Talk:Differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese varieties

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This page was placed on Votes for Deletion in June 2004. Consensus was to keep; view discussion at /Delete.

Pedro, you say the part regarding "vós" is completely incorrect and you have deleted it. I cannot understand why. Please specify the errors it had so that I can back up what I wrote or understand that it is incorrect. You also seem to have deleted the si/consigo section without a word on that matter. EDIT: not truth, there is a commentary concerning the si/consigo, it just has a reference to the wrong section.--Cataphract 23:09, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

seriously, vós cannot be used to diferenciate EP from BP. Because it is used in some dialects in Brazil and in Portugal. It is used much the same way except that in northeartern Brazil it is used also in the singular, what is now rare in Portugal. I dont see the need of that in this article. But if you want to put it again, be my guest, but please without POV or imagination (like Portuguese now tend to treat their parents as "tu", and the use of vós in the midlle of the sentence. oh my god!!!!). this article how it was shouldnt ever be in wikipedia. Calling "tu" for parents And the word "vós" is also used in the Brazilian Church, like the Portuguese. 1st this article is a compleat mixture of varieties, dialects, vernaculars, etc. It is not a serious and reliable article, it just makes confusion. If the subject is dialects edit here: Portuguese dialects. If it is vernaculars use another. But in this article, everything is commented except the varieties (that is the standard Portuguese of Both countries, i.e. Rio de Janeiro - Coimbra). It is not to be used to describe how badly undereducated Brazilians use their language, but rather to comment on subjects of open and close vowels, lexicon, different meanings, accent, etc. of the two Standard Portuguese. Edit, rearange, but pelase take that POV off.-Pedro 01:32, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
actually, there is a significant difference between the use of vós in EP and BP. vós+verb in the 2nd person nearly does not exist in brazilian spoken portuguese. You're right when you say this article is mixing dialects with standarts such as BP, but actually vós+verb in the 2nd person is frequently used in large areas of Portugal and sometimes by people out of those areas (for instance, I heard Manuel Monteiro use it two weeks ago or so in SIC Notícias). But I shouldn't be shocked if it were to be left out, given that we considered EP to be the Lisbon/centre standart (the one used for the academy dictionary). Now, I am certainly shocked with the removal of the reference to the use of vos, vós (indirect object with preposition and complement of circumstance), convosco and vosso, since their use combined with vocês is typical in EP, even by educated people in formal writing. [1]

And, yes, Portuguese now tend to treat their parents as "tu" insted of "o pai", "a mãe"; this is almost common sense and if you search a little bit you will certainly find a reference to this within a few minutes. I can't possible comprehend that "omg!". Finally, I must say that I agree this article "is not to be used to describe how badly undereducated Brazilians use their language" and hope to hear anything regarding si/consigo, a section that was also deleted. --Cataphract 14:53, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

