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Standard Brazilian Pronunciation

Brazil has not a historical capital, or a main city - like most countries in the world has - whose dialect is made a standart for the country's language. We have two big cities - São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro - that has two very distinct dialects and a capital - Brasilia - that has a melted dialect, recently formed.

So, there's not a thing we may call Standart Brazilian, it is topic for much discussion and ABL doesn't help.

I'm suggesting to accept in Wikipedia Jornal Nacional (TV Globo news) accent, as a most clearful and acceptable either for people from SP and people from RJ.

Other possibility is not to accept a single dilect, but try to discuss phoneme by phoneme.

Any more suggestions? José San Martin 23:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion is to go by the most popular dialect used in Brazilian media broadcasts. If there is no obvious domination by a single dialect, then go for two different variants. If we're going for phoneic transcription, I think we'd wind up with a transcription that would be identical for both EP and BP.
Peter Isotalo 11:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

they often pronunciate: poɾtu'ges (there's a dominance of São Paulo's dialect). There is no such thing as a Brazilian standard, it is your creation, Peter. But during early 20th century that was defined to be Rio's, but the international agreements define no standard differentiation, in order to maintain the unity of the language. And BTW, it is not that different, just because people pronunciate a sound somewhat differently doesnt make it a lot different. Besides Rio's dialect is more popular in soap operas. About standard Portuguese pronunciation I prefer not to discuss that issue now, because I think you are doing a nice job, so I don't want to spoil nothing and the problem is not serious. over and out. ;) --Pedro 15:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I asked if there was a standard, I didn't claim anything. You were the one who dictated the Brazilian pronunciation to me, Pedro. And do try to be less patronizing, please. The quality of the article does not depend on your approval.
Could someone who actually lives in Brazil confirm Pedro's reply?
Peter Isotalo 16:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
He's right, there's no standard Brazilian dialect. Brazilian economy is centered in São Paulo, Brazilian culture is (mostly) centered in Rio de Janeiro, and Brazilian polictics is centered in Brasília. The dialect used in newscasts is mostly from São Paulo, with the usual artificialities for neutrality. The dialect used in most movies and soap operas is either from Rio de Janeiro or fake, since nearly all the actually popular actors are from there. The current revision uses the dialect of São Paulo for the autonym, which, in my opinion, is the most adequate choice. • Ekevu • ♥ • ★ 17:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
The notion that all Brazilian dialects have equal social prestige is clearly misleading. The closest equivalent we have in Brazil to General American (i.e, the perceived "accentless" pronunciation used on TV newscasts) is nowadays the educated middle-class speech of the city of São Paulo ("paulistano"), as exemplified by news anchors William Bonner and Boris Casoy, talk show hosts Marília Gabriela and Sílvia Poppovic, and game show hosts Luciano Huck and Angélica Ksyvicks. The dialects that diverge the most from this "General Brazilian" standard and have accordingly lower national prestige are Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese (which would be the Brazilian sociolinguistic equivalent of Southern American English) and the substandard caipira dialect of the south-central countryside (including most of the State of São Paulo excluding the capital city). The dialect of the city of Rio de Janeiro ("carioca") is in turn a special case in the sense that (a) it used to be the prestige dialect in Brazil back when Rio was still the nation's capital, and (b) it is still the dialect most often heard in the theatre, movies and TV soap operas, basically because most Brazilian actors/pop singers still tend to be from Rio. "Carioca" Portuguese also bears the mark of being in many ways closer to European Portuguese pronunciation due to heavy Portuguese immigration in the area. As of today, I would say "carioca" could not be equated with "General Brazilian" (in the American English sense of the term) since it is not perceived nationally as an "accentless" dialect (quite the contrary, Brazilians from other states are quick to point out to someone from Rio that he/she has a "carioca accent"). However, because of its cultural and historical influence, "carioca" is still a high-prestige dialect, although not quite as influential perhaps as "paulistano". Using a rough comparison, one could say that the sociolinguistic position of "carioca" within the class of Brazilian Portuguese dialects could be perhaps described as being similar to the social standing with respect to General American English of certain U.S. Northeastern accents (like Bostonian). What do you think ? Mbruno 20:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel your explanation was enlightening and interesting, Mbruno. I also get the impression that the strong words about the non-existence of a standardized Brazilian Portuguese from other editors are, as with pretty much all categorical denials of the existance of prestige dialects, rather exaggerated. In urbanized and industrialized with one clearly dominant language there are always one or several select dialects that enjoy more prestige than others, especially by their usage in various types of media broadcasts. Their (or its) status as "neutral speech" is, however, always a question of compromise, since they're always based on existing dialects (theres is no form of natural speech that isn't). But they do seem more neutral than non-standardized local or regional dialects because they're used in more formal or public circumstances. They also tend to be the only dialects that are mostlty heard in a form that is intended to be easily understood by the majority of speakers of a national language.
As always, though, it would be great if we had some linguistic sources to cite in these matters.
Peter Isotalo 13:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


