What is the official language in Brazil? Is there a Brazilian language? What language is spoken in Brazil? Brazil what is the official language

Brazil is a wonderful country. We all know about her success in football and remember the bright flag. This country can hardly leave anyone indifferent. I would like to get to know the culture of Brazil better. And, naturally, we should start with the language. So what is the language in Brazil?

Official language

Brazil is a country in South America. The only official language in Brazil is Portuguese. Moreover, Brazil is considered the only Portuguese-speaking state in America. It is easy to guess that Portugal used to be a metropolis in relation to Brazil. We can talk about the use of a specific Brazilian version of the Portuguese language.

According to one version, even the name of the country is associated with the Portuguese language. Allegedly, the Portuguese discovered trees on the coast, and the wood began to be exported in large quantities to Europe. This tree was named "pau brazil" by the Portuguese, meaning "brazil tree". The word "brasil" comes from the Portuguese "brasa". And it in turn means “heat” or “hot coals”. The Portuguese thought they had found a place where the commercially valuable brazil tree grew, which the Arabs traded. This tree produced valuable redwood, which was used to make paints, furniture and musical instruments. However, they were mistaken - Arab traders brought a tree related to this species, but a different one. But the name, nevertheless, could perhaps stick.

Aboriginal and immigrant languages

However, Brazil can be considered a multilingual country. There are now 175 languages spoken, including both Aboriginal and immigrant languages. It is stated that there were another 120 languages that were once spoken, but they have disappeared. True, less than 1 percent speak an unofficial language. There are indigenous Indian languages in Brazil: Nyengatu, Tukano, and Boniva. They are notable for having become the second official languages of one of the municipalities in the state of Amazonas. There are also a huge number of Indian languages. Also spoken in Brazil are European and Asian languages, which were brought with them by immigrants from these countries.

By learning Portuguese, you can feel at home in Brazil, “where there are a lot of wild monkeys in the forests,” as Charlie’s Aunt says in the movie Hello, I’m Your Aunt! Ah, this bright country of Brazil! Now you know what language they speak there.

Brazil is a dream country for many travelers. The largest state in South America is famous for its carnival and beaches, Iguazu Falls and many more natural and cultural attractions and interesting places. The official language is Portuguese and it is the only Portuguese-speaking country in this part of the world.

Three hundred colonial years

In 1500, Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator, landed on the shores of South America, whose record, among other achievements, from that moment included the discovery of Brazil. On April 24, 1500, he and his crew set foot on the shores of South America and named the coast Terra de Vera Cruz.
33 years later, the large-scale colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese began. The colonists who came from here actively grew coffee and sugar cane, mined gold and sent ships loaded with valuable timber to the Old World.
In 1574, a decree was passed banning the use of slave labor by local Indians, and labor began to be imported from. In parallel with colonization, the spread of language occurred. It will become official in Brazil later, but for now both local residents and imported Africans had to learn to speak Portuguese.
The country gained independence in 1822 and was officially called the Republic of the United States of Brazil.

Some statistics

Despite the fact that the country has a huge expat population and more than 170 languages and indigenous dialects are spoken, Portuguese is the only official state language in Brazil.
It is used in everyday life by the vast majority of citizens of the country.
The rest are spoken by less than one percent of the republic's residents.
The only exception is the municipality of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira in the state of Amazonas. The second official language adopted here is Nyengatu.

The Nyengatu language is used by about 8,000 people in northern Brazil. It serves as a means of ethnic self-identification for some tribes that have lost their own dialects during the process of colonization.

That one and not that one

Modern varieties of Portuguese in Europe and Brazil are somewhat different. Even within Brazil itself, phonetic and lexical discrepancies can be discerned between the dialects of the northern and southern provinces. This is largely due to borrowings from the languages of local Indian tribes and the dialects of slaves brought to South America in the 16th-17th centuries from the black continent.

How do I get to the library?

When traveling to Brazil as a tourist, be prepared for the fact that very few people in the country speak English. At best, you can talk to the receptionist at a good hotel. The way out of the situation will be a Russian-Portuguese phrasebook and the ability to gesticulate emotionally, and the innate Brazilian sociability will be more useful than an ideal knowledge of languages.

What associations does the country of Brazil evoke in you? Of course, this is football, this is a carnival and TV series. Brazil is in South America. Getting to know this colorful country needs to start with the language.

Which one in Brazil?