the "omg" comes that there is no real tendency, in my region it is even offensive to use "tu" when talking to parents. I rarelly hear someone treating "tu" to parents even people that use "Lisbon Portuguese". European Portuguese is mostly the cultivated dialect of Coimbra with the Lisbon's and some references to other areas. While in Brazil it is the cultivated dialect of Rio de Janeiro with São Paulo's, with some references to other areas.-Pedro
At least I've eard a lot Brazilians (from the NE Brazil use it) and it is more rare to ear in Portugal than in Brazil, even in the North of Portugal. The Word Vós in northern Portugal substitutes "convosco". We dont say: "eu vou convosco", we say "eu vou com vós" vós is only used in plural (now it is usual to hear "eu vou com vocês") due to influence of Standard European and Brazilian Portuguese. Unfortunnaly, both dialects are not representative of BP nor EP. --Pedro 15:21, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Which dialects in Portugal still uses a lot Vós as a second Person?-Pedro 15:26, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't know exactly, inland north mainly, but you don't have to go to those isolated villages. I've spent a month in Chaves and vós is far more common than vocês. Anyhow, that's not the most important, I agree it's not a significant distinction between EP and BP; what we ought to be discussing was your removal of the references to the use of second person plural complement personal pronouns/possessive pronoun vosso and also the removal of the si/consigo section. As to the parents-tu issue (of which btw i was not the author, altough I agree with what was written)... I don't whom you know from Lisbon that treats his parents by "o pai"/"a mãe" instead of "tu", but that situation is rather rare nowadays among young people. Right now, I call only recall doing that a girl whose parents belonged to a high social class, a boy whose parents were from some village in the North and another one whose family was indian or something. the point is: it is now rare, it was not some decades ago. In fact, the tendency is towards an informalization everywhere: take the growing tendency to use "tu" between workmates, watch a bit of "o preço certo em euros", notice how yound people prefer to use "você" instead of "o senhor", how "vossa excelência" is hardly used in speech nowadays, etc. --Cataphract 22:46, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[2] (search for bicha) -- word is not included for queue
Vós is still very much used, but now at home, the Northern dialect is becoming a home dialect and outdoors people now tend to use standard Portuguese (sort of :=) ) or, something that I consider an ingorants choice: Lisbon Portuguese (lisboeta) with that excessive use of ô and ã and lack of dithombs (which is contrary to the North's tradition that has the EP standard plus "iê" and "uô" to pronounce ê and ô respectively, which people from the north find difficult to pronunce. I'm from the north and i believe i've never heard anyone use "vós" in second person (even in the most preserved sub-dialects), but in plural to you, oh yes! chaves has another dialect, which is "Transmontano", and I dont know it much, well I know... But I cannot say that they dont use it, especially in villages, where surely an ancient dialect must be preserved. Plus, in here, "vocês" is used outdoors, "vós" is prefered indoors (among the undereducated: the use of Vós outdoors is more relevant, while educated, eliminated it with local words and most pronunciation), but that is my view, of what I do, and most people that I know does, even those who use (similar to) Lisbon Portuguese. Again, If I liminated to much, put it again. I eliminated because there where many errors, but surely there were also some correctly used senteces.-Pedro 01:04, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
lol are you kidding me, the third entry for bicha in that dictionary is "fileira de pessoas", haven't you even read it? --Cataphract 16:49, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Oops. that diccionary is from lisbon, I must get one from Oporto :p for me "bicha" is " uma bicha de bichas" (that is: queers queue)

I copyedited this, but it's still very much a report of one person's observations. Historical info would be useful here, as would some information on/comparisons with Angolan Portuguese. Vicki Rosenzweig 21:59, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

  • in fact, this article is a quit bad reference (especially) to EP but also to BP, that's why I delinked it from Portuguese language but someone linked. I've inclueded a message of disputted, and i'll try to correct what I know what's invalid later. I am trying to NPOV it, but it is quit hard when the text is aimed to consider both varieties to be very distant when they are not. And EP is more influenced by African languages than BP. --Pedro 16:25, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • I'll add historical info. I've read documents from the 15th century's Portuguese settlers and I was amazed, to see how Brazilian Portuguese is preserved. Most Amerindian lexicon entered in Portuguese with the first settlers, altought some dissapared, most is still used, like the use of "urubu" insted of "abutre", etc-Pedro 17:09, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As for historical info, I am not interested in diachronic linguistics but synchronic linguistics. The historical approach to the differences would be interesting in a different article.Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It is quite POV, in my opinion (I'm a Portuguese and I can't agree with much of the text) However, it is fine in some points. Why Angolan Portuguese? There are more "Portugueses".... I'm going to put here my comments to the previous article Marco Neves.

Yes Marco, but your disagreements stem from your own cultural background (POV). I write from the point of view of someone who has not only studied both varieties as a foreigner and as a linguist but also has lived in both cultures for many years. It would be great to have a Brazilian point of view on this topic here. They tend to agree with my point of view, while the Portuguese who respond to my site usually disagree. Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think this article can be seen as POV. In fact, differences between American English and British English are in a similar degree as those in Portuguese of both varieties. (I've studied both languages throughly and I can attest that fact.) The problem is Portuguese is codified by Law and then there is a different official treatment of both varities.

