. PedroOG (talk) 04:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

the same person deleted the word 'toilet', meaning 'bathroom'.

Main Entry: 1toi•let Pronunciation: \ˈtȯi-lət\ Function: noun Etymology: French toilette cloth on which items used for grooming are placed, from Middle French, piece of batiste, from diminutive of toile cloth Date: 1667 1archaic : dressing table 2: the act or process of dressing and grooming oneself 3 a (1): bathroom, lavatory 2 (2): privy b: a fixture that consists usually of a water-flushed bowl and seat and is used for defecation and urination 4: cleansing in preparation for or in association with a medical or surgical procedure <pulmonary toilet>

in http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/toilet PedroOG (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] contradiction

The linguistic situation of Brazil can be described as one of extreme 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.

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.

These two statements are contradictory.--PedroOG (talk) 04:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what makes you say that. Could you explain? FilipeS (talk) 13:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Of course. First there is a clear statement: The linguistic situation of Brazil can be described... etc., and then after that the same statement is relativized: According to some linguists, etc. I think it's not proper to say both things in the same article. When you read the 1st statement, it seems to be a consensual view; in the second one it seems controversial. I think that According to some linguists should be added in the first statement.
Also, I would like to know what's the source for ... it is much more striking in Brazil than in English or in European Portuguese. Who said this?
In what concerns Bagno's view, it seems there is a misunderstanding. Bagno, partly based on the results of the NURC (Norma Linguística Urbana Culta) project, says that the so-called standard Portuguese is only used in very formal contexts, and that there should be a reform in Portuguese teaching, changing the old norm that no one uses to a new norm based on the urban cult norm, according to NURC results. So, there isn't really a simple opposition between "SP" and "VP"; the problem is that the so-called "SP" is a completely obsolete norm, based on the EP norm, that doesn't have anything to do with real BP. Social and geographic variations are another story. 87.103.54.43 (talk) 02:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Are you and PedroOG one and the same? I always get terribly confused when people use multiple accounts.
Anyway, there's certainly a lot of work to do in this article. If you feel that the section on the (alleged by some) diglossia of Brazilians is not clear anough, feel free to edit it. The point of that section is to present and discuss the claims made by Bagno and those who think like him. I don't think there was ever any intent to suggest that all linguists share their opinion. At least I've never read the text (which was actually imported from another article) that way. FilipeS (talk) 03:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I just have one account. I just forgot to log in.
I just don't know of any comparative study of diglossia, and of any linguist who said that. But I doubt, as I said before, that there is a stronger diglossia in Brazil than in Britain, for example. Or in France,where people talk very differently from the official norm. Not to mention Greece, where there are two official norms -- one based on ancient Greek, and a vernacular one.
Bagno's quotation here could be applied to any country, for example Portugal, with some changes. Change "Brazilians" to "Portuguese" and "Portugal" to "Lisbon" in point 2, and "Maranhão" to "Coimbra" in point 5, and there you have the Portuguese version of these myths. This should be read as a statement against Brazilian purists in particular, but applies to all purists around the world.
NURC should mentioned, due to its great impact. PedroOG (talk) 03:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
When was the NURC project undertaken ? Wasn't it in the 1970s or something like that ? I assume much of its conclusions must be obsolete by now. 161.24.19.82 (talk) 18:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese is the official language of Brazil

I just noticed this on right column:

"Official language in: None (Brazil uses Standard Portuguese as its official language"

This is nonsense. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, Portugal and other countries. Brazil has its own official ortography, regulated by law, and the same happens with the ortography of the Portuguese variety that has different norms. There is no such thing as "Standard Portuguese" officially regulated (as grammar rules and lexicon) anywhere. One can say that Portuguese taught in Brazilian schools must follow the (tradicional) European Portuguese grammar rules, but there is no official grammar in any Portuguese-speaking country. PedroOG 06:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

A Standard language doesn't necessarily mean "officially regulated"; also, compare this usage to the lang infobox of the Quebecois French article. Anyway, it seems that such right-column language infoboxes are not very common in articles on language varieties - compare "American English", "British English" and "Canadian English", with no infoboxes, to "Austrian German" and the Quebec example above. So I'm not so sure a language box would be needed (also notice that it was added only recently by an anonymous edit).Giorgioz 08:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox removal

I have removed the infobox because Brazilian Portuguese is not a language, it is a variant of the Portuguese language. That infobox and the information in it regards only to languages, and not to regional varieties of any language. Ten Islands 13:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Good job, thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.24.108.73 (talk) 04:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] preferences

Something seriously needs to be done about the section titled preferences. Either someone should expand it, or it should be deleted altogether. learnportuguese (talk) 00:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Why? Is it confusing? Eumedemito (talk) 00:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] pt-BR

See also en-US, for uniformize articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krauss (talk • contribs) 00:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] a gente ≠ the people

Ok, I should have told the reason for reverting part of Antonielly's edit. So here it goes: "a gente" does literally mean "the people", but, in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, it means "we". The example illustrates colloquial language, hence the translation "we". (Trust me, I know it. I'm Brazilian.) Eumedemito (talk) 19:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops, didn't pay enough attention to the "more literal" observation. You may be right. Eumedemito (talk) 19:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)