The Portuguese of Brazil has no dialects

A seção "Dialects - Brazil" e o que ela insinua está completamente errada. A língua portuguesa no Brasil não possui nenhum dialeto: todos falam e escrevem o mesmo português. Desde quando gírias e sotaque de voz são suficientes para definir e diferenciar dialetos? Dialeto carioca, dialeto paulista, dialeto nordestino.. isso me soa Wikipedia:Original research pois nas universidades de Letras (inclusive na USP) não se leciona tamanha baboseira.

The issue of "dialects" is always controversial because of its political implications. For instance, in China and Italy governments ferociously insist on calling completely differnt languages "dialects" in order to stress the political unity of the country. At the other extreme, some Serbs and Croatians insist that they speak different languages, even though a single dictionary will serve both. And go argue with them.
Anyway, pronunciation differences between regions of Brazil are quite significant, and there are also differences in vocabulary (e.g. "mandioca" / "aipim" / "macaxera") and grammar (agreement of "tu" in RJ and RS, for instance). In current linguistics nomenclature, any consistent difference between the languages spoken in two regions qualifies them as two distinct dialects.
However, as a great sage once said, "for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert". It is not surprising that this rule holds at USP too. 8-) Jorge Stolfi 15:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
PS. It seems that you are only thinking about the "formal" or "high" register, which is indeed practically uniform in the written form, and differs mainly in pronunciation. However, in the "informal" register, which is the language actually spoken most of the time, the regional differences are much greater. See diglossia. Jorge Stolfi 15:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
PPS. Don't forget to sign your entries, and try to use English if you can. Jorge Stolfi 15:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
De fato, não há no Brasil dialetos da Língua Portuguesa. Penso que existe, por parte dos que defendem essa idiotice de dialetos brasileiros, excitação e gozo por um eruditismo que, na minha opinião, é coisa de gente irresponsável e empolgada demais. O que há de fato no Brasil são sotaques e vocábulos e expressões regionais. Mas, tudo bem. Vamos deixar que eles - os pseudo-eruditos - curtam o eruditismo alegre. 201.22.65.141 01:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Isso me entristece pois torna a Wikipedia pseudo-Intelectual. Não é isso que aprendemos nas Universidades brasileiras, não é isso que consta nos livros de língua de Português. Muito menos há respaldo da Academia Brasileira de Letras. Esses "dialetos" é um estudo de opnião de um estudante universitário e não necessariamente consenso. Ser ensinado em uma univerdade ainda não é. --201.58.165.218 14:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

No Brasil, como em qualquer outro país, HÁ dialectos, porque o português, como qualquer outra língua apresenta variação. Essa variação pode ser fonética ou fonológica (aquilo a que normalmente se chama "sotaque" e que envolve fenómenos que vão da acentuação à entoação a fonemas diferentes), pode ser lexical (ou seja, uso de diferentes palavras, aquilo a que chama "gírias"),pode ser morfológica e sintáctica ou pode ser tudo isto ao mesmo tempo. Para além das variedades regionais (os chamados "dialectos") há no Brazil pelo menos duas grandes variedades: o português padrão do Brasil e o português vernáculo do Brasil. Uma coisa é dizer que isto não é ensinado nas escolas, o que é verdade, essencialmente por razões políticas; outra coisa é dizer que o português do Brasil não apresenta variedades, pois isto não só é mentira, como resulta de uma falta de informação atroz. Tão atroz que ignora mais de 100 anos de literatura linguística que prova precisamente a existência destas variedades.

Indirect Objective

I saw that the example "Nós vos traremos o vosso ceptro." is tagged as a regional usage. Is "Nós traremos-vos o vosso ceptro." the "correct one" in official grammar? Obrigado! Qrfqr 19:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No. "Nós traremos-vos o vosso ceptro" is incorrect in official grammar. The sentence is tagged as regional, because the pronoun "vos" is only employed regionally, nowadays. It would have been a normal sentence in the standard Portuguese of 200 years ago, though. 9 February, 2006.