POV seems to be in the eye of the beholder. If you disagree you call it POV. I agree with what you say about English but I am not talking about British and American English. In fact, because of contact between the UK and the USA differences are easing. Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, but UK and American varieties are those which can be better compared with Brazilian and European varieties. I agree they are easing, but they have a comparable ammount of distance to that of Brazilian and Portuguese. User:Marco Neves

Subtitles are different in American and UK too, sometimes. Even books are titles diffently (see Harry Potter and the Philosopher/Sourcerer's Stone).

I am not discussing American and British varieties. It is not relevant to my article, but you are correct.

But it is relevant to the article we are writing together, here ;)

Standard languages are very similar in both countries (see any technical book). Differences in popular varieties are great, however, as they are in English (early British moviegoers didn't understand the American accent). Today, Americans are used to the British accent because of films and because they listen to much more Britons speak than Brazilians listen to Portuguese people.

Therefore the impression of a great distance between both varieties of Portuguese is sociological. However, the problem of considering Brazilian Portuguese as a languages is sometimes aroused, but it is no greater that the discussion involving American English in some circles and other languages, for instances:

Sociological in what sense? Placement of object pronouns cannot be seen as sociological. Few linguists would consider Brazilian Portuguese as a separate language. Most would agree that it is a variety. Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sociological in the sense that people tend to regard Brazilian Portuguese as being more distant from European Portuguese because of the sociological distance between both countries (there are much less contact than in the case of English-speaking societies). Maybe the word is to confusing, but I think you get my point.

- Spanish (some people say Andalusian is a different language, as well as Latin American Spanish - which is treated in subtitles and politics as different as Brazilian Portuguese from European one) - Catalan (discussion in Valencia about Valencian being a different language or not - French (Quebec... - this is one of the international languages with more variety) - German (in German itself, German dialects are, sometimes, mutually ininteligible). - etc.

In fact, Portuguese is a rather uniform language, bearing in mind the international situation. I will change the article to extract all POV parts, but I'll have to get some time for it :)

Cheers to all Marco Neves

I think some of your changes were positive but you often distort my own POV to your POV Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, you may be right. It may be called the "NPOV game", we change all this thing until both of us can agree on a text (both of us and anyone who happens to be interested in this, also) ;) User:Marco Neves

Your comments on other languages are not pertinent to my article. I am not discussing other examples. I am only showing the reader of differences in Brazilian and European Portuguese. If you find errors in assertions please tell me.

But they are pertinent to the discussion around this article in Wikipedia, since differences between Portuguese varieties are comparable to those of other international languages. Marco NevesMarco Neves

Remember that the title of Doutor is used officially in Portugal not only for medical doctors as in Brazil or in Spain, but for any graduate of a university course. The medical doctors are distinguished from the university graduates by the fact that they use Doutor with all its letters before their names instead of an abbreviation. Brazilians love their language--as do the Portuguese--and get very upset when a speaker of the European variety tells them that their variant is incorrect.

I'm Portuguese and a graduate student of languages, I can attest these facts:

a) Dr. (doutor) is used for any graduate, but it has litter official meaning. The official title for graduates, in Portugal, is Lic., but it is seldom used. Medical doctors also use Dr. and never the full word Doutor, which is speciffically reserved for PhDs in any area (so, quite rare).

b) Portuguese people do not generally see Brazilian Portuguese as incorrect. It is just another variety, with the same value as the European. Some people, though, tend to treat it as "brasileiro", with a little degoratory flavour. But it is very rare to hear that "português do Brasil" is incorrect. Marco Neves


I've edited the text to make it more NPOV, but it may be made even better. I invite everyone to change it :) User:Marco Neves

