Do you like Brazilian Portuguese?

Wannessa,
Don't you hate the Arabs, who occupied Portugal for so many centuries and formed much of the Portuguese character and blood and perhaps even the Romans who peopled the country
2000 years ago, gave it their langauge, your language now?
You can also hate Adam and Eve. We could all still be in paradise if ............................

BrPort is just Portuguese, as well as AmE is just English... differences due to pronounciation could, at most, be referred as to dialects. In this case it would be sth local, and by no means change grammar or the general character of the language.

Fancy or not fancy, that is question : Portugal has a international mediatic low profile and didn't inspire any hollywoodesque epic or drama until now. Not fancy enough for some of our Brazillian friends.

These Portugal-haters could read Erico Veríssimo's novel "Olhai os Lírios do Campo" : it's about a young doctor who wants to get rich and climb the social pyramid, and tries to hide his humble and two-shoes from his upper-class fiancée and new friends. This outfit seems to suit our friends very well.

Anyway, there are a lot of Brazillians living here in Portugal, many of them highly skilled and doing well-paid jobs (like our national football team coach, and the director of our national aviation company). They're welcome and well accepted here, and there's no sign of xenophoby or social rejection against them. And no communicational problems. So, it's very irritating to read futile and imature comments of hatred against Portugal from some Brazillians, who probably never came to Portugal and doesn't know what they're talking about.

This discussion should not be being held in the English forum.

Portuguese people, let us be. We don't want to know about you. We like our Latin American neighbors, USA and Canada. tchau!

That's fine with me. Just don't write insultuous things like "I hate Portugal" without having real motives to complain. Goodbye and good luck.

mjd : I read "Macunaíma" since the last discussion, a few months ago. That chapter "Letter to the Emboabas" (or "to the Amazons", I don't have the book here) puzzle me a bit : Macunaíma is capable of writing in highly (hyper)correct literary Portuguese, without having had a formal education. It's like if the Portuguese substract came up even if Andrade wasn't happy about it and didn't want to assume it in his book. Nevertheless it's a great reading, and that indigenous way of reading the sky as poblated by the ancestors reminded me of the Australian natives as described by Bruce Chatwin in his "Songtracks".

Kirk you're right, perhaps mjd can move this thread to the languages section???

People really need to realize the reason many Brazilians think this is because of what they perceive as the attitudes of many European Portuguese of being more superior than the Brazilians and I'm sorry as much as the Eu port. want not to believe there is a lot of attitude like this among Eu. port. people and it is almost the same feeling of the Eu. castellanos towards the Spanish speaking Latin Americans. This so called superiority complex that I'VE HEARD IN THIS FORUM VOMITTED OUT BY THE VIEWS OF THE PERSON WHO CALLS HIMSELF "SOMEONE" AND BY ED. is a reality. Just because someplaces in Latin America are considered 3rd world countries doesn't mean that they are less intelligent because they are 'NON-WHITE" countries. The reason these countries are not as advanced as oh wonderful Europe is because of socio-economical and political problems. I get sick and tired to here are racial many americans are when in fact you civilized europeans are as racist as many people were during WWII. Please don't spout out how wonderful europe is because the garbage comming out of some of you mouths is disgusting!!!

>>as for the forum<<

I'm sorry mjd there are some forms of Eu. portuguese that many who can read and understand spoken Brazilian portuguese count as unintelegible. When I was in Portugal for a cousins wedding he married a girl from a village around the Algarve region in Southern Portugal. Many of her relatives were also from the Madeiras. The wedding was in that region and I either had to have my English speaking cousin to translate otherwise the Brazilian side of our family could not understand Algarvan portuguese. I could understand Madeiran a little better but not much. But when we visited Northern Portugal and also when we visited Lisboa I didn't have too many problems but it wasn't as bad as being in the south.

<<This so called superiority complex that I'VE HEARD IN THIS FORUM VOMITTED OUT BY THE VIEWS OF THE PERSON WHO CALLS HIMSELF "SOMEONE" AND BY ED.>>

What?? How the hell did I get dragged into that?!