BTW I have read the discussion in ARCHIVE3. I know that there always are some differences between a prescriptive "official" grammar and the colloquial varieties of a language. I want to know what the "official" grammar says, if there is any. My portuguese grammar tells me that the indirect objective should be put after the verb except in negative sentences, in questions introduced by an interrogative, after conjunctions like "que" and "como",and in the cases where they follow some adverbs as "ainda", "tudo", etc.

The sentence "Nós vos traremos o vosso ceptro." falls in none of the case mentioned above, so I am interested in knowing what the "official" grammar would say. Qrfqr 20:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The rules you have quoted are incomplete. There are other instances where the unstressed objective pronoun may migrate to before the verb. In this case, this is done to emphasize the subject "nós". 9 February, 2006.

The pronoun "-vos" is not employed just regionally. It is commonly used everywhere, at least in the whole of Portugal, I assure.

Sorry if I can't speak English very well, but the correct example is: Trar-vos-emos o vosso ceptro. There is a mesóclise, where the pronoun must be between the root and the end of the verb. This way. Remember: in Brazil, "ceptro" is written "cetro".
Nós vos traremos..., although less common, is also correct. FilipeS 16:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that "nós trar-vos-emos o vosso ceptro" is the best form. Colloquially I'd just say "nós vamos vos trazer o vosso ceptro".--Húsönd 02:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Barranquenho

I'm going to withdraw barranquenho from the Derived Languages section. According to Lindley Cintra, a renouned authority on Portuguese dialects:

[...] o barranquenho [é um] falar caracteristicamente português, alentejano, embora com alguns traços originais, devidos à visível e forte influência do dialecto espanhol com que está em contacto.

"Nova proposta de classificação dos dialectos galego-portugueses", p.5. See link in article. FilipeS 14:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed for Sardinian's personal infinitive

I have asked for a citation for the following:

This is called the personal infinitive, and no Romance language has one, except Galician and Sardinian‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› [citation needed];

To be clear, the part that should be confirmed is whether Sardinian indeed has a personal infinitive. FilipeS 19:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The Romance Languages Harris and Vincent pp. 332-333 "The survival of the Latin imperfect subjunctive paradigm (used primarily as an inflected form of the infinitive) is often cited as a distinctive feature of Sardinian, though it has become obsolete in many dialects."

note that the portuguese personal infinitive has exactly the same latin origin. Benwing 06:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

pp. 342-343 says that the imperfect subjunctive is only a subjunctive with the verbs áere and éssere. in other cases it is a personal infinitive; "keljo de bi vénneret isse" (I want him to come); "imbetses de kantares tue, ..." (instead of you singing, ...); "prima de andarémus, kántanos una kaθone" (before we go, sing us a song, p. 344). p. 344: "non keljo de mi madzare" (I do not want you/them/anyone to hit me) is possible in "favorable pragmatic circumstances" but "non keljo de mi madzares/madzaren" etc. is often preferred.

"kánto, kántas, kántat, kantámus, kantátes, kántan" (p. 332); looks amazingly like latin, no?

Benwing 07:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have a citation, just add it to the article. FilipeS 14:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Language Reform

I've heard that the Portuguese language is being reformed. Is this true? Apparently, this is happening because of the conflicts different portuguese nations are having communicating with each other. The language will apparently be spoken like the Brazilian dialect but with a gramatical structure of Euro. portuguese, along with tons upon tons of words derived from Greek, Arabic and Latin. Is any of this true?