What guarantee do we have that you haven't made it more POV? (i.e. your own Portuguese view) Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This title is meaningless. It would be better at Differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese dialects. RickK 03:24, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think the new title is better than the old, but in modern linguistics nobody uses the word "dialect" to refer to what I am discussing in the article. The correct word is "variety". Could you please change the title to that? Or teach me how to do it? Thanks. Portcult 10:45, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The new change was just nice, but I think when we were using dialects here, we were using it in a kind of "double plural": let me try to explain: it was about the differences between Brazilian dialects and European dialects of Portuguese languages - each variety has many dialects. Moreover, since a national variety of a language is a geographical variety, it can be called dialect and, in fact, I've heard BP and EP be called dialects in linguistic contexts. But, once more, I agree, varieties is better. User:Marco Neves

At the risk of muddying the waters further, I read up a bit about the Reconquista a while back. Paraphrasing a bit, I gathered that the various dialects of the Christians in the Iberian peninsula started out as variants of Galician, but that Castilian became more significant later on during the Reconquista. However, Portuguese itself started out as a Galician dialect that remained closer to its origins than Castilian did. Now, what I'm concerned about here is how to mark the join properly. At one period in history we have Portuguese itself as nothing but a dialect, yet at another it becomes meaningful to speak in terms of dialects of Portuguese. How can we deal with this consistently? PML.

Ok, let's see: The formation of Iberian Romance languages followed more or less this process:

1. A common Latin/Romance language with dialectal differences extending through all ancient Roman Empire - during this stage, we can speak of A romance language, although, probably, it was quite different from one region to another. It can still be called Popular or Low Latin, I guess.

Now, speaking of Iberia:

2. A separation of Catalan for one side and the rest of Iberian Romance for the other (During this stage a romance language was spoken in Muslim areas of Iberia called Mozarabe).

3. Iberian Romance splits between Castilian and Galician-Portuguese (among other dialects/languages).

4. Galician-Portuguese splits into two languages (although some still consider them the same language): Galician and Portuguese. So, we can speak of Portuguese dialects from the moment Portuguese became a language, more or less in the 13th century. Portuguese split from Galician when the Portuguese population contacted with speakers of Mozarabe - this explains why Portuguese has so many Arab words (borrowed from Mozarabe).

So, there are four Romance languages in Iberia today (apart from minor ones, like Mirandese, Bable, Occitan, etc.):

- Portuguese: originated from a common Galician-Portuguese language, itself originated from a common Ibero-Romance shared with Castilian (but not with Catalan), with influences from Mozarabe.

- Galician: originated from a common Galician-Portuguese language, itself originated from a common Ibero-Romance shared with Castilian (but not with Catalan), with strong influence of Castilian (nowadays).

- Castilian (also called Spanish): originated from a common Ibero-Romance shared with Galician-Portuguese, with some influence from Mozarabe.

- Catalan: originated from a common Romance language, separated in an early stage of development of Iberian Romance languages. Influence from Castilian (nowadays). Very similar to Occitan. Has many dialects.

All this is quite complex and hard to disentangle, but its very interesting! (I guess I'll write an article about Iberian Romance Languages...) User:Marco Neves

I looked at your editing Marco and changed some of it. You make far too many references to English. Many of the affirmations about Spanish or French similarites cannot be verified. I checked with my Brazilian wife and she said that the use of the infinitive instead of the gerund in Portugal would not be incorrect but the sign of a Portuguese from Portugal speaker. I also changed Kings English to Received Pronunciation. Your inclusion of "some" textbooks having one of the varieties is not really correct. I can't think of one textbook that blends the two. Dictionaries are always different as are grammars. i would still stand behind the word "most". Your changing and adding of a sentence about differences between the two varieties being not different and than comparing them to British and American was confusing. You seemed to be contradicting yourself on that. I tried to patch it up. Portcult 11:27, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

OK, I think you changed it for the better :) I don't agree with the part about dictionaries and grammars, since I see many Brazilian dictionaries being sold in Portugal (probaly the opposite is not true) and, as I stated, there are common grammars, indeed, and many specific grammars state both varieties forms. (This situation is similar to English, since diccionaries and grammars come from one variety but indicate words and forms from the other one as well.) The part about the possible contradition was a problem of clarification, but I agree with you: it was confusing. Cheers! :) User:Marco Neves PS: I'll try to get some facts about Spanish and French, OK?

