The Brazilian Portuguese Language
History:
After the discovery of Brazil in the year 1500, when Portugal first
colonized Brazil, Tupi, or more precisely the Tupinambá, one of
the languages of the Tupi-Guarani family spoken by indians who lived on
the Brazilian coast, was used along with Portuguese as the general language
of the colony. This was primarily because the Jesuit priests studied and
taught the Tupi language. In 1757, Tupi was banned by royal decree, although
the language had already been overwhelmed by Portuguese spoken by the
large number of immigrants.
Influences:
When the Jesuits were expelled in 1759, Portuguese became the dominant
language of the country. However, Portuguese inherited words associated
with flora and fauna from indigenous languages. Among these words were
abacaxi (pineapple), caju (cashew), mandioca (manioc flour), and piranha
(the fierce fish), tatu (armadillo), as well as proper and geographic
names.
The Portuguese language in Brazil received a new source
of contributions with the influence of African slaves. The African influence
came primarily from the Iorubá spoken by slaves from Nigeria. Some
of these words also found their way to Europe. Iorubá contributions
derived from words connected with religion and the Afro-Brazilian cuisine.
From the Angolan Quimbundo language e.g. came words such as caçula,
meaning the youngest child, moleque (a street child), and samba.
Development:
During the 18th century, other differences between the American and European
Portuguese developed. At that time Brazilian Portuguese failed to adopt
linguistic changes taking place in Portugal produced by French influence.
The Brazilian Portuguese remained loyal to the pronunciation used at the
time of its discovery. However, when Don João, the Portuguese king,
and the royal entourage took refuge in Brazil in 1808 after Napoleon Bonaparte
had invaded Portugal, his presence helped to reapproximate the Portuguese
spoken in the cities to the Portuguese of Portugal, especially in Rio
de Janeiro.
After Brazilian independence in 1822, Brazilian Portuguese became influenced
by Europeans, mainly Italians, Spaniards and Germans, who had migrated
to the central and southern parts of the country. This is the reason one
finds in those areas variations in pronunciation and a few superficial
lexical changes. These changes reflect the nationalities settling in each
area.
Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status. (
Wikipedia)
In the 20th century, the split between the Portuguese
and Brazilian variants of Portuguese heightened as the result of new words
for technological innovations. This happened because Portuguese lacked
a uniform procedure for adopting such words. Certain words took different
forms in different countries. For example: in Portugal one hears comboio,
and in Brazil one hears trem, both meaning train. Autocarro in Portugal
is the same thing as ônibus in Brazil, both meaning bus. At the
beginning of this century, the nationalism and the individualism of the
Romantic movement began promoting the creation of a language norm based
on the Brazilian version of the Portuguese language. In 1922, the Modernists
reintroduced this argument, promoting a need to break with traditional
Portuguese models and to adopt the Brazilian speech pattern. This opening
by the Modernists led to the successful adoption of the Brazilian norm
in literature.
Sources: United
States Foreign Service Institute, Wikipedia.
