Why does Brazilian and European Portuguese sound so different?

Reconsider it Sander, Afrikaans is real easy to learn ...

Thank you everybody for the responses in this forum. I have learned a lot about the topic. I understand a little better the difference in dialects better when I went to The Camoes institute web site and heard some recordings of the accents from all around Portugal ( note: curiously they had a very few recordings from the accents in Brazil? ) The northern accents are quite easy to understand but the farther south you go in portugal, the more difficult it was to understand the accent. I even could hardly catch a single word in the Algarve accent in the southernmost part of the country. I also understand the Latin American Spanish similarities with portuguese because the other half of my family is from Panama of Italian descent. My mother and father speak back and forth in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and act as if they were talking the same language. My mom said when she first met him it only took him a week to undertstand what she was saying and they got married six months later.

it's very interesting, isn't it...how the portuguese situation seems to mimic the chinese system where the writing is all the same but the pronunciation is worlds apart. and also how latin american spanish is perhaps converging with brazilian portuguese, so that they are written differently but are becoming increasingly mutually understandable...?

norwegian, swedish, and danish are the same in both writing and speaking...to the point where a dane oftentimes cannot tell whether something is written in danish or norwegian or swedish aside from a few letters.

In my experience in both countries, formally written Norwegian and Danish are nearly identical. However, spoken Danish was difficult to understand for me.

Written Swedish is easily distinguished from Norwegian or Danish, though the pronunciation is closer to Norwegian.

Anyway, one of my favorite authors on the Translation Journal web site, Danilo Nogueira, frequently writes about the differences between Continental and Brazilian Portuguese. I found this article on the use of "you" in Portugal and Brazil fascinating:

http://accurapid.com/journal/29you.htm

michael, mind you that there are some significant orthographic differences between Danish, Bokmål, Nynorsk, and Swedish, as written Swedish uses <ä> and <ö> where the others use <æ> and <ø> respectively, which are usually rather easy to see without much knowledge about the specifics of their orthographies. Of course, these are rather cosmetic, as a whole, compared to more fundamental orthographic differences between the lot, as a whole.

JGreco,

I'm familiar with the Camões Institute's website, but it's rather large and I've never come across any recordings of various accents. Could you provide us with a link? I'd be interested to see this.

Thanks

There are pretty huge differences in pronunciation in Brazil as well, aren't there?
I have a good friend from Pernambuco and she speaks totally differently than my friends from Bahia, and the South. It sounds more Portuguese, actually. She doesn't make all of her d's and t's into j's and ch's, and she pronounces her r's more rolling, as opposed to turning them into h's (Riu di Zheneiru instead of Hioo ji Zheneiroo). She also says "bra-sill" instead of "bra-seeuw". And she actually calls me Todd, insead of "Tod-je"
But she doesn't use the constant "sh" sound as much as they do in Portugal either.

Here are some more of my bad approximations:
Porra! / Pohha!
Morro / Mohhoo
Gente/ Ginchee
Discutível / Djishcoo-cheeview.

=>Reconsider it Sander, Afrikaans is real easy to learn <=

Okay you win (this round =) Afrikaans is very very very very very easy.But I think we are wondering off topic.

Well, to make some things clear:

Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese uses:
1. Brazilian pronunciation
2. Brazilian spelling
3, Brazilian grammar

Formal Brazilian Portuguese uses:
1. Brazilian pronunciation
2. Brazilian spelling
3. Continental Portuguese grammar (but with many hypercorrections)

cantar 'to sing' (present indicative)

colloquial brazilian portuguese:
1. eu canto, (vo)cê canta, ele canta
a gente canta, (vo)cês cantam, eles cantam

(rural accents/dialects do it like this:

eu canto, (vo)cê/tu canta, ele canta
nós / a gente canta, (vo)cês canta, eles canta)


2. formal, written brazilian portuguese:
eu canto, você canta, ele canta,
nós cantamos, vocês cantam, eles cantam

(literary usage:

eu canto, tu cantas, ele canta,
nós cantamos, vós cantais, eles cantam)


Brazilian children DO learn Standard Portuguese grammar
(based on Continental Portuguese)at school, as if it were a foreign language for them, but they never introduce these forms in their normal speech and informal writing, they use it only in formal writing (just like Swiss children, who learn Hochdeutch (=Standard German) @ schools, but they don't like it, and never use in in their speech or informal writing, only in very formal written style this ''standard/formal''language is used)...

