 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ] Next Last |
Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, giving it a distinct national culture separate from its Spanish-speaking neighbors.
Portuguese is the only language with full official status in Brazil; it is virtually the only language used in schools, newspapers, radio and TV, and for all business and administrative purposes.
However, many minority languages are spoken daily throughout the vast national territory of Brazil. Some of these minority languages are spoken by indigenous peoples. Others yet are spoken by people who are for the most part bilingual (i.e. speakers of both Portuguese and German or Italian and Portuguese or Japanese and Portuguese, etc.).
Many of the indigenous people speak languages like: Mbyá-Guaraní (or simply Guaraní ), Kaingang , Nadëb , Carajá , Caribe , Tucano , Arára , Terêna , Borôro , Apalaí , Canela and many others. Not all Amerindians desire to become part of the mainstream culture of Brazil. Even though minorities are what they are, that is minorities, cultural conflicts cannot be dismissed as insignificant or unimportant based what percentage of the national population they are.
Interestingly enough some of these minority languages recently have obtained local co-official status — e.g. Nheengatu , Tukano , and Baniwa in São Gabriel da Cachoeira , Amazonas (2003).
The Brazilian language Língua Geral which is now almost extinct, at one time, until the late 1800s, was the common language used by a large number of indigenous and African and African-descendent peoples throughout the coast of Brazil - in other words, it was spoken by the majority of the population in the land. Today, in the Amazon Basin, political campaigning is still printed in this now rare language.
Other languages such as German, Italian, Polish and Japanese are spoken in southern Brazil. There are whole regions in southern Brazil where people speak both Portuguese and one or more of these languages. For example, it is reported that more than 90% of the residents of the small city of Presidente Lucena , located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, speak Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, a Brazilian form of the Hunsrückisch German dialect (see this website).
Although they have been rapidly replaced by Portuguese in the last few decades, today states like Rio Grande do Sul are trying to reverse that trend and Immigrant Languages such as German and Italian are being reintroduced into the curriculum again in communities where they were originally thrived. Meanwhile, on the Argentine and Uruguayan border regions Brazilian students are being introduced (formally) to the Spanish language.
More and more people are realizing in Brazil that a person can master and carry more than one language throughout their lives. In other words, integration into mainstream society does not mean that one has to become monolingual . More and more the reasoning is that if languages are a human capital of great value to some, perhaps they should be considered valuable to one all.
Some immigrant communities in southern Brazil, chiefly the German and the Italian ones, have lasted long enough to develop distinctive dialects from their original European sources. For example, Riograndenser Hunsrückisch or Hunsrückisch and Talian or Italiano Riograndense. These are not languages per se but distinct dialects (from their original European counterparts).
Other transplanted German dialects to this part of the world have not under gone the same level of changes. For example, the Austrian dialect spoken in Dreizehnlinden or Treze Tílias in the state of Santa Catarina; or the dialect of the Donauschwaben spoken in Entre Rios, in the state of Paraná; or the Pomeranian (Pommersch) dialect spoken in many different parts of southern Brazil (in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Espírito Santo, etc.). Plautdietsch is spoken by the descendants of Russian Mennonites.
A Japanese-language newspaper, the São Paulo Shinbun , is published in the city of São Paulo. There is a significant community of Japanese speakers in Paraná and Amazonas. Much smaller groups exist in Santa Catarina, Riogrande do Sul and other parts of Brazil.
Many Chinese, especially from Macao, speak a Portuguese creole, called Macaista, aside from Portuguese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Brazilians hear it as a surprise to them for that unique Portuguese creole.
In São Paulo, the German-Brazilian newspaper Brasil-Post has been published for over fifty years. The Livraria Alemã of Blumenau was a fixture in the city for a long time. There are many other media organizations throughout the land specializing either in church issues, music, language, etc. The German-Brazilian community in Brazil is estimated to be in the millions.
The Italian online newspaper La Rena offers Brazilian-Italian or Talian lessons... Please see here the link here [1]. Other Italian-Brazilian organizations are listet here http://www.lagosnet.com.br/italia/verpor/assocbra2c.htm .
There are many other non-Portuguese publications, bilingual web sites, radio and television programs throughout the country. For example, TV GALEGA from Blumenau shows German-language programming on their channel on a weekly basis.
The English-language daily Brazil Herald is directed mostly to tourists, foreign executives and expatriates.
Most major foreign newspapers can be obtained in larger Brazilian cities ( Frankfurter Allgemeine; Le Monde; The New York Times; etc.)
Portuguese is the first language of almost 99% of the population but Brazil is a very rich cultural and linguistic mosaic. There are many bilingual people in the country.| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|