Are Portuguese and Brazilian the same language?

Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 9:50 pm GMT
J.C. "I understand GOOD speakers and who speak CLEARLY. If Portuguese people learn to pronounce vowels clearly maybe I will understand."

Unheard-of! A speaker of Brazilian Spanish telling the portuguese people how they should pronounce their national language. I think you'd better clean your ears, and then you will certainly hear the wide spectrum of vowels of the portuguese language.
Answer this question honestly: What do you do when you meet a native English speaker with an accent you have not been exposed to? Do you begin speaking a different language? Do you make an effort and try to open yourself to your interlocutor, so that you can communicate with him in English? Or do you tell him naively he should learn to speak/pronounce his own mother tongue?

J.C.: "In many ways, compared to Brazilian Portuguese, Angolan Portuguese is very similar".
Keep dreaming!

Loris: "The fact is someone speaking with a strong, interland Azorean, Madeirense or Algarvian accent will hardly be understood by any other speaker of Portuguese, at first (for only a few minutes, until one gets used to the accent). Just like many Brazillians say about Continental Portuguese."
People from e.g. Porto, Coimbra or Lisbon would never get to the ridiculous extent of speaking English with someone from e.g. Algarve, just because they do not understand what is being said during the first minutes of the conversation. But brazilians apparently do need to behave so when speaking with someone from Portugal. I think you are comparing two different things.

By the way difficulties in understanding (until you get used to the accent) may also occur in the opposite direction, namely that someone from e.g. Madeira or Azores may have to get used to the accent of someone from e.g. Lisbon.
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 10:31 pm GMT
J.C.: "Well, I've met people from Angola and Cabo Verde in Braziland and I could understand them perfectly(They weren't speaking in Brazilian Portuguese neither had been influenced by it."
"I'm talking about the time I FIRST met a Portuguese speaking back in 1993"

Esta história sua e bem esquisita!
You meet people from Angola and Cabo Verde in Brazil, and you learn to appreciate how they speak. On the contrary you never met someone from Portugal in Brazil, so that you could hear and appreciate the way people speak in Portugal. I did not know that portuguese people were so exotic specimens in Brazil.
J.C.   Wed May 14, 2008 6:53 am GMT
"J.C. do the Braziliands understand Galician?"
There's no way not to understand someone speaking SO CLEARLY(All the vowels are pronounced). Besides, that's the language that gave origin to the Portuguese language.
It's funny to see how the language is in between Portuguese and Spanish like in the word "faga" (Between faça and haga).
J.C.   Wed May 14, 2008 7:01 am GMT
"Esta história sua e bem esquisita!
"You meet people from Angola and Cabo Verde in Brazil, and you learn to appreciate how they speak. "
I didn't learn to appreciate how they speak. They just speak in a CLEAR way to understand and I don't need to make any effort. period!

"On the contrary you never met someone from Portugal in Brazil, so that you could hear and appreciate the way people speak in Portugal. "
Why should I learn to appreciate a language I don't need to understand and has no advantage for me when countries around Brazil speak Spanish (With exception of Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana)? Besides, your ego-trip attitude and other people in this forum made me lose interest in PE totally.

"I did not know that portuguese people were so exotic specimens in Brazil."
With the exception of not so educated Portuguese bakers, who have been in Brazil for years I haven't met many and, to be honest, don't have much interest in talking to them, specially if they "think" they're superior in any aspect...
J.C.   Wed May 14, 2008 7:32 am GMT
"Unheard-of! A speaker of Brazilian Spanish telling the portuguese people how they should pronounce their national language. I think you'd better clean your ears, and then you will certainly hear the wide spectrum of vowels of the portuguese language. "
I don't need to clean my ears. If PE were pronounced clearly as Galician I could understand it perfectly, which reminds me that PE is the DEVIATION from the original language, not PB.
Well, if the spectrum of vowels were pronounced I'm sure I could hear them...