This situation (in both Brazil and Germanic Switzerland) is known as DIGLOSSIA. It has nothing to do with ''education crisis''. People there never use ''standard'' language normally, since it is not their mother tongue. Keeping Hochgerman (in Switzerland) and Standard Portuguese (in Brazil) as official language is a matter of tradition. Swiss people and Brazilians don't like foreigners saying they are ''lazy and don't care about the standard language''. Both Swiss and Brazilians adore their dialect/vernacular and everyone should accept this fact.

No ''education'' can erase hundreds of years of Swiss German and Brazilian Portuguese developent. Standard German and Brazilian Portuguese are not mother tongues of anyone in these countries - the dialect is strongly kept as one of the features of their identity.

Yes, it is true Swiss and Brazilian newspapers use the standard language. But this is a FORMAL, WRITTEN REGISTER. Do not expect anyone to talk like this. So please stop saying: ''You Swiss/Brazilians use sub-standard forms of language, you are backward, you should prefer the correct language used in famous Swiss/Brazilian newspapers''.

Foreign language learner should be familiar with all registres of a language. If not, he/she might develop linguistic prejudice towards real
native speakers usage. (Why is that no Swiss German or Brazilian Portuguese speakers use the ''standard'' language when they speak?...it is a matter of linguistics, diacronic linguistics, sociolinguistics... and it has nothing to do with ''Swiss/Brazilians killing German/Portuguese language'' for ''desobeying the grammar rules'').

Sander ,
VICTORYYYYYYY ! LOL

Why then the Brazilians don't codify their version of Portugese as a standard language in Brazil? Just like the Americans did with the American English... They don'y use Queen's English as a norm, they have their own codified standard American English. However, there are still some people over here in Europe who are so backward to say that Bristish English is standard and American English is not a real English or not standard or whatever...

Well, Brazilian elites do not want to allow the use of Brazilian grammar rules because they use the language as a tool of social exclusion:

-the proficiency test in Portuguese language is requiered for
every Brazilian a) entering the university
b) applying for a well-paid job

-if Brazilian elites and their supporters (conservative grammarians who hate colloquial Brazilian Portuguese and keep saying that: ''official
language of Brazil is Continental Portuguese) allowed Brazilian grammar, everyone would be able to enter the university and apply for a nice job.

Only 10 % of Brazilian schools (the schools only rich students attend) have a good method of conservative grammar teaching, so this means only these rich people will pass the Portuguese language proficiency test and will enter the university and/or get a nice job.

These elites are ruling Brazil and they don't want every Brazilian to master the ''classical Portuguese language'' (based on Continental Portuguese), the standard written language that has been kept like a sort of new ''Latin''.

It was elites who chose the grammar norm based on Lisbon Portuguese instead of the real Brazilian Portuguese norm that 99 % of Brazilians use.

It is sad, but the rich people benefit from diglossia that is present in Brazil.

It is interesting that, even the elites, that use ''standard (Continental) Portuguese'' (with Brazilian spelling of course) in formal writing, never use it in informal speech, they normally say things like -Mé da- instead of ''standard'' -Dê-me- (Give me) or -Vi você- instead of ''standard'' -Vi-o- (I saw you). The same elites members and conservative professors who use things like these informally, keep saying that: ''Brazilians speak Portuguese language so sloppily'' or ''Brazilians are destroying the language of Camoões'' (a Portuguese poet)...
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Language policy in Brazil: monolingualism and linguistic prejudice

Gladis Massini-Cagliari1

(1) Departamento de Lingüística, Faculdade de Ciências e Letras, Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Campus de Araraquara, Brazil


Abstract The purpose of this article is to analyse thelinguistic situation in Brazil and to discuss therelationship between Portuguese and the 200other languages, about 170 indigenous, spokenin the country. It focuses on three points: thehistorical process of language unification,recent official language policy initiatives,and linguistic prejudice. I examine twomanifestations of linguistic prejudice, oneagainst external elements and the other againstsupposedly inferior internal elements, pointingout to a common origin: the myth that thePortuguese language in Brazil is characterisedby an astonishing unity.
Brazil - Brazilian Portuguese - language policy in Brazil - language unification - linguistic ideology - linguistic prejudice - monolingualism

source: http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5264549&PDF=1
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La norme occulte"


Par Marcos Bagno


Un fait historique extraordinaire


L'élection de Lula à la présidence de la république a une
importance historique indéniable: pour la première fois, depuis le
début de l'histoire officielle au Brésil, une personne avec ses
antécédents biographiques et sociaux atteint le poste maximal du
pouvoir politique, un poste jusqu'alors réservé en exclusivité aux
représentants d'une même oligarchie.