Experts estimate that there are about 170 languages and dialects in Brazil. So what language is spoken in Brazil? The officially recognized language is Portuguese. This is the only state in America whose residents speak Portuguese. The fact is that until the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal was the metropolis of Brazil. During the era of colonization, the territory of modern Brazil was under the rule of the Portuguese, so the local population was forced to learn Portuguese. The only difference is that Brazilians use

Portuguese specifically. They have their own dialect, and different states of Brazil have their own peculiarities of Portuguese.

How did the Portuguese language originate in Brazil?

The beginning of the emergence of the Portuguese language in Brazil is considered to be 1530, when small settlements of the Portuguese appeared on the shores of the New World. The Indians - Brazil - spoke many languages of their many tribes. Naturally, the new and old residents did not understand each other, so a language appeared that was called “Lungua Geral”, which became a transitional language. This language has become common in Brazil. The language spoken by the visiting Portuguese is also what the natives began to speak. They began to adopt some words from each other, and the result was a language that was understandable and convenient for everyone. After all, before this, each tribe had its own language, and even the aborigines themselves did not always understand each other. Over time, the Indians were supplanted by the Portuguese. Why is true Portuguese different from Brazilian Portuguese? Because European Portuguese developed under the influence of the languages of the French, Spanish and English, and in the Brazilian version of Portuguese it is forever

words from the languages of the Indians and Africans were repeated.

What language is spoken in Brazil today?

Today, Brazil is considered a multilingual country; in addition to the official Portuguese, the indigenous languages Nyengatu, Tukano, and Boniva have also been preserved. These languages are considered the second official languages in the state of Amazonas. There are those who don’t even know what language they speak in Brazil, because they have always spoken only in their native dialect. True, such residents are less than one percent. There are also immigrant languages in Brazil brought from European and Asian countries. They are represented by German, Italian and Slavic. Also in major cities

During childbirth, you can hear Chinese and Japanese speech. Sometimes geography teachers provoke students with the question: “In such a large country as Brazil, what language is spoken?” Some answer that it is in Brazilian. This is partly true, because the Brazilian language is multifaceted and interesting, just like their country. But in fact, it would be more correct to say: “Brazilian version of Portuguese.” This language differs from the original at the level of phonetics and vocabulary.

From this article you will learn what the official language is in Brazil.

Brazil is the largest country on the southern American continent. It speaks 175 languages, but has only one official language. What language is this? Let's find out in this article.

What language is spoken in Brazil?

Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro with a statue of Christ installed on the mountain

Until Europeans came to the American continent, the territory of modern Brazil was inhabited by Indian tribes. They spoke Indian languages, there were more than 1 thousand of them. Today, the number of Indians in this territory has decreased significantly, the languages have also been forgotten, now 145 Indian languages are known, spoken by 1% of the population of Brazil. The largest tribe of Indians is the Matses, living on the border with Peru.

The Portuguese began to settle in new lands in the mid-16th century. At the same time, ships with slaves from Africa began to arrive in South America. Later, the Portuguese had to fight for new colonies with the Spaniards, British, Dutch and Italians, some of them remained to live on these lands.

Now in Brazil there are Germans, Russians, Arabs, Japanese and other peoples living nearby, and they all speak their own languages.

What is the official language in Brazil?

The official language in Brazil is Portuguese. It is the only country in South America to recognize this language as a common language for the entire country. Portuguese is spoken by 191 million people, out of 205 million people living in the country. But in educational institutions and schools, Spanish and English are compulsory to study.

The following language groups can most often be heard spoken on the streets of Brazil:

Germanic (Spanish, English, German)
Romance (Talian language, spoken by some immigrants from Italy)
Slavic (Polish, Russian, Ukrainian languages)
Sino-Tibetan (Chinese)
Japanese
Creole language (now endangered)

Is there a Brazilian language?

Amazon River flowing through Brazil

Just as the English language in the UK and the US is different from each other, so the Portuguese language is different in America and Europe.

In Brazil, the Portuguese language differs from the language spoken in Portugal in phonetics, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The Brazilian analogue of the language is more melodic, soft, intelligible, it uses the letter “s” more, in Portugal “sh”. It is a kind of Brazilian dialect of Portuguese. And the fact that the Brazilian language exists is just a myth.

What is the Brazilian dialect? As you know, the Portuguese language originates from the Latin language. According to linguistic studies, in the Brazilian dialect, 80% of words are taken from Portuguese, 16% of Spanish words, 4% of words from Indian and African black languages.

So, we learned that Brazil has one official language, and many languages that are not prohibited from being spoken.

Video: Brazil. Interesting facts about Brazil

The most frequently asked questions of most Russians planning a trip to Brazil: “What language is spoken in Brazil? AND ?"