"Answer this question honestly: What do you do when you meet a native English speaker with an accent you have not been exposed to? Do you begin speaking a different language? Do you make an effort and try to open yourself to your interlocutor, so that you can communicate with him in English? Or do you tell him naively he should learn to speak/pronounce his own mother tongue? "
I never had any problem with English (standard) because their varieties aren't as different as PE and PB. At the moment I work and listen to Australians, Canadians and Pakistanis. My clients are mainly from Guyana, West Indies and Jamaica (This one is a little difficult to understand)...The only variety I had problem to understand at first was Australia and I just asked the person in question to speak more slowly. If he had refused to adapt to me(There was no common language but English) there would be no communication. Since he could understand me perfectly he's the one who should try to make me understand...
If the native speaker (Which doesn't mean it's good or perfect) doesn't pronounce words properly, he will have to deal with it and improve his pronunciation/accent/intonation so that his/her listener can understand well.
In Japan there are many dialects and people from areas that are distant from Standard Japanese MUST adapt their way of speaking if they want to be understood.
Back to Portuguese I SEE NO REASON to adapt to PE when PB has the majority of speakers and made the Portuguese language to be recognized worldwide. If there was no Brazil(I'm talking about countries that use PORTUGUESE ONLY) Portuguese would only have 10 million speakers and would be less Important than Finnish (5 million speakers). Well, at least Finland is a very nice country and most people I've met are very educated and polite.

"J.C.: "In many ways, compared to Brazilian Portuguese, Angolan Portuguese is very similar".
Keep dreaming! "
Now I can see that your judgement is not based on facts but rather on a political and nationalistic agenda. Just in case I'll use information which isn't from Wikipedia.
According to Paul Teyssier (História da Língua Portuguesa):
"Qualquer que seja o seu futuro remoto, a África "lusófona" constituirá ainda durante longo tempo para a língua portuguesa uma importante área de expansão. Oficialmente, esse "português da África" segue a norma européia. Mas, no uso oral, dela se distancia cada vez mais. E não deixa de ser curioso que por certas particularidades ele se aproxime do "brasileiro".
Now I ask again: Do you still think (I want evidence for that!) that Portuguese spoken in Africa is closer to European Portuguese? If you think so you either are a authority in the Portuguese language (Paul Teyssier was a Professor at Sorborne University) or you deny facts because it's hard for a Portuguese to accept that they are no longer the standard for Portuguese language. Let's face it, Brazil is the standard for Portuguese!!
I do not hate the Portuguese (Even though some people here think that ALL 180 million Brazilians hate the Portuguese) but this proud attitude doesn't give a reason to Brazilians to get interested in Portugal.

Tchau!
J.C.   Wed May 14, 2008 7:35 am GMT
I remembered another story of Angolan-Portuguese speakers.
When I went to Australia in 2003 I saw 2 Africans in a bar and wondered in which language they were speaking until I got close to them and SOON understood it was Portuguese and had a normal conversation with them. Since it wasn't in Brazil there's NO WAY they had been influenced by PB.
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 8:45 am GMT
«Since it wasn't in Brazil there's NO WAY they had been influenced by PB.»

Obviously. Makes all the sense. Pure example of aristotelian logics.
BTW, how old are you JC?
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 11:52 am GMT
''But americans understand British English. ''
Really? than why Harry Potter was translated in American?
and why Trainspotting was shown with subtitles?
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 11:55 am GMT
Brazilian: Quem ama você? Who loves you?
Lusitanian: Quem ama você? Whom do you love?
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 1:09 pm GMT
And in Galician?
J.C.   Wed May 14, 2008 3:46 pm GMT
"Obviously. Makes all the sense. Pure example of aristotelian logics. "
Well, maybe they watched a lot of Brazilian "novelas" and remembered the way people spoke in them when they met me. On the other hand, maybe I used a special "foreigner talk" to converse with them. kkkk

"BTW, how old are you JC? "
34, but have been in Japan since I was 24...Maybe I'm getting old ;)

Tchau!!
zatsu   Wed May 14, 2008 5:46 pm GMT
<<There's no way not to understand someone speaking SO CLEARLY(All the vowels are pronounced). Besides, that's the language that gave origin to the Portuguese language. >>

<<I don't need to clean my ears. If PE were pronounced clearly as Galician I could understand it perfectly, which reminds me that PE is the DEVIATION from the original language, not PB.
Well, if the spectrum of vowels were pronounced I'm sure I could hear them... >>

Compared to EP, Galician speak THAT clearly? Talking about being biased.
I'm not kidding when I say EP has more sounds and they're certainly used, even if you can't recognize that.
You're right in one part, BP is not a deviation of EP.

