Brazilian Portuguese is an offshoot of the language of the mother country, Portugal. With eighteen times the population of Portugal and 5,254,630 square miles (8,456,510 km2), Brazil is significantly larger than Portugaltelenovelas), a fact that may explain why European Portuguese have an easier time understanding spoken Brazilian than the other way around, although there's no such thing as a brazilian tourist having language problems while visiting Portugal.
Actually, this is similar to the situation that exists between the United States and the United Kingdom: American English derived from the language of the mother country, the UK. US music and films are exported worldwide, which may also explain why Britons are able to understand spoken American English better than Americans understand some varieties of British English.
The written language taught in Brazilian schools has historically been based on the standard of Portugal, and Portuguese writers have often been regarded as models by Brazilian authors and teachers. Nonetheless, this closeness and aspiration to unity was in the 20th century severely weakened by a nationalist movement in arts and literature, which awakened in many Brazilians the desire of a true national writing uninfluenced by standards in Portugal. Later on, agreements were made as to preserve at least the orthographical unity throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, including the African and Asian variants of the language (which are typically more similar to EP, due to a Portuguese presence lasting into the end of the 20th century).
On the other hand, the spoken language suffered none of the constraints that applied to the written language. Brazilians, when concerned with pronunciation, look up to what is considered the national standard variety, and never the European one. Moreover, Brazilians in general have had very little exposure to European speech, even after the advent of radio, TV, and movies. The language spoken in Brazil has evolved largely independently of that spoken in Portugal.
The most noticeable differences in pronunciation are that European Portuguese uses a lot more sh and zh sounds than Brazilian Portuguese, and that some word endings are not usually pronounced in Portugal, while they are in Brazil. For example, the word saudade, sadness/longing, sounds something like ’sah-oo-dahd’ in Portugal, and like ’sah-oo-dh-gee’ in Brazil. When an S comes at the end of a word in the European Portuguese, it becomes a sh sound, as in Português ‘por-too-gaysh’, which is pronounced ‘por-too-gays’ in Brazil, unless the following word begins with a vowel.
Characteristics of informal BP
The main and most general (i.e. not considering the various regional variations) characteristics of the informal variant of BP are:
* names accompanied by plural articles or numerals appear in the singular form (dois menino instead of dois meninos, as mulher instead of as mulheres); dois meninos : two boys; as mulheres : the women
* disuse of third-person object pronouns, which are replaced by their respective personal pronouns (eu vi ele instead of eu vi-o); eu vi ele/eu vi-o : i saw him
* disuse of the second-person verb forms (except for a few parts of Brazil) and, depending on the region, eventual disuse of the plural third-person forms, mostly among the low classes (tu cantas becomes tu canta or você canta; eles comeram may or not become eles comeu); tu cantas : you sing; eles comeram : they ate
* exclusive use of proclisis in all cases (always me disseram, rarely disseram-me), as well as use of the pronoun amidst two verbs in a verbal expression (always vem me treinando, never me vem treinando or vem treinando-me); disseram-me : they told me ; vem treinando-me : has been training me
The purpose for this blog entry is just to make a light comparison about both forms of Portuguese: The european and the brazilian. Later, i'll try to write something more about each one's characteristics and phonology, as well as the respective lexicon.
And even though, there's no such thing as standard Portuguese at least structurally taught, i'm a firm believer you can still learn from both varieties and form your own version of Portuguese. As someone born in Portugal and introduced to the Brazilian dialect, i have no problems whatsoever when trying to understand some of the more vernacular Portuguese spoken in Brazil.
When i was learning English at school, i was being taught the British version but because i was exposed to a bigger variety of media exposure to the American English, i acquired not only their accent but some of their idioms. But i still have no problems talking to someone from the UK.
And even though, there's no such thing as standard Portuguese at least structurally taught, i'm a firm believer you can still learn from both varieties and form your own version of Portuguese. As someone born in Portugal and introduced to the Brazilian dialect, i have no problems whatsoever when trying to understand some of the more vernacular Portuguese spoken in Brazil.
When i was learning English at school, i was being taught the British version but because i was exposed to a bigger variety of media exposure to the American English, i acquired not only their accent but some of their idioms. But i still have no problems talking to someone from the UK.
A language agreement has been made between the 2 countries to form a unique language. Of course we will remain talking our way, and they will remain talking they're's. It's just more of a burocratic process than anything. Nothing has changed, although many people are already predicting the extinction of the European Portuguese.