Ce même événement a une importance tout aussi historique en ce qui
concerne les relations linguistiques dans la société brésilienne:
aussi, pour la première fois, arrive au pouvoir un représentant des
variétés linguistiques "populaires", avec ses règles grammaticales
qui caractérisent la langue parlée par une majorité de notre
population. Justement pour cela - pour être majoritaires dans un pays
où n'est valorisé que ce qui vient de la minorité dominante -, ces
variétés ont toujours été la cible des préjugés exprimés par les
usagers des variétés linguistiques prestigieuses.


(...)


J'ai déjà affirmé (...) qu'il serait illusoire de penser que
l'élection de Lula pourrait représenter un changement radical dans
les relations linguistiques au Brésil. Cette affirmation demande à
être justifiée. L'histoire des langues et des sociétés nous raconte
que, pour qu'il y ait un changement significatif dans les concepts de
langue "correcte" et de langue "erronée" il faut en même temps une
grande et radicale transformation des relations sociales.


Ce fut ainsi, par exemple, en France, après la révolution française,
(...) Avec une moindre intensité, mais tout aussi marqué par une
histoire révolutionnaire, fut l'établissement de l'"anglais
américain". Au contraire de ce qui se passa au Brésil - où
l'indépendance fut tramée de haut en bas et proclamée par le
représentant même de la couronne portugaise -, les Américains se
libérèrent de la domination britannique en prenant les armes et en
risquant leurs vies pour créer une nation souveraine. (...)


La stratégie de l'appropriation


Rien de tout cela ne se passa au Brésil, ni en 1822 ni, encore moins,
en 2002. L'élection de Lula - du fait même d'avoir été une
élection - ne fut pas un processus révolutionnaire, dans le sens
historico-sociologique du terme. (...) Quant à son langage, il suffit
de comparer le discours du leader syndicaliste de la fin des années
1970 avec la rhétorique du président de 2003 pour vérifier
l'appropriation spectaculaire, par Lula, des formules linguistiques
consacrées, des expressions idiomatiques caractéristiques des milieux
intellectuellement privilégiés, tout un discours habilement construit
pour s'adapter tant aux nouvelles expectatives des larges couches
défavorisées comme des secteurs plus conservateurs de la population.


(...)


Avec une grande habileté, il n'a pas abandonné les éléments
caractéristiques des variétés linguistiques " populaires ", dont il
sait très bien se servir lorsqu'il doit improviser un discours face
aux grandes foules, refusant alors d'utiliser une rhétorique
boursouflée et ornée des gadgets syntactiques et lexicaux,
caractéristiques du " bien parler", (...) Lula est un usager
extrêmement compétent des multiples genres discursifs qu'il a à sa
disposition - et c'est là la vraie signification de " bien parler "
une langue.


L'élection de Lula ne représentera pas, comme craignent des
journalistes dont la signature fait autorité, un changement radical
des concepts de langue " correcte " et du " bon portugais " dans les
écoles brésiliennes et, surtout, dans l'imaginaire de notre
société, dans notre sens commun. Cet imaginaire, ce sens commun ne
pourraient être radicalement démantelés et remplacés par d'autres
que si toutes les autres relations subissaient une rupture tout aussi
radicale et révolutionnaire.


(...)


Pas de panique, donc : les écoles brésiliennes vont continuer à
avoir pour mission principale et incontournable de permettre à leurs
élèves une intégration de plus en plus grande et plus complète dans
la culture lettrée, ce qui suppose (parmi un tas d'autres choses,
beaucoup plus importantes) l'enseignement des formes linguistiques plus
valorisées par les couches dominantes de la société, bien que ces
mêmes couches n'emploient guère ces formes anciennes et, de toute
évidence, hors d'usage.


L'histoire personnelle de Lula est, sans doute, une révolution "
presque magique ", mais c'est une révolution individuelle, privée,
digne d'admiration, bien sûr, dans un pays aussi injuste que le
nôtre. Et, justement pour cela, elle est l'archi connue " exception
qui confirme la règle. " Tous les millions de citoyens pauvres qui,
aujourd'hui, n'ont pas un accès plein à la culture lettrée et aux
formes linguistiques prestigieuses continueront d'être stigmatisés et
maintenus à bonne distance des voies d'accès à la mobilité sociale
vers le haut.


Marcos Bagno, A norma oculta - Língua e poder na sociedade brasileira,
São Paulo, Parábola Editorial, 2003.


Traduction de Regina Abu-Jamra Machado

I think Brazil will change its language policies sooner or later... It is the global tendency to shift towards the local variety rather than to stay with the "norm" of the continental legacy. Take for example Canadian French or Australian English...

What is the situation with Spanish in South and Central American countries? Do each of these countries have their own local standard of Spanish or do they all follow Standard Continental Spanish?

!,

=>VICTORYYYYYYY ! LOL <=

LOL,you might have won this battle but you haven't won the war!