Riverense Portuñol language

The Riverense Portuñol/Portunhol, also known as Fronterizo/Fronteiriço or just Portuñol/Portunhol, is a mixed language (linguasphere language code 51-AAA-am^[1]) formed from Portuguese and Spanish. It is spoken on the border between Uruguay and Brazil, and more specifically in the region of the twin cities of Rivera (Uruguay) and Santana do Livramento (Brazil). This section of the frontier is called Frontera de la Paz (Border of Peace), because there isn't any legal obstacle which can stop you from crossing the border from/to Uruguay or Brazil.

Characteristics

As any other language, the Uruguayan-Brazilian Portuñol is very dynamic and heterogeneous, and there is a continuum of dialects which range from Rioplatense Spanish (castiiano, in Portuñol) to the standard Brazilian Portuguese (brazilero, in Portuñol). Nevertheless, it has one variant which is the most used, and could be taken as a case study: this variant is geographically located on the area having the cities of Rivera and Sant'Ana do Livramento as its center, and expanding over a strip of several kilometers parallel to the border, including territory of both nations. This article refers to this variant, but from now on it will be simply called Portuñol or Riverense, names by which it is identified by the people who speak the language.

The majority of linguists classify portuñol as a variety of Portuguese (Alberto Elizaincín [1], uses the term "DPU" - Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay to refer not to just one, but to between two and six different variations of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay, being Riverense Portuñol one of these varieties), but there is no consensus. On the other hand, it can be safely said that Portuñol is a very rich language, in the sense that it has a great amount of synonyms and more precise words to express specific meanings, besides of having a larger phonetic richness. However, it's wrong to say that Riverense is merely a mix between two languages which doesn't follow strict grammatical rules.

Origins

The origins of Portuñol can be traced back to the time of the dominion of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. In those times, the ownerships of those lands were not very well defined, passing back and forth from the hands of one crown to the other. Portuñol was not only influenced by Portuguese and Spanish, but also, in a few cases, the native languages as well; e.g.: gurí (boy), mamboretá (praying mantis), caracú (bovine bone).

Phonology and orthography

The Riverense language doesn't possess a formally defined orthography, but in this article an orthography of Portuñol will be presented in order to enable its phonemes to be represented in the most accurate and consistent possible way, highlighting the phonologic features of this language variety. It should be noted that not all Portuñol-speaking persons use the same pronunciation for the same words (as is the case with most languages). Nevertheless, the script that is chosen is very representative of the most frequent and distinctive features.

The chosen representation is the closest to the one that would be used if we tried to transcribe the phonemes to the Spanish language (because this is the language taught to Uruguayans, which is the nationality of the majority of speakers of this dialect), except for the phonemes that can't be represented through the Spanish alphabet, like, for example the nasal vowels.

Spanish vowels

The Spanish vowels are the ones which are pronounced like the five vowels of the Spanish language (they also exist in Portuguese):

Portuguese vowels

These vowels are found in Portuguese, but not in Spanish.

Semiopen vowels

They are like the vowels e and o, but pronounced in a more open way, closer to an a.

Distinguishing the open-mid vowels (é, ó) is very important because they can change completely the meaning of a word, like in the following examples:

avó [aˈvɔ] (grandmother) and avô [aˈvo] (grandfather)

véio [ˈvɛjo] (old (m.)) and veio [ˈvejo] (he came - from the verb ví [to come])

véia [ˈvɛja] (old (f.)) and veia [ˈveja] (vein)

póso [ˈpɔso] ((I) can) and poso [ˈposo] (well)

Nasal vowels

The nasal vowels are the vowels which are produced by expiring the air partly through the nose and partly through the mouth. They don't exist in Spanish and therefore are generally derived from Portuguese words.

(*) before s, sh, y, z, ce, ci.

(**) before s, sh, y, z, ce, ci, or when it is the first syllable and is not followed by ga, gue, gui, go, gu, ca, que, qui, co, cu or k.

Distinguishing nasal vowels is very important, because they can completely change the meaning of the word, like in the following examples:

paũ [ˈpaw̃ (bread) and pau [ˈpaw] (stick)

nũ [nũ] (in a (m.)) and nu [nu] (in the (m.))

nũa [ˈnũ.a] (in a (f.)) and núa [ˈnu.a] (naked (f.))

ũ [ũ] (one, a (m.)) and u [u] (the (m.))

cũ [kũ] (with) and cu [ˈku] (anus - vulgar term)

ũs [ũs] (some (m.)) and us [us] (the (m.pl.))

Consonants

In the next table, when there is a reference to Spanish, it refers to the Rioplatense Spanish dialect, and where there is a reference to Portuguese, it refers to Brazilian Portuguese and more specifically the Gaúcho dialect (from the Brazilian Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul).

Footnotes

Bibliography

• CARVALHO, Ana Maria. Variation and diffusion of Uruguayan Portuguese in a bilingual border town, by Ana Maria Carvalho, University of California at Berkeley USA. (PDF)
• Lipski, John M. (2006). Too close for comfort? The genesis of "portuñol/portunhol". Selected Proceedings of the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. ed. Timothy L. Face and Carol A. Klee, 1-22. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. http://www.lingref.com/cpp/hls/8/paper1251.pdf.  (PDF)
• Nicolás Brian, Claudia Brovetto, Javier Geymonat, Portugués del Uruguay y educación bilingüe
• Penny, Ralph (2001). Variation and Change in Spanish. Cambridge University Press. http://linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-1545.html.  [Contains a section on Portuñol].
• Carvalho, Ana Maria (2004). "I speak like the guys on TV: Palatalization and the urbanization of Uruguayan Portuguese". Language Variation and Change 16 (2): 127–151. doi:10.1017/S0954394504162030. 

See also

• Portuñol/Portunhol
• Differences between Spanish and Portuguese

External links

• Page about Uruguayan Portunhol (in Portuguese) at Unicamp - University of Campinas, São Paulo (in Portuguese)
• Adolfo Elizaincín website
• (Interlingua) (English) (Portuguese) (Spanish) Portuñol, a new language that is gaining popularity among people who live close to the borders of Brazil and its neighboring Spanish-speaking countries