Not exactly. There is a proposed orthographic reform which has not been ratified yet by all Lusophone countries and, therefore, has not come into force. If implemented, that reform would end most of the existing differences between European and Brazilian spelling. Overall, it would make "official" Portuguese spelling closer to the current Brazilian norm than to its European counterpart, but it would also imply changes in Brazilian spelling as well (e.g. "vôo" > "voo"; "enjôo > enjoo"; "freqüente" > "frequente"; "idéia" > "ideia"). The reform does not affect though the way people speak: native Lusophones in Brazil or in Portugal will presumably continue to speak with their own local accent, regardless of the way the words they say are written. As for grammar, AFAIK, there is no "official grammar" of the Portuguese language and there are no plans to write/publish one. There is however an extensive body of Portuguese-language literature from which prescriptive grammarians infer the rules if you will of "proper" standard Portuguese as taught in schools. In general, the prescriptive "school standard" as taught in Brazil does not differ significantly from the one used in Portugal, although some obvious differences in syntax, usage and vocabulary are immediately noticed. The grammar of the actual spoken language however differs considerably from the "school standard", especially in Brazil, and actually varies greatly depending on the educational level, social class, and/or geographic origin of the speaker. In particular, native speakers of certain particular dialects/sociolects who have little exposure to formal schooling are unlikely to be affected by any legislated change in the "official school grammar", even if any such thing existed. Most likely, they would carry on using the grammar they hear at home from their parents, families and friends. 161.24.19.82 21:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

No Official Grammar? I don't understand this, can you clarify? -K

What I meant is that, in the Lusophone world, there is no central body like the Spanish Royal Academy, the Dutch Language Union, or the French Academy, with authority under the law to regulate the standard language. The closest thing we have to that, at least in Brazil, would be the Academia Brasileira de Letras, which however has never published AFAIK not even its own dictionary of the Portuguese language, much less any grammar handbook. Since there is no legally-sanctioned "official" grammar, the standard for what constitutes proper grammar (as taught by Portuguese school teachers) is actually based on the language commonly used in novels/poems, especially those written by major authors from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In Brazil at least, there is however a somewhat relaxed attitude about "prescriptive grammar", especially nowadays. A highly educated Brazilian is likely to be able to write very well in "standard Portuguese" as taught in school (as that knowledge is required to get through the tough entrance exams in the most competive universities). Nevertheless, for the vast majority of the population (who is not fortunate enough to be among those few privileged individuals that can attend a top university), the standard school language is actually a distant, sometimes almost alien paradigm, which they do not master, neither in writing, nor in speech. In fact, in day-to-day conversation, even highly educated Brazilians with considerable proficiency in the standard written language will use "colloquial grammar" that may differ considerably from the school/literary norm. The relaxed attitude I mentioned before stems precisely from the fact that this state of quasi-diglossia is accepted in Brazil as normal, in that sense that there is in general no a priori absolute concept of "right or wrong" as far as language is concerned. Instead, the "correctness" of language tends to be judged in relative terms, i.e. whether a given construction is appropriate or not within the social context/situation/environment in which it is being used. 161.24.19.82 13:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There are no conflicts between the different countries, the reform is just to standardize the language due that in 1990 the governments expected increase of cultural interchange due to the present internet/globalized world, for instance it was very common that Brazilian comic books were sold in Portugal, so kids sometimes wrote "espetáculo" instead of "espectáculo", etc. So some teachers disliked that. Thus, the spelling reform will increase exchange between the different countries without harming teaching of the orthography. The reform was already accepted by Brazil it just waits the acceptance of Portugal and Cape Verde, but nothing will change as many African countries have no possibilities to change all their laws and other texts, it is not an important issue for them, and the current orthographies will still be accepted. As ortography in Portugal and its former colonies only changed by law, every textbook must be changed. The same goes for old folks and writers, people that usually dislike changes. But don't expect nothing like the entrance of the Euro in 1999/2002, it is not in these countries culture to respect deadlines. This reform was to enter into practice in 1994, just before the Internet boom! In 2004, during the Independence of Brazil celebrations, both countries also talked about that issue at higher level, but the government changed in Portugal and the current government is worried about marketing itself, financial problems, and the abortion referendum. Everyting else they will answer: "we have firstly to solve the financial issues/ make the abortion referendum!"
  • BTW you can already use the new ortography in Portuguese language wikipedia, given that the new ortography respects the present Brazilian ortography or the European/African/Asian one, and adds nothing new. -Pedro 19:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


Spelling reforms are always met with resistance, precisely because of what Pedro said: in addition to the cost of converting textbooks, official documents and dictionaries to the new orthography, people (especially older folks) are generally reluctant to change the way they write certain words. Just as an illustration, it took almost 10 years for the German spelling reform of 1996 to become mandatory in most of the German-speaking world and, even today, it has not been fully implemented yet in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. The situation is even more confusing in the Francophone world where, as of today, the French spelling reform of 1990 has not been implemented yet. In fact, the French Academy itself, which proposed the reform in the first place, has now adopted a sort of "wait-and-see" attitude stating it will monitor the degree of voluntary use of the new spelling rules before it can make a final revised recommendation on whether to proceed with the reform or not. Mbruno 01:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the point with this ortographic reform. Brazilian and Standard Portuguese are already very different, especially phonetically. Common spelling rules are just a cover-up for the effective separation of the languages. I, for one, will always refuse to write Portuguese any differently.--Húsönd 02:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