(Please, read my comments to some of your comments above)

Portcult--When you say that certain statements "cannot be verified", do you mean that you've tried to verify them and been unable, or simply that you don't know them to be true? Also, Received pronunciation is not the same as King's (or Queen's, these days) English. Since we're writing/editing in the English Wikipedia, for an English-speaking audience, comparisons to English may be useful to help the reader understand. Vicki Rosenzweig

Why not change the title to Differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese (without language, dialect, variety etc.)? -- till we *) 12:29, Aug 21, 2003 (UTC)



Information that in the text are wrong.

  • European portuguese is also very influentiated by african languages, specially by angolan languages, used normally by the young and urban population. Words Like iá (normally writen as ya, means yes). Words like bué, meaning many. etc...
  • European portuguese also uses ameridian words, but less that the brazilian variety. Words like pipoca (popcorn) that is a pure ameridian word.
  • In Portugal, abacaxi is very much used. I was surprized by the article saying no. That's not truth.
  • Bicha in Portugal is also used to refer to queers (not for homosexual man) but for feminized (homosexual) man, like in Brazil. People in Portugal now tend to use the word fila for queues because of the other meaning.
  • the european variety is, today, highly influentiated by the brazilian variety, because of brazilian soap operas and brazilian inmigrants.

As an opinion, we must not see this influence has bad, because the brazilian portuguese is more pure that the european variety. Portugal was heavely influentiated by french during the napolionic invation.

I just dont know how to put this in the article, to not destroy it, because it is quite good, but with this gross errors.

Pedro


There are many lexical differences, due to the long separation of these two variants of Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese has taken on many African and Amerindian words The word for pineapple in European Portuguese is "ananas", in common with some other European languages, but in Brazilian Portuguese it is the Amerindian "abacaxi". It has had greater contact with English words from the United States (mouse, overnight), whereas European Portuguese has a tendency to use more words of Spanish (tejadilho) and French origin (chaufage, estore), although this is not a rule. On the phone, Portuguese will answer with "Estou" and Brazilians with "Alô". While a Portuguese might hang up with "com licença" a Brazilian would probably say "tchau", although this last word is being increasingly used in Portugal as well.

this paragraph is complitly incorrect. (almost, really) The loans from African and Amerindian in Portugal and Brazil are almost the same, if not the same. Abacaxi is used in Portugal and many other former colonies in Africa. There is no tendency in Portugal to use Spanish origin words, that is the most distant from the truth. In fact, there is the opposite actitude. In Portugal, there was a tendency to use French origin words, tought Latin, Greek and English (in technology) are the most popular. It is not common when a Portuguese hang up to say Com licença. It is very uncommon. Normally is: tchau or many other things. It is, in fact, not popular to use english terms for hardware devices in Portugal. But that is nowadays, a computer mouse in Portugal, 10 years ago was also called mouse, but it is seen (today) as a very bad use of the language and people today preferr to use the Portuguese word. The same happened to Tower (torre). Scanner (Digitalizador or scâner), and the word Site is still popular but is being subsituted by the portuguese word sítio web or página da Internet. The same is happening to the word email that is being substituted by correio electrónico. A similar moviment is starting to happen in Brazil, tought it is still very popular to use the english terms.

Portuguese people goes on hollidays a lot to northestern Brazil, they eard European Portuguese more often that those from Rio or São Paulo.

I would advice to use words that are, in fact, different! And, respecting the different Brazilian and Portuguese dialects, that is not happening in this article. You are comparing street Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese that is, somewhat, different from the official Brazilian Portuguese. Unlike other languages, Portuguese is in law, in both countries.

Pedro