MJD, Why on Earth would Rede Globo transmit Portuguese programs at all? There is no quality in it! And we do not want to get used to Portuguese dialect since we find it abhorrent to hear (acoustically) and impossible to understand (semantically). Would German people understand Swiss German if they were exposed to hours of Swiss programs on German TV? Well I don't know! All I know is that German people don't like Swiss German and don't understand it!? For us, Brazilians, it would be easier to get acostumed to French speaking than to Portuguese people speaking. Can't you understand that Portuguese pronunciation is so MUFFLED WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT, it sounds more Arabic than Roman. If Spanish people who have the border with Portugal cannot understand Portuguese people, why do you think we, that are thousands km away from portugal, shoud be able to understand it?! On the other hand, we understand Castillian Spanish and Latin American Spanish perfectly.
They never bother to put subtitles when there is a Spanish-speaking person on TV Globo news. Which is not the case with Portuguese: All Portuguese people that are interviewed are subtitled on Globo TV.
It is not true we are not exposed to Portuguese programs: there are 2 channels here: RTP Internacional and SIC international. But they are not popular at all. Mexican MTV Latina and Argentian channel Much Music have 1000 times bigger audiences, and they are on the same satellite dish.
Lyena, tu falou que tu num pode entender eles, os portuga.
Tem muita gente com o mesmo problema. Pode incluir eu nessa :)
um baita abraço carioca.
"Would German people understand Swiss German if they were exposed to hours of Swiss programs on German TV? Well I don't know! All I know is that German people don't like Swiss German and don't understand it!?"
Please limit your preaching of hate to Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese as well as to you Brazilians. How does it occur to you, Brazilians of this forum, to speak for all Germans and say that we don't like Schwyzerdütsch?
I'm from Hamburg and I don't understand Schwyzerdütsch at all.
''Although subjects can be characterized as "external" in EP as well as in BP, we have shown that this externality cannot be characterized in an unitary way . Moreover, both BP and EP differ from languages like Italian in which only referential subjects can be external. We have claimed that this is due to the fact that both in EP and BP , the verb does not raise up to AgrS but stays in Tense. In addition, in BP, AgrS have no D-features, and pre-verbal subjects are adjoined to AgrSP. This accounts for the topic-oriented characteristics of this language, which are not present in EP.''
BP=Brazilian Portuguese
EP=European Portuguse
full article:
http://www.ime.usp.br/~tycho/participants/c_galves/ps.html
Jo : Hi there in sunny Algarve! Veríssimo's chronicles come in every "Expresso", a weekly newspaper appearing each Saturday. You'll find them opening the section called "Actual". I love reading them.
Lyena : if you read this thread from its start you'll find that what you wrote has already has already been brought to dicussion and replied.
My personal position is: no one questions that the Portuguese spoken in Brasil has strong idiossincracies; if they're enough to set it as independent from Portuguese, it depends on the criteria you choose to classify languages. Just because many of you want so it's not enough. As Portuguese people can understand spoken and written Brasilian, and Brasilians can understand written Portuguese (and also spoken after some exposure to the accent), I guess we still have a common language. This said, it's obvious that a language spoken in every Continent has to show some flexibility; also in Europe Portuguese isn't monolitic, it's has variations in levels and regionalisms. I don't understand easily Açoreans and Madeirese, and they speak Portuguese.
Another problem has to do with diglossia in Brasil. Even if we admit low-level language as independent, do you think it can replace Portuguese as upper-level language? The "civilisational language", upon which are based institutions, economy, literature, is Portuguese and I don't believe you can replace it soon (I'm basing in Perini as quoted by Jacyra). I read some texts by Brasilian linguistis recently, and they were all in excelent Portuguese.
And about Paulo Coelho's works being adapted to our standard, that's very natural atending it's meant to be a best seller, accesible to a very wide range of readers. On the other hand, Ubaldo Ribeiro, Ruben Fonseca, C. Lispector and tons of others are widely published here, by Portuguese publishing houses, without adaptation.
A nice poem written in Brazilian language:
Tem uma coisa qui eu gostiu muitu,
I di madrugada cumecei a pensar,
cumu ia ce teressanti,
iscrivinha us tar ditu popular.
Tem uns qui ja são mais cunhicidu,
cumu ajueio tem qui reza,
i tumem aquei qui diz,
sabeneu usa num vai farta.
Uns inté viraru moda,
i correru u Brasir interu,
qui diz, quem gostia di omi é viadu,
muié gostia memu é di dinheru.
Tem uns qui são profundu,
i da inté memu refrequissão,
Deus mi livri dus amigu,
porque us inimigu eu sei quem são.
Tem agua moli im pedra dura,
tantu bati inté qui fura,
us anjinhu du pé suju i santinho du pau oco,
a tem inté uma nu cravu i otra na ferradura.
Tem aquela da galinha,
qui as véia qui dão cardu bão,
i a panela véia qui faz cumida boa,
qui viro inté moda di violão.