More on 2nd-Person Pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese

In general terms, I guess we could say Brazilian Portuguese dialects may be grouped into 4 distinct classes as far as their choice of second-person subject and object pronouns is concerned. The 4 classes are as follows:

  1. Tu (subj.) / te (both dir. and indir. obj.): that combination is characteristic of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and also appears in the normal speech of the cities of Florianópolis and Belém do Pará. It is also BTW the standard European Portuguese combination.
  2. Você (subj.) / você (dir.obj.) / para você (indir. obj.): typical of the caipira dialect of the São Paulo state countryside and the nearby mineiro dialect. Standard você is often reduced to ocê ( /u-'se/ ) in caipira pronunciation. Similarly, para você is often changed to pr'ocê.
  3. Você (subj.) / você or lhe (dir.obj.) / lhe (indir. obj.): common in various samples of Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese, especially in Bahia. In particular, lhe-ísmo, i.e. the use of lhe as a direct object, is a usual characteristic of Northeastern Brazilian speech (cf. standard Spanish). Note, however, that in certain Northeastern states like Ceará, tu is also used as a subject pronoun instead of você.
  4. Você (subj.)/ você or te (dir. obj.)/ te (indir. obj.): the most usual combination in the educated speech of Rio de Janeiro (carioca) and, increasingly, in the middle-class speech of the city of São Paulo (although carioca also features the tu/te combination, especially in youth lingo and in working-class favela speech). Given that the educated accents of São Paulo and Rio are the dialects most often heard on Brazilian national TV, one could say the você/ te combination, although condemned by school grammars, is nonetheless also a feature of "General Brazilian", used here as the BP equivalent of General American as defined in American English.

Incidentally, the multiplicity of categories above helps to explain why there are actually 3 different ways to say "I love you" in Brazil, namely: Eu te amo ; Eu amo você; or Eu lhe amo. Note also that, unlike in Portugal, the use of você as a direct object (replacing - (l)o or - (l)a) and the use of para você as an indirect object (instead of para si) are accepted as correct in standard written BP (see e.g. Celso Ferreira da Cunha's Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo). In particular, in standard BP, para si can only be used when si functions as a 3rd person reflexive pronoun. In all other cases, it is considered wrong in Brazil to say para si or consigo in lieu of para você or com você. Mbruno 13:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You could add that to Brazilian Portuguese. :-) FilipeS 21:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Further discussion taken to Talk: Portuguese pronouns FilipeS 15:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Flag Image

Wikicommons image.
Wikicommons image.

I found an image of flags of countries who's national language is Portuguese. I am not sure where to put it though so I'll leave it here for you guys to decide.--Jersey Devil 02:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Animated gifs are as far as I know generally frowned upon and avoided. I don't know if there's any actual policy or guidelines.
Peter Isotalo 13:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I think its a great idea.

'Spelling reform' section

I think this could be moved to Orthography of Portuguese, and a smaller note left here. Any objections?... FilipeS 21:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I think you should keep that in this article for information purposes, obviously “zipped”. This is important, as many English speakers don't really know the differences between the Portuguese of Portugal and Brazil, and some kids in the net like to play with them or due to pride reasons saying it is too different and there's often two versions in Software products, so keep it here for information purposes as this is the article that people will search first.---Pedro 18:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to learn more about the orthographies of Portuguese can click on the link to the specialized article. FilipeS 12:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

"Ilha" does not mean "Slum"

The word "ilha" is not equivalent to the English word "slum". "Ilha" is an aggregate of small houses, inside the city. These "Ilhas" were planned and built in the 19th century to accomodate migrant workers during the industrial revolution. Although these houses are small, they have little similarities to brazilian "favelas". They have running water, electricity and sewage systems. The correct term for "slum" is "bairro de lata".

