A Probably Stupid Question About Portugese (The Language)

[JSngry]

Do the Portuguese people speak it with the same rhythm, accent, and flow as do the Brazilian people?

As always, thank in advance!

[Tom Storer]

I don't know much about the details, but there are substantial differences in accent and vocabulary. I believe it's similar to the France/Québec divide in French. After all, the Portuguese started colonizing South America in what, the 15th century? So there's been a good long time for parallel development to occur.

[Caravan]

Comparing the difference between Portuguese vs. Brazilian with that between British vs. American is more apt.

[Tom Storer]

So Brazilian Portuguese is closer to Portuguese Portuguese than Québec French is to French French?

[Claude]

http://www.jrdias.com/jrd-portugal-brasil.htm

[Van Basten II]

Always felt that language develops itself depending on the geography and with who you are able to communicate. French Québecois developed itself being isolated from other french culture , could say the same about Acadians . And this is without going through the regionalisms that sometimes colours the language of certain areas.

With the advent of internet of the democracy of communication that helps communicating with everyone in the world if one desires, wonder about the permutation of the language that will take place.

[JSngry]

Thanks, folks, this is all very interesting and is definitely enlightening.

The question was prompted while listening to some Gal Costa last night, and I probably should have asked it, like, 30 years ago or so. But, better late than never.

[Aggie87]

Interesting that Portugal is only the 4th largest Portuguese speaking country. I assumed it would be 2nd, after Brazil.

[Shrdlu]

Very interesting, for a Jobim fan!

I wonder if there is a parallel with Mexico Spanish vs Spain Spanish. (As with Brasil, Mexico has a bigger population than Spain.) I much prefer the Mex Spanish accents to the ones I've heard from Spain.

[Niko]

Interesting that Portugal is only the 4th largest Portuguese speaking country. I assumed it would be 2nd, after Brazil.

never would have guessedn either (though when you think of it, it's not so surprising that angola and mozambique have biggger populations than portugal's 10 millions...)

[jazzbo]

I met a Portuguese student here on a bus stop bench and talked to her there and on the bus going into campus. . . I recognized her accent as Portuguese and was very pleased. . . . I heard Portuguese when in Africa visiting Mocambique as well (four decades ago!). Here is the funny part for me: I asked her about Brazilian Portuguese because I loved the sound of the music and singing, and she said that Brazilians are "rougher" with the language, the sound was harsher. . . when my ears were telling me. . .the opposite!

[michel1969]

Do the Portuguese people speak it with the same rhythm, accent, and flow as do the Brazilian people?

As always, thank in advance!

No. Otherwise Portugal would have win many international soccer titles.

Edited March 9, 2009 by Michel

[michel1969]

An interesting record by Portugueses singer Luis Cilia regarding Angola :

[Van Basten II]

I met a Portuguese student here on a bus stop bench and talked to her there and on the bus going into campus. . . I recognized her accent as Portuguese and was very pleased. . . . I heard Portuguese when in Africa visiting Mocambique as well (four decades ago!). Here is the funny part for me: I asked her about Brazilian Portuguese because I loved the sound of the music and singing, and she said that Brazilians are "rougher" with the language, the sound was harsher. . . when my ears were telling me. . .the opposite!

We have an important Portuguese community here and always thought so also.

By the way, here's one of my favourite portuguese singer, think she's etablished in France now, almost put her in the thread about non-jazz vocalists, here name is Bevinda although they put her in the Fado category she has a more contemporary sound. Check her out

http://www.bevinda.net/

[Shrdlu]

We have an unimportant Portuguese community here.

[seeline]

Do the Portuguese people speak it with the same rhythm, accent, and flow as do the Brazilian people?

As always, thank in advance!

No! For one thing, the Brazilians say that people from Portugal "swallow all the vowels," and I'm inclined to agree with them. Listen to a Portuguese singer, then a Brazilian, and follow the lyrics while you're listening. It's like hearing a Yorkshireman/woman or Scot, then someone from the South Carolina coast. (You don't need to know any Portuguese to be able to do the listening test - just a good ear and some lyric sheets in hand.)

See caravan's post below .

As others have noted, a lot of Portuguese-speaking African countries follow Portuguese "rules" for pronunciation, but then, they've only been independent for a little over 25 years. There are also creole languages spoken in (for sure) the Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé and Principe, and probably also Angola, Equitorial Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. (Not sure at all about Mozambique, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that it's much the same.)

There's actually a lot of back-and-forth influence in the music of the former Portuguese W. African countries - from Brazil, that is, and vice versa. I've corresponded a bit with Brazilian musician Rodrigo Lessa, who spent over a decade working on research - and ultimately, a CD - that documents some of these mixtures and influences. I'd love to learn more about this!

As far as Brazilian accents, it's a huge country and there are lots of different regional accents, even dialects. I can hear a big difference between people from Rio and São Paulo, which aren't all that far apart geographically - but are very different places in terms of the people who've settled there. (Lots of Italians in SP; also thousands and thousands of poor people from northeastern Brazil who've come in search of job opportunities and a better life.)

Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia are all from the state of Bahia. They really (IMO) had to tone down their accents a bit once they started recording. (Bethânia probably most of all, since she spent some of her early career in theater and has specialized - to some degree - in romantic songs by Rio-based composers and lyricists.)

But I really should ask some of my Brazilian friends about all of this, just to make sure I'm not misleading you folks.

(Oh and... definitely a smart question, Jim!)

Edited March 14, 2009 by seeline

[Caravan]

The former Portuguese colonies in Africa surely follow the pronunciation rules, but their accent is easily identifiable as to its geographical origin nevertheless. Being independent only since 1975 has nothing to do with it, as Portuguese was the official language there already for 100s of years. The Portuguese have been quite succesfull in extinguishing the native African languages in Angola and Mozambique, which has mainly been the task of the catholic church. Not much drumming left in these countries either. In contrast, in Guinea-Bissau - which was always of only marginal interest to the Portuguese rulers - the vernacular is Crioulo, while Portuguese is merely the written and "official" language. And they have some of the heaviest drummers there. In Cape Verde the daily language also is Crioulo (which differs from that of Guinea-Bissau, but with some effort both can understand each other), while Portuguese is the "official" language. But even within a small country like Cape Verde, there are strong differences in dialect between different islands. Equitorial Guinea was a Spanish colony, not Portuguese, and hence Spanish is the official language there.

I'm not Portuguese, but I live in Portugal and have lived and worked for many years in Cape Verde (still go regularly there) and am fluent in Crioulo.

[ValerieB]

The former Portuguese colonies in Africa surely follow the pronunciation rules, but their accent is easily identifiable as to its geographical origin nevertheless. Being independent only since 1975 has nothing to do with it, as Portuguese was the official language there already for 100s of years. The Portuguese have been quite succesfull in extinguishing the native African languages in Angola and Mozambique, which has mainly been the task of the catholic church. Not much drumming left in these countries either. In contrast, in Guinea-Bissau - which was always of only marginal interest to the Portuguese rulers - the vernacular is Crioulo, while Portuguese is merely the written and "official" language. And they have some of the heaviest drummers there. In Cape Verde the daily language also is Crioulo (which differs from that of Guinea-Bissau, but with some effort both can understand each other), while Portuguese is the "official" language. But even within a small country like Cape Verde, there are strong differences in dialect between different islands. Equitorial Guinea was a Spanish colony, not Portuguese, and hence Spanish is the official language there.

I'm not Portuguese, but I live in Portugal and have lived and worked for many years in Cape Verde (still go regularly there) and am fluent in Crioulo.

really interesting info, caravan. thanks for sharing it. if it's not too personal a question, where in Portugal do you live? i spent about six glorious weeks in your country years ago, mostly around Cascais, Estoril, Sintra with day or weekend trips further north to Fatima, Caldos de Reyna(sp?), etc. loved the people, food and wine enormously. i actually got to hear Weather Report in Lisbon while there so that gives you an idea of how long ago it was!

[seeline]

The former Portuguese colonies in Africa surely follow the pronunciation rules, but their accent is easily identifiable as to its geographical origin nevertheless. Being independent only since 1975 has nothing to do with it, as Portuguese was the official language there already for 100s of years. The Portuguese have been quite succesfull in extinguishing the native African languages in Angola and Mozambique, which has mainly been the task of the catholic church. Not much drumming left in these countries either. In contrast, in Guinea-Bissau - which was always of only marginal interest to the Portuguese rulers - the vernacular is Crioulo, while Portuguese is merely the written and "official" language. And they have some of the heaviest drummers there. In Cape Verde the daily language also is Crioulo (which differs from that of Guinea-Bissau, but with some effort both can understand each other), while Portuguese is the "official" language. But even within a small country like Cape Verde, there are strong differences in dialect between different islands. Equitorial Guinea was a Spanish colony, not Portuguese, and hence Spanish is the official language there.

I'm not Portuguese, but I live in Portugal and have lived and worked for many years in Cape Verde (still go regularly there) and am fluent in Crioulo.

Thanks for this, caravan!

Brazil instituted reforms in spelling, orthography - even the alphabet - not that many moons ago. (they dropped the letters K and Y, among other things.) So I'd bet that the Portuguese-speaking African countries might be a lot closer to European Portuguese spelling (etc.) than is the case in Brazil.

I'm wondering about the local languages, though - I looked up some info. yesterday re. Portuguese as spoken in Mozambique and Angola, and the sources I came across said that there are lots of loan-words from various "local' languages, as well as a strong influence on pronunciation. But I honestly have no way of knowing if this is accurate or not - can you direct me to some info.?

Equitorial Guinea: yes, my bad!

Cape Verde: I can imagine (dialects and so on). There are more people from the Cape Verde Islands living in the US than there are on the islands themselves. (At least, that's what the Cape Verdean immigrants here say - they're mostly clustered in and around Boston.)

What you say about "not much drumming left" is interesting, as that's not true in Brazil, although (AFAIK) there were efforts to suppress certain kinds of instruments and playing. Those might have been successful in the short term, but obviously not in the long run!

Thanks in advance for your help; it's much appreciated.

Edited March 14, 2009 by seeline