I as tar di lei di Morfi,
qui é coisa séria di pensa,
diz mais o menus anssim,
si tivé qui da erradu, a cobra vai fuma.
Mais pra resumi pruceis,
si cunseio fossi bão nóis vendia,
u unicu cunseiu qui presta é di mãe.
Qui diz pra nóis nun anda im má companhia.
I think spoken Brazilian will subtitute Portuguese language one day. This has already happened with Afrikaans that used to be only a ''spoken'' language and Dutch was used officialy. But over the years, Dutch has been forgotten, and vernacular South African Dutch was officially recognized as an independent language: Afrikaans. The same will hapen in Brazil (spoken Brazilian ~ official Portuguese). Spoken Brazilian and Continental Portuguese (used in Brazil only in formal writing but never in informal or semiformal writing such as song lyrics) are much more distant than Afrikaans and Dutch.
''I read some texts by Brasilian linguistis recently, and they were all in excelent Portuguese. ''
Well, I've read many Swiss text, they were all in excelend High German, but don't expect anyone in Switzerland speaking like that. Swiss people hate Standard German (imported from Germany) just like we hate standard Portuguese (imported from Portugal). I think that Swiss vernacular and Brazilian vernacular will develop into independent languages, iventually, that has happened with Afrikaans (from Dutch) and it happending with Cabe Verdian (from Portuguese) which will soon be declared official language in Cabe Verde.
We Brazilians, Even when we make love we say TE AMO and not AMO-TE, which is closer to Spanish (TE AMO) than Portuguese (AMO-TE).
=>Spoken Brazilian and Continental Portuguese (used in Brazil only in formal writing but never in informal or semiformal writing such as song lyrics) are much more distant than Afrikaans and Dutch.<=
This can't be true...
This would have to mean that Brazilian portuguese has lost inflection,most of the verb endings,syntax ,also Brazilian portuguese would have to be written as phonetical Portuguese,and Brazilian portuguese should be genderless...these are some of the things in wich Brazilian portuguese would have to differ from Normal portuguese,this can not be the case...please don't draw quick conclusions.
well, spoken Brazilian Portuguese has lost inflection:
o menino (the boy)
os menino (the boys)
to say or to speak (falar)
eu falo (I speak)
tu fala / (vo)cê fala (you speak)
ele/ela fala (he/she speaks)
a gente fala (we speak)
(vo)cês fala(m) (you speak)
eles/elas fala(m) (they speak)
ele = he
ele = him (direct object)
pra ele = him, to him (indirect object)
Ele viu ele. He saw him.
Ele deu pra ele. He gave him.
Wanessa,
Do you speak Afrikaans and Dutch?
Does the educated upper classes in Brazilian capital cities speak a variety that would be closer to International Standard Portuguese?
Does the Brazilian Government and Brazilian Universities agree in making a different language?
What is the % of Brazilians with a High School Diploma? It might be an awful lot but I don't know, so I ask.
Are there strong regional differences between different Brazilian regions?
Which spoken variety would be taken as "central" for the new language?
I imagine you'd be interested in having the one, which is most evolved from Portuguese.
Will you translate all the archives and literature written in Portuguese in the past thousand years (including Brazilian works, of course, to this new language?
'' Focalization in Brazilian and European Portuguese. European Portuguese (EP) behaves like other Romance languages, in that focalized subjects conveying new information surface in clause final position. The same does not happen in Brazilian Portuguese (BP)''
'' Brazilian Portuguese behaves like English, since new information foci do not invert. The question to be raised is whether there is a parametric split between the two varieties as far as discourse-configurationality is concerned. An answer to this question must take into account the
following fact: in unaccusative contexts, EP and BP behave partly alike. In sentence-focus contexts, both permit SV or VS, while in subject-focus contexts, the behavior is the same as found with (in)transitive verb''
Full article:
http://www.nordlund.lu.se/Nordwebb/forskning/GLOW/Abstracts/Costa-Fig.pdf
Wanessa,
"and it happending with Cabe Verdian (from Portuguese) which will soon be declared official language in Cabe Verde."
What happened in Cape Verde was that a creole developed from a pidgeon. I believe they're raising Crioulo to an official status along with Portuguese, but Portuguese won't be going anywhere. The only people that speak Crioulo are Cape-verdeans, whereas Portuguese is spoken by millions.
You can wish all you want, the fact of the matter is Portuguese is spoken in Brazil. "Te amo" instead of "amo-te", "chega no supermercado" instead of "chega ao supermercado"....these differences along with all of the other petty ones you've mentioned do not mean the Portuguese spoken in Brazil is another language. Give it up. Go read a book by Jorge Amado and tell me it's not Portuguese.
Lyena "They never bother to put subtitles when there is a Spanish-speaking person on TV Globo news."
It is also true the other way around. In many Castilian-speaking countries of Latinamerica brazilians are never subtitled when they are interviewed in television. "Brazilian" is completely intelligible to most Castilian speakers and that's the reason why some of them affirm that Portuguese is a badly spoken Castilian (most of them have never heard european Portuguese).