My impression is that "ilha" is mostly used in the north of the country. FilipeS 15:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I lived in the north for many years and never heard "ilha" as meaning "slum".--Húsönd 01:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It is rare; to Brazilian slums people use favelas. To Angolans the Angolan term, etc, as there are differences. There are today not many of those places in Portugal, so in the North both 'ilha and bairro de lata are rarely used, because there is any (I believe), you'll hear favela more often that those two jointly. And yes, ilha is the Northern term, or was... You didn't heard because there are any; even gypsies have a "proper" home. There is a town, that the mayor if she sees someone in the street, she gives him a home, she says it would be an awful representation of the town. I don't know if that is true... but it made me laugh. I maybe want to do that, because it is a nice town. The bad... it is far from where I do my "things". I won't tell you the name of the town. No way!! :P --Pedro 00:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It just so happens that I've heard "ilha" with that kind of meaning for the first time in my life. The person who was speaking to me used that word as meaning "a group of degraded apartment buildings".--Húsönd 03:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The origing of slang "Bazar" meaning "to leave"

The origin of this slang word is controversial. Some linguists state that this word comes from American slang "buzz off". Others consider that this word comes from "vazar" an expression meaning "put the cards on the table" (from a card game).

Any source for that? I have never heard "vazar" as a synomym of "put the cards on the table", by the way. Not saying it can't exist... FilipeS 15:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Myself, in Brazil, have never heard "bazar". But "vazar" is a very common slang meaning "to leave". I never heard an explanation, but it is reasonable to believe that it relates to the standard meaning of "vazar", "to leak". User:Joaobonzao
  • It is not controversional; there are SEVERAL words of Angolan origin used by the Portuguese youth. Even the "ya" is of Angolan origin. Bazar is a slang used only in Portugal (young adults) and Angola (young adults to elderly). Maybe it is also used in the rest of the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa for understandable reasons, as there is still a lot of cultural "swapping". Any doubts on those things please first check in a dictionary and then leave a message. see [1] --Pedro 00:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Number of speakers of Portuguese overstated

The Ethnologue report for Portuguese mentions only 177 million first-language speakers of Portuguese worldwide. Considering that those figures are from the 1990s and correcting them for natural population growth, we would arrive at an updated figure of probably between 190 and 200 million native Lusophones. In any case, that is far less than the fictional 220 million mentioned in the Wikipedia article ! Overstating the number of speakers of a given language is a common occurrence in the Wikipedia (we've seen it before e.g. in the French, Spanish, English and Irish articles, just to name a few). However, if we intend Wikipedia to be a serious and reliable source of information, we must make sure it meets the appropriate criteria for accuracy. I suggest we change the 220-million estimate in the Portuguese language article to something like "slightly less than 200 million." 200.177.40.211 13:57, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

If you really feel that an error of 10% is that serious in this context, find a better source, and correct the article based on it. Remember that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not "truth". FilipeS
  • It is really common to overestimate the number of speakers/ in fact, when it comes to lists everything is overestimated in wikipedia. I remember English with more than a billion speakers, eheh. Maybe ants speak it and we don't know it yet. eheh Forget the 177 million number that is largely incorrect, that is like saying that only Brazil speaks it, so bringing that number here is a waste of bits and bytes and people's time. I don't like the 220 million, but is more near the reality than 177 (fewer speakers than in Brazil alone!). 200 is closer to the actual number. But anything bellow it, is nonsense. For the figures of Angola, there's really an issue, because of this country's history. Though 30% of Angolans can speak only Portuguese, 30% more speak it as first language and speak another language as second. Others speak Portuguese as a second language. So, saying 20% speak Portuguese in Angola, is really… well… who said that? based on what? From were did you (or some else) get that number?! But there was war, people left and returned and people could have said they speak Portuguese as first language due to prestige when they didn't. The worse estimates that I've seen apart from the official figure are 40%, but these are already outdated as many urban Angolans have returned, so the number of speakers maybe too high, for instance in Namibia (where there are/were many exiled Angolans/Portuguese-Angolans) but other countries weren't even counted for instance D.R. Congo or Zambia. Ethnologue for instance states that 27% speak Portuguese in Mozambique, but the last official estimative (from 1997), states that it is spoken by about 40%, and recent data (2000-2002) shows that 50% of the population can already speak, write and read Portuguese (though most as a second language). Thus, 220 is a reasonable number, but… I would prefer counting country-by-country and emigrant data, than relying on gross figures based on nothing. And for Cape Verde (a small country, that wont change much, but it is an example) I've used the ethnologue number, although I don't believe in it, but it was used because there's no other number for native speakers, but they must have counted only Portuguese people living there and not the actual people who speaks the language. --Pedro 17:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you should include Galician in the table with the number of speakers of Portuguese. Officially, it's a separate language.