>>Sorry Ed<<

I meant the comments of someone, someone not portuguese, and guest. I missed place where you were at in the conversation. I wrote it out of disgust and fast not putting the blame where it needs to go. Since the people who wrote all that garbage don't have the balls to reveal themselves.


Much regrets and apologies...

JGreco : I see your point, but notice that the posts testifying hatred against Portugal didn’t mention any personal bad experience with Portuguese suffering from superiority feelings. On the contrary, they where showing exactly that kind of superiority feelings that you (and I) can't stand. Anyway, occasional experiences don´t proof much, one can just have been unlucky with the few Portuguese, Brazillian or whatever that one has found in our lifetime. The fact is a lot of Brazillians is living in Portugal and they’re welcome, there’s nothing comparable to the depreciative jokes about Portuguese that were common in Brazil. Brazillian culture is very welcome here, from soap operas to music and literature, Luís Fernando Veríssimo has a weekly chronicle in my favorite newspaper, Brazillian theatre companies and actors always have success ... Of course, no where in the world is free of jerks (racists namely) and/or ignorants, but they’re just individuals.

People from inner Algarve is difficult to understand to every other Portuguese, not only to Brazillians. It’s like if they speak with a different prosody, probable an heritance from the Arabs. There’s even the word “algarviada” in current Portuguese, applied to any strange and difficult to understand way to speak. Continental Portuguese usually find Madeirese and Azorean very difficult to understand. I guess also in Brazil must be dialectal varieties of the language that other Brazillians could call algarviada ...

Janaína Sun Oct 23 wrote:
“Brazil's illiteracy rate is 15%, not much worse than Portugal's 9%.
When Brazil gained its independece, the illiteracy rate was 90%”

The illiteracy rate was 90% because of the big number of slaves and Indians. The Brazilians were from Portuguese origin, until they got the independence they were Portuguese; just like the Baianos are Brazilians from Bahia or the Texans are Americans from Texas, the Brazilians were Portuguese from Brazil (not considering the slaves and Indians at this time). Do not forget Brazilian was the name the Portuguese in Brazil gave to themselves, the natives were called Indians and the African slaves had no rights.


“In the Brazilian case, data indicates that around 4,5 millions of people immigrated for the country between 1882 and 1934”

“ The option of the mass migration was a way of substituting the black slave worker in face of the crises of the slaver system and the abolition of slavery.”

http://www.diasmarques.adv.br/pt/historico_imigracao_brasil.htm#Histórico

It was this mass migration after the independence of Brazil that caused all the socio-economic problems to Brazil, the country was not prepared to give education to this people and to the freed slaves. Brazilians only cared about the profits of the work of unskilled illiterate immigrants for the coffee trade. In this case Brazilians of today can blame the Brazilians of Portuguese origin of that time, the ones that were the first patriotic Brazilians, the first to have the Brazilian nationality and the ones that made Brazil an independent nation in 1822. Why would these Brazilians (of Portuguese origin) care about foreigners? They were the Brazilians and they were used to slavery, they just wanted cheap workers for their Brazilian lands. The Italian immigrants, the German and Japanese immigrants those were foreigners, just another form of slave work. Why give them and their children education? It is about these people of Portuguese ethnic origin that called themselves Brazilians (since 1822) that the immigrants from other ethnic origins started to tell jokes about, it would look very ungrateful to tell jokes about the Brazilians while living in Brazil so they called them Portuguese.