Official, national language of brazil- Portuguese. Among all the countries in South America, only Brazil speaks Portuguese, and in its Brazilian version, and they are very proud of it. On the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and especially on the capital's famous Avenida Atlantica, you can hear dozens of other languages besides Portuguese. Why not one of them, namely Portuguese, became the national language in Brazil. In all other countries of South America, the official language is Spanish. “What does Portugal have to do with it?”, you ask, “Why is the language of this country spoken in Brazil?” - the answer to these and other questions will be revealed in the continuation of the article.

History of the emergence of the Portuguese language

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the Latin language also disappeared. In the modern world, only classical Latin is now used. It is used by representatives of only a few professions - doctors, lawyers and Catholic priests. For other people it is a dead language. But from the Latin language, in the process of the collapse of the great Empire, a whole group of living Romance languages arose. Portuguese is among them, and, according to most linguists, it is more similar than all other languages in this group to Latin, its ancestor.

Linguistic studies have shown that it was formed from the vulgar Latin language, in which the Roman legionnaires of the distant province of Lusitania communicated with each other. In their speech they used a lot of words and expressions of the local population. This is how it happens in history, a distorted provincial dialect became the language of several huge nations, outlived its great progenitor and now carries more Latin than the Italian language, which was born in the very heart of the Roman Empire.

Local philologists operate with the following data on the composition of the official language of Brazil: the Portuguese language consists of 80% words of Latin origin, 16% of words in it are borrowed from Spanish, and the remaining 4% are words derived from Indian and Negro dialects.

Why Portuguese? The reason why this country's language is spoken in Brazil

The thing is that Brazil was a colony of Portugal for a long time. Having become acquainted with the history of Brazil, it becomes clear what the official language is in Brazil and why. Brazil, discovered by the Portuguese in 1500, initially did not arouse much interest among the colonialists. At first, the new colony was used as a place of exile for unwanted subjects and as a source of mahogany, from which the modern name Brazil came.

Before colonization, Indians lived on the territory of modern Brazil; they had their own language. But the Portuguese colonialists pushed them out of their inhabited territories. But still, a small fraction of words in the national state language of the country originated precisely from the language of the aborigines. For the most part, these are geographical names, for example Ipanema - “stinking place”, Guanabara - “closed bay”, Paquita - “packs live here”.

After the colonialists conquered Brazil, ships with slaves from Africa arrived there. Tens of thousands of slaves from the West Coast. They brought with them the names of plants, animals, household items, various rituals and holidays. From the languages and dialects of black slaves, many words also became part of the modern Portuguese language of Brazil. Therefore, it so happened that in the official language of Brazil there are a lot of words that are not in Portugal itself; they were borrowed by Brazilians from Negro and Indian languages. Now in Brazil no one speaks these languages, and there are no native speakers anymore. Africans permanently residing in the country have long been speaking the official language of Brazil, and they use their Negro dialect only in ancient rituals, without even understanding the meaning of the words. And the local Indians disappeared into the main population of Brazil.

The national language in Brazil could be Spanish, French, English and even Dutch.

Immediately after the discovery of Brazil, the Portuguese had to fight a lot for their new colony with European countries. In 1567, the year of the founding of Rio, the Portuguese completely expelled the French, who managed to occupy some territories. I had to fight with Spain, Holland and England. For twenty years, Holland stubbornly tried to hold the eastern part of Brazil, the fortresses built there by the Dutch reliably held the defense.

Then, for more than 60 years, from 1578 to 1640, when Portugal itself was under Spanish rule, Brazil also belonged to the Spanish crown. After successfully overthrowing the Spanish government in 1640, the Portuguese regained their independence and regained Brazil. And a few years later they won the war against the Dutch, as a result of which Holland renounced all claims to Brazil, but in exchange for monetary compensation.

National language of Brazil

Although national language of brazil and Portugal is the same, in the pronunciation of Brazilians and Portuguese it is very different. For clarity, Brazilians pronounce the letter “S” like the Russian “s”, and the Portuguese pronounce it like the Russian “sh”, and all vowels are pronounced more guttural by the Portuguese than by the Brazilians. Therefore, it turns out that dialects of the same language are characterized by completely different sounds and certainly harsh on the ears of each side. Many people think what is the official language in brazil Currently, because independence from Portugal was gained quite a long time ago, the country ranks 5th in the world in terms of population, and its own language is not recognized as official.

It is known that at one rather serious event in Brazil, a newsreel about Portugal was shown, despite the seriousness of the event, there was laughter in the hall. The Brazilians present there laughed in unison at the Portuguese pronunciation of the person behind the scenes.