Also, it would be nice if there were data on how many speakers have Portuguese as their "first" languages, and how many speak Portuguese but are multilingual. FilipeS

From what you wrote above I inferred that you had contributed to the table in Geographic distribution of Portuguese. But now that I think better, even if you did contribute to the article, that doesn't mean you had anything to do with including Galician in the table. My apologies. FilipeS

  • there's an [edit] button. ;) --Pedro 18:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Yesterday in Bissau, while a new Portuguese language centre in Bissau and the Forum of the Portuguese Language in Dili where agreed, the reporter said that there 220 million speakers of the language, she firstly said 200 million, but corrected herself immediately saying 220 million. And if you use the data in the geography of the P.L. article you'll get a similar number.--Pedro 09:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope the journalist didn't get her numbers from Wikipedia, then! LOL. ;-)

I've given this some thought, and, considering that Wikipedia is concerned with verifiability first and foremost, it may be better to give outdated but verified numbers (indicating, between parenthesis, the date when the estimate was made), than to make one's personal estimates. FilipeS

Nasal Allophones ?

The article mentions 9 vowels for EP (7 in BP), with 5 nasal allophones. However, judging from the contrast between e.g. "canto" and "cato" (from the verb "catar"), "lã" and "lá", or "senta" (from the verb "sentar") and "seta" (noun), I'd say the nasal vowels are not mere allophones, but phonemes in their own right (at least to my layman's Brazilian ears, the words above differ from each other by one vowel sound only and obviously have different semantic values). 200.177.8.83 23:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi. There is no question that the sounds (phones) in question differ. However, the same phoneme can have different phonetic realizations in different environments within words, and still be considered a single phoneme. Let's look at the examples you give:
  • "canto" [kãtu] The nasal vowel [ã] can be interpreted as an allophonic realization of /a/ + /n/.
  • "senta" [se~ta]: [e~] can be regarded as an allophonic realization of /ê/ + /n/.
  • "lã" [lã]: this can be regarded as a shorthand for "lan", again with the [ã] as an allophonic realization of /a/ + /n/.
This is similar to when we consider that [tch] is an allophonic realization of /t/, in Brazilian Portuguese words such as "gente". FilipeS 17:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that [tʃ] is an allophonic realization of /t/ in BP, just like [ʌ] in "cama" is an allophonic realization of /a/. The interpretation however that [ã] is an allophonic realization of /a/ + /n/, although suggested in the literature, is still controversial to say the least. I think the Wikipedia article should make a reference to the alternative POV where Portuguese /ã/ is a separate phoneme given that both interpretations are found in the literature.
Perhaps the the article could be rephrased to be less assertive, and avoid taking a side in the discussion. Do you have a suggestion on how to do that?
I think, however, that Portuguese phonology gives a good explanation of the arguments for regarding the nasal vowels as allophones. FilipeS

Pronunciation of the word "português" in BP

The Wikipedia article transcribes the BP pronunciation of the word "português" as [poɾtu'gejs]. That may be true in most of Brazil, but I believe there should be also a reference to the alternative (mostly carioca) pronunciation [poɾtu'gejʃ].200.177.41.12 12:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't the first syllable be [poχ-] in BP pronunciation anyway? User:Angr 12:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Maybe, although I believe that the Globo standard usually prefers [ɾ], like in Portugal. José San Martin 17:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm originally from the city of São Paulo and I pronounce the letter "r" in final position in a syllable as the alveolar trill [r]. For the 'r' in initial position or for the digraph 'rr', I normally use a voiceless glottal fricative [h]. I believe that, in Rio, both r's may be replaced with the voiceless velar fricative [x]. I'm not sure though about the use in Brazil of the alveolar tap [ɾ] like in Portugal. I'd say that the "General Brazilian" pronunciation of "português" would be either [portu'gejs] (in São Paulo) or [poxtu'gejʃ] (in Rio). Any thoughts ? Mbruno 14:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe there are no published sources describing this that could be cited. User:Angr 15:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure there are references. The problem is there are many distinct ways of actually pronouncing 'r' in different Portuguese dialects ([r], [ɾ],[x],[h],[ʁ], even the retroflex [ɻ] in caipira). Therefore, different references usually contradict each other. 201.52.32.9 11:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
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