By Sarah-Claire Jordan
Brazil has always been known for its unique diversity. The Brazilian people have an amazing mix of African, Portuguese, and indigenous roots that has had an interesting impact on the culture of their country. Like many modern countries, Brazil has had its fair share of waves of immigration, most notably from countries like Japan and China. Since it has an interesting tendency to take aspects of different foreign cultures and make them part of Brazilian culture, every single ethnic group that has immigrated to Brazil has contributed in some way to the culture we see today.
The official language of Brazil may be Portuguese, but with such a rich history of immigration plus the indigenous peoples native to the area, it becomes obvious that there is a linguistic richness in Brazil that many of us aren’t even aware of. Here are three languages from Brazil that don’t generally make it into the public eye.
- Riograndenser Hunsrückisch
If you look at the history of languages in Brazil, you might be surprised to find that, back in the 1940s, German was actually the second most common language after Portuguese. Most German immigrants settled in Rio Grande do Sul starting around 1824. They tended to come from the Hunsrück and Palatinate regions of Germany, and so mainly spoke the Hunsrückisch dialect of German. This dialect began to mix with dialects spoken by other German immigrants in the area, but Hunsrückisch was still the most predominant type of German spoken. At first, there were German schools that the immigrants sent their children to, but soon German wasn’t being taught anywhere. This lack of exposure to Standard German coupled with the need to speak Portuguese in order to survive in Brazil led to the development of Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, a dialect of German that is heavily influenced by Brazilian Portuguese and is sometimes called Brazilian German.
- Talian
Similarly, many Italians immigrated to Rio Grande do Sul, but starting later than the first wave of German immigration. Though it’s called Talian, or sometimes Brazilian Venetian, it actually isn’t related to Standard Italian but an interesting mix of different Venetian dialects. Of course, the other ingredient in the mix is Brazilian Portuguese. This mixing of Italian dialects and Portuguese happened much quicker than with German and Portuguese, and was much more fluid and natural since Italian and Portuguese have so much in common linguistically.
- Nheengatu
Brazil has an astounding number of indigenous tribes, many with their own languages. Like most things indigenous, these languages aren’t generally well-known outside of Brazil, even though the people who speak them were the original inhabitants of what would later become Brazil. At one point in the 1600s, some Jesuit missionaries who were doing work in Brazil before it was colonized realized that they needed to figure out a way to communicate with all of the indigenous groups there, and so they took the Tupi language and altered it some and applied Portuguese grammar rules. The result was Nheengatu, which was used as a sort of lingua franca among indigenous groups. It is spoken by at least 8,000 people today and is recognized as a sort of universal indigenous language for all native peoples in the country.
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