However, it's funny how you speak about Galician now (when you didn't even know they existed a few days back), that's because someone mentioned Portuguese derivated from Galician. You just don't know that that information is wrong and innacurate.
Both Galician and Portuguese derive from Galician-Portuguese which was, indeed, original from the kingdom of Galicia to which belonged the modern Galicia and the Northern Portugal territories. That language divided in two and those two developed separately from then on; this happened almost 1000 years ago, not last century.
So, even if similar, like Portuguese is with Spanish or other Romance languages, they're not the same neither derivate from one another! The same can't be said of EP and any other Portuguese dialect, since that language was teached and still didn't develop or transform.


<<With the exception of not so educated Portuguese bakers, who have been in Brazil for years I haven't met many and, to be honest, don't have much interest in talking to them, specially if they "think" they're superior in any aspect...>>

Judging from some statements, the only person who acts superior here is you.
The not so educated Portuguese bakers were poor but certainly hardworking. (BTW, who can badmouth Portuguese cuisine? Surely not Brazilians!)
Strange thing that today major companies in Brazil are in fact Portuguese and include electricity, water, phone, roads, concrete, agriculture, cattle, etc., and are not just about profit either.

Let me add that Brazilian in Portugal aren't from the highest layer of the Brazilian society either. Oh, wait ! Everyone in Brazil is highly educated...


<<Back to Portuguese I SEE NO REASON to adapt to PE when PB has the majority of speakers and made the Portuguese language to be recognized worldwide. If there was no Brazil(I'm talking about countries that use PORTUGUESE ONLY) Portuguese would only have 10 million speakers and would be less Important than Finnish (5 million speakers). Well, at least Finland is a very nice country and most people I've met are very educated and polite. >>

You must feel proud.
Actually, no one is asking you to adapt to anything, just to act less superior.
Good to know that you "at least" like Finland and recognize their good education, one of the finest in the world. Hopefully you're not comparing them to Portuguese nor Portugal, especially since you've never been there and haven't met that many Portuguese in you're life.


<<Do you still think (I want evidence for that!) that Portuguese spoken in Africa is closer to European Portuguese? If you think so you either are a authority in the Portuguese language (Paul Teyssier was a Professor at Sorborne University) or you deny facts because it's hard for a Portuguese to accept that they are no longer the standard for Portuguese language. Let's face it, Brazil is the standard for Portuguese!!
I do not hate the Portuguese (Even though some people here think that ALL 180 million Brazilians hate the Portuguese) but this proud attitude doesn't give a reason to Brazilians to get interested in Portugal. >>

Why are you assuming that that person is Portuguese?
Either way, you're forgetting that European Portuguese IS the standard in Africa and is considered highclass for political and social reasons. Africa is probably the one place where Brazil is NOT the standard for Portuguese.

Brazilian Portuguese, besides the number of speakers, is good for foreigners to learn because it's the simplest version, but you can't expect other Portuguese dialects to go for it just like that.
East Timor learn European Portuguese in school, even though Brazilian orthography is also accepted.
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 6:08 pm GMT
Zatsu, Galician and Portuguese are the same language. If not, it's the same as saying that Andalussian and Castilian are different because they splitted off from Andalussian-Castilian 800 years ago. Galician and Portuguese are different in phonetics but still they are identical in syntax and morphology. Vocabulary must be relatively different but not very much. The term "Galician-Portuguese" was coined by some crazy nationalist Galician linguists-politicians ,you can really call it simply old Galician or old Portuguese. If even a Brazilian like J.C. understands Galician completely, it's the same language as Portuguese.
zatsu   Wed May 14, 2008 7:41 pm GMT
Guest:
Well, I never heard of Andalusian-Castillan situation before, but I know the term Galician-Portuguese or Old Galician or Old Portuguese was studied and proved and the two languages considered different as they drifted apart, even if for political reasons.
(I believe Andalusian started as a Castillan's dialect, if it's still not so?)

Just because Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible and have identical syntaxes and morphology doesn't mean they're the same, otherwise Portuguese, Spanish and even other Romance languages would also be a single language.
They once were, Vulgar Latin, but not anymore.
Guest   Wed May 14, 2008 7:55 pm GMT
Just because Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible and have identical syntaxes and morphology doesn't mean they're the same, otherwise Portuguese, Spanish and even other Romance languages would also be a single language.


French and Italian are not mutually intelligible for example. That is one of the reasons why they are considered different languages, but if Galician an Portuguese are mutually inteligible and also share the same syntax, morphology and rough the same vocabulary, what is the reason why they are different? Whatever it is, then the Brazilians can say the same about Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese.