Brazilian Portuguese is a diglossic language

To say (not "to they")
big differences

As I said, the name of the language itself is not important.
But you should notice that we Brazilians are more likely to understand spoken Spanish or Catalan than Continental Portuguese.

And Jordi did not read that article on diglossia...
in Brazil, we write PORTUGUESE, but we speak BRAZILIAN.
Just like many people in Switzerland write HOCHDEUTSCH, but they speak Switzerland vernacule. Or, like many Catalan speak Catalan, but don't find it appropriate for formal written usage, so they chose Spanish, instead. Only 50 % of Catalans dare to use Catalan in formal situations.

It seems Jordi has never been to Brazil to hear how me really speak, based on what we write, one could also say we all speak English here (since I am writing in English right now).

Ciberduvidas.sapo.pt are not ''linguistic'' team, since most of them do not have degree in linguistics, they are Portuguese language teachers and philologist. 99 % of from Portugal and their knowledge of real linguistic situation in Brazil is limited. They do not seem to be competent for Brazilian Portuguese.



Real linguists will write a decent article like this one:

História da Língua Portuguesa em linha

http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/hlpbrasil/

And where is doutora Rosa Virgínia's article published? The Camões Institute Web site....the bastion of Portuguese studies.

This is a site very similar to Ciberdúvidas done by Cláudio Moreno, a Brazilian professor of Portuguese.

http://educaterra.terra.com.br/sualingua/indice_geral.htm

Somehow I don't think he'd be on the same page as Vitaminada with regard to Portuguese.

Ciberdúvidas is an excellent site, by the way....those who write in are often Brazilian too.

Note the use of the term "Portuguese" in Rosa Virgínia Mattos e Silva's description:

"A implementação dos estudos sociolingüísticos no Brasil demonstrou que o Português Brasileiro é não apenas heterogêneo e variável, mas também plural e polarizado, definindo-se dois sistemas igualmente heterogêneos, que designamos como norma culta e norma vernácula, e outros autores como Português Brasileiro culto e Português Brasileiro popular."

The best sites on Brazilian linguistics are:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=0102-4450&script=sci_serial

http://www.prohpor.ufba.br/

http://wwww.marcosbagno.com.br

You are obviously mixing concepts and you are trying to hit at Catalan (my language) because I don't agree with you regarding Portuguese. Catalan isn't the issue in the this thread nor is it relevant (it has only been "co-official" since 1978 and has 40% of Spanish-speaking immigrants in its territory). Therefore, I'll go back to Portuguese.

On the other hand, you don't answer my call for an "International Portuguese", which would be the best solution to keep a worldwide language (I'm happy enough with my Catalan for formal internal use but I know I need Spanish, English,and even French for international use (in that order).

You're much luckier than I am because diglossia only happens between two different languages, not between two varieties of the same Romance-language where there is a continuum from more popular to more educated ways. No matter what you say I can assure you the Brazilian middle and upper classes don't speak quite the same as those who have never really been to school (masses I would say in Brazil,). The Spaniards don't understand Catalan (it has been a different language from the start) and the only reason why Catalans understand Spanish is because we are bilingualised from kindergarten. Please do not mist the situation between two Romance languages and between two variants of Protuguese.

With a language with Portuguese (and Brazil as its most important contemporary contribution) you are amongst the top 5 languages of the world and you have a worldwide influence. With Brazilian you become a kind of big continental South-American Chinese or Hindu, which are local continental languages spoken by an enormous amount of people and with great internal variation (they also understand each other thanks to the written language.)

You know very well that with a proper education system the situation could change in 50 years (or less) and I agree with you that Brazilian Portuguese must keep as much local flavour as it can afford. The same thing about continental Portuguese or Portuguese spoken as a first or second language in other parts of the world.

What I can't understand, though, is you being rude about the way Portuguese pronounce the language attributing some kind of Moorish influence (which is really quite false from a philological point of view and even from an anthropological point of view.) Of all the countries in the world I would have thought that Brazil is the least racist of them all (after all it is a beautiful light to rather dark melting pot and I imagine you a beautiful somewhat racially mixed vitamined woman.)

And yes, I've been to Rio (and Lisbon, of course) and I've got a few Brazilian friends and I've heard them speak Portuguese with Portuguese people. You know, when you're a long way from home (and its language) continental Portuguese will strike to you to you as very familiar, no matter the accent, no matter where it comes from;a part of your same linguistic continuum.

I can only give my opinion but I still would like to know what the Brazilian Education Department thinks about this issue.

Bravo, Jordi!

Jordi is mixing diglossia with bilinguism.

Jordi is really BRAVO or BRABO :p

Vitaminada:
I'm not confusing anything. I happen to be a trained Romance-language linguist and yes, philologists are linguists, as are grammarians, and trained university interpreters and translators, although you don't seem to know what a philologist (or a linguist) is.
In all my posts I speak out of the love of Brazil and Portugal and the language they share.

Vitaminada
Concordo com você. I agree with you. I think that the main fact is this: there are 180 million people in Brazil and only 9 million in Portugal (half the population of my "querida Sampa". Which country will determine the future of the portuguese language? Who will be saying, in a few years, "logicial" (que horror) em vez de software? It is time the Portuguese people put up with this cruel reality. Facts are sacred, comment is free... (o resto é viajar na maionese...)
And long live "a bandeira das trezes listras"!

Don't be stupid :

-Your vocabulary is the same
-Your grammar is the same
-Pronounciation differs a bit

=> Brazillian can be called a DIALECT of continental Portuguese , but certainly not a different language

Continental Portuguese vocabulary and Brazilian Portuguese vocabulary are not the same. We have like 50 % greater vocabulary than European Portuguese (we have so many words of Native American and African origin, an we have incorporated so many American English terms in our techical and scientific usage, for example in Portugal they call computer mouse RATO, which means RAT (you know, that dirty animal!) here in Brazil. We find it abhorrent to use. So we chose MOUSE instead!)


The grammar is not the same. Pronouns are different, as well as the verbal sistem. I negotiate is NEGOCEIO in Portugal, but EU NEGOCIO in Brazil and so on...

The spelling is different, and pronunciation is strikingly different! Show Brazililians soap opera to a foreigner, and show Portuguese one afterward. He/she will think it is two different languages!


It's high time we declared our language BRAZILIAN!
Portuguese people may still consider Brazil it's colony and call our language ''a dialect'' but we don't give a damn for those breadmen!

I think Brazilians have some kind of inferiority complex...

Nope, but we just hate Portuguese people saying that ''Brazilians speak all wrong''. They are famous for saying that, to both us Brazilians and foreigners.

No one is denying, Jacyra, that the majority of Portuguese speaker's live in Brazil and thus Brazilian Portuguese has a huge influence on the Lusophone world. What we're contesting is the notion that the language spoken in Brazil is not Portuguese. I mean, come on.

The spelling is not radically different: óptimo/ótimo, reacção/reação, etc. (i.e., not a big deal....there's also another spelling reform on the horizon that will probably do away with these differences).

"Show Brazilians soap opera to a foreigner, and show Portuguese one afterward. He/she will think it is two different languages!"

No...I am a foreigner that speaks Portuguese and they most certainly are not. There hasn't been a dominant language in Brazil other than Portuguese in about 500 years.

The fact there are words of indigenous and African origin means nothing with regard to the structure of the language.

Many Brazilians love to embrace their indigenous and African roots, but for some reason look down on the Portuguese (this, of course, is ridiculous....without the Portuguese, Brazil would not be what it is today...a perfect example would be the celebration of Carnaval itself).

As I've said throughout this thread, fortunately not all Brazilians share this mentality.

"Nope, but we just hate Portuguese people saying that ''Brazilians speak all wrong''. They are famous for saying that, to both us Brazilians and foreigners."

The fact that some people are ignorant doesn't change the fact that what is spoken in Brazil is a different but equally valid variant of the language.