“According to the “Índice Nacional de Alfabetismo Funcional (Inaf) 2005”, 75 % of the Brazilians are either functionally illiterate or absolutely illiterate.”
http://www2.uol.com.br/aprendiz/n_colunas/g_piolla/id121201.htm

“The figures changed very little in 4 years.”
http://www.estadao.com.br/educando/noticias/2005/set/08/39.htm

“Only 25% of the Brazilian population aged 15 to 64 year sold are completely literate.”
http://amaivos.uol.com.br/templates/amaivos/noticia/noticia.asp?cod_noticia=6161&cod_canal=38

“somente 57% dos alunos que completam o ensino médio conseguem atingir o nível pleno de alfabetização”

Only 57% of the students that complete grammar school can attain the full level of alphabetisation.
http://www.leiabrasil.org.br/editoriais/fala_serio.htm


In the Pisa assessment (OCDE). the Brazilian students were ranked in last places
“The Brazilian students with 15 years age don’t understand what they read “
http://www.usp.br/agen/bols/1998_2001/rede874.htm

Janaína wrote:
“But it is too late, the language in Brazil changed too much...Forms learned in Brazilian schools sound to us like Latin forms to an Italian student.”

I bet it does, illiteracy is so big in Brazil that Brazilian Portuguese must also sound like Latin to a Brazilian student. Just hope it is not too late to invest in good education and good teachers, and of course keep blaming the Portuguese for every thing that goes wrong in Brazil so you don't have to invest in good education and then tell the world that the “Brazilian language changed too much” instead of "Brazilians can't even understand Brazilian Portuguese" .

I saw a movie in which a phony woman wrote letters for peeple who were illiterat. Could that actually happen? If I remember corectly, that was "O Central do Brasil".

I t could happen anywhere, where people are illiterate.

«I think the reasons why European Portuguese is not admired in Brazil could make for an interesting discussion MJD*»

It is mainly because the Brazilian children are taught in primary school that “the Portuguese came to steal our land” or “the Portuguese came to steal our gold” although the students are of no native Indian origin.

The dislike for the Portuguese people is taught in schools. Every kid knows that the Portuguese can not read or write, owns a bakery and make money. The Portuguese women have beard and wear long skirts the clothes are like those of the eighteenth century and they are all short with dark eyes and dark hair. Everybody is called João, Manuel or Maria.

They just forget all the Brazilians nobles that were of Portuguese origin and were Brazilians.

These were the “dumb illiterate Portuguese of Brazil”they were not of Italian, German or any other ethnic origin they were Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese:

A Nobreza Brasileira de A a Z
"Página transcrita do Archivo Nobiliarchico Brasileiro dos barões Smith de Vasconcellos, com adendas e correções".

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/Kajafreitas/NobAZ.htm



They also blame the Portuguese for killing all the Indians but can’t take any responsibility for the past 180 years of massacre. Just read what the Indians have to say:

“Brazil refuses to uphold the international law which states that tribal peoples own their land, a law which, amazingly, Brazil itself formally ratified in 1965 and then promptly forgot. It is a staggering travesty of natural justice – as well as both Brazilian and international law – that in the 21st century, not one of the peoples who have inhabited Brazil for at least the last 10,000 years are deemed to own any part of it.”



“But it failed to prevent the demise of Indian tribes at an average rate of at least one tribe every 2 years during the course of the 20th century”

http://www.survival-international.org/files/books/Disinherited.pdf

The fear of the Portuguese literature is something new:

“O Brasil está a assistir a uma "enchente de escritores" portugueses”
“Brazil is watching a “flood of Portuguese Writers”

http://dn.sapo.pt/tools/imprimir.html?file=/2005/10/26/artes/colonizacao_literaria.html


If a Portuguese goes to Brazil he will be asked if he can understand Portuguese and if his accent is Italian (everything the Brazilians like is Italian). And people will tell him jokes about the Portuguese “because the Brazilians have a special feeling for the Portuguese people” but will be angry if they are told a joke about the Brazilians.

A Brazilian friend of mine told me, out of the blue and in an angry tone that” the Brazilians came to steal our land” I asked who were her ancestors and she said: “ They were Italians”. I asked :“So the land was of the Italians? “ She just got mute.
She is a History teacher in a grammar school in São Paulo.


How can the Brazilians like the Portuguese and not make fun of them or in the worst scenario hate them?

Of course there is a minority of Brazilians that just like the Portuguese because well… they remember that they had an ancestor that was Portuguese.

*mute : muddle