This dissimilarity in pronunciation and a number of other reasons allowed Brazilian linguists and philologists to raise the question of the existence of their own “Brazilian” language. Relations between Portugal and Brazil are quite complex, for which there is a logical historical explanation. And it is quite clear that given the mutual antipathy between the Brazilians and the Portuguese, the idea of their own “Brazilian” language became quite widespread in society. However, it is very difficult to find the line where a dialect ends and another language begins. And therefore, until Brazilian linguist researchers proved otherwise, the official language of brazil– Portuguese.

But it should be noted that in the modern world the demand for the Brazilian version of the Portuguese language is growing, due to the high rates of economic growth in Brazil. The country plays an important economic and political role on its continent. In the countries of Latin and South America, it is the Brazilian version of the Portuguese language that is widespread. Recently, with Brazil's entry into world markets, it has become recognizable throughout the world.

There is a very widespread opinion that the Portuguese language is similar in sound to Russian.

Impressions of Russian immigrants from the Portuguese language

“Our family just recently moved to Rio, and none of us speaks the language of Brazil. The apartment we moved into is on the second floor of a new high-rise building. There is a school in the courtyard next to the house, and there are always a crowd of Brazilian kids there. Like everyone else children, they are incredibly active and noisy. Therefore, screams, noise and laughter are constantly heard through our windows. If you don’t look out the window, but only listen to the voices, you get the feeling that you are not in Brazil, but in an ordinary Moscow high-rise building. "

Another example. “My husband and I recently moved from Russia to Sao Paulo, and decided to go to one of the cinemas in the town. The film was not very good. The theater was half empty and we heard two people talking behind us - a man and a woman. We listened because It seemed to us that she was speaking in Russian. It was impossible to understand the words. No, after all, the voices fell silent and then sounded again. We were so interested in what language these two were speaking, Portuguese or Russian, that we We barely waited until the end of the film to meet them. It turned out that they were an elderly couple who had left Russia a long time ago, but they spoke their native Russian during the screening."

Phonograph specialists, both Russian and Brazilian, say that in its sound, especially when the voices merge, Portuguese speech, the national language of Brazil, is strikingly similar to Russian. It is clear that in the Portuguese language there are sounds and intonations that are not at all in Russian, and vice versa, but of the many languages of the Romance group, there is no language closer to Russian, in intonation and tonality, than the Brazilian dialect of Portuguese. In Portugal, the language of this country is spoken in Brazil, they speak Portuguese completely differently than in Brazil.

European languages in Brazil

Brazil, a developing country exploring global markets. Therefore, quite a lot of courses are now being organized in Brazil where they study English and other European languages using the most modern methods, but all this is incredibly expensive, and ordinary Brazilians cannot afford it. Wealthy Brazilians are required to teach their children foreign languages in specialized colleges: Anglo-American, French, German.

Population of Brazil

Almost all Russians who have been to Brazil certainly want to return there, and the reason for this is not only the local beauty and wonderful vacation. Many admit that they miss the local population, they miss the Brazilians, especially in those moments when, upon arriving home, they see many gloomy faces or encounter a boorish passerby.

If you draw up a verbal portrait of an ordinary Brazilian, the main features will be friendliness and optimism. And this seems especially surprising, realizing how difficult life is for these people who have the invaluable talent of enjoying life even when their stomachs are empty. They can get drunk from a glass of beer and have fun until the morning or spend their last money on hosting a friend. They are great lovers of life.

Brazil, despite a powerful breakthrough in economic development, is a country of enormous contrasts. The Brazilians themselves say that they have two Brazils, one poor, the other rich. Here is the rich part of it and the middle class - educated, literate people, whose level of education is in no way inferior to Europeans. But low-income people are illiterate or completely illiterate; some cannot even sign their name. Not to mention writing in the national language of Brazil, and not everyone can read it. There are schools in poor neighborhoods, but no one works in them.

Study, study and study again

Before you go on a trip or immigrate to Brazil (Russian specialists with a good education are in good standing there, good paid work always awaits them) you need to learn at least a minimum of phrases in Portuguese, because Portuguese is the official language in Brazil. It is used everywhere in the country: among the population, on radio and television, and in government agencies. Nobody speaks international English in the country outside the capitals. Therefore, gentlemen, travelers, you will have to study, especially if you are traveling to Brazil as a “savage”. When traveling around the country, it will not be superfluous at all: a Portuguese phrasebook, discreet clothes and a bag, so as not to become a tasty morsel for local street thieves, the last note is just advice from experienced tourists and also what language is spoken in brazil, has no relation.

Portuguese in Brazil, video:

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