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Expansion of European Portuguese-Artigo

The expansion of Portuguese illustrates how a language spreads when a community migrates thousands of miles from its origin. Portuguese spread worldwide from the 15th-20th centuries as thousands emigrated to Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. As the language came into contact with others in isolated communities, it diverged from its original form through drift, leveling regional differences, and borrowing from other languages.

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Expansion of European Portuguese-Artigo

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6 The expansion of European Portuguese

The expansion of Portuguese in the world illustrates what can happen when
a segment of a speech community moves out of its original territory to set-
tle down thousands of miles away. There is an approximate parallel with the
spread of Latin in the territories conquered by the Roman Empire, or, more
recently, with the spread of English in the British Empire. In each situation
the language has changed, sometimes drastically, borrowing words from other
languages, developing some of its latent possibilities, and eventually acquiring
a new countenance, close enough to the original model and yet unmistakably
unique.
From the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the twentieth,
thousands of Portuguese emigrated to other European countries, to Africa, to
Asia, to the Americas and, more recently, to Australia. Throughout most of
that period, once anchors had been cast off, oral communication was limited
to one’s immediate community on board or in the new settlements. As this
happened, the language, unbeknownst to its speakers, started on a course of its
own. In this chapter we will examine some of the ways in which the spread
of Portuguese in continental Portugal and elsewhere in the world has fostered
innovation.

6.1 Aspects of language variation

Reified expressions like “Portuguese language” or “Portuguese” convey an
impression of uniformity which, while convenient for the theoretical analysis
of language structure, camouflages the fact that any real language is riddled with
variation. In fact, what we call “a language” is the sum total of its regional and
social variants. Within each new community set up abroad, a variety of factors
contribute to modify its speech. One such factor is drift, characterized by Sapir
(1921) as a natural tendency for languages to change as time passes. Another
is a leveling process: interaction among speakers from various regions in the
original country tends to iron out salient differences, inducing in the speech
of subsequent generations, born and raised in the new community, a degree of

182

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6.1 Aspects of language variation 183

homogeneity in pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon that will

make their language contrast with that of the original community.
The first aspect of regional variation we tend to notice is accent◦ , the impres-
sion caused on the ear by pronunciation features – such as consonant articula-
tion, vowel quality, the presence or absence of certain diphthongs, intonation,
and so on – which characterize a given group of speakers. Everyone has an
accent of some kind (Esling 1998), for even standard pronunciation can be
characterized in terms of those features. Accents can be either regional (as in
Brazilian vs. Portuguese, or American vs. British), or social, as in the case
of British Received Pronunciation (also known as “BBC English”) vs. popu-
lar varieties of British English such as Cockney. Some classifications cut both
ways: whereas a rural accent may be related to a specific geographic location, the
contrast “rural vs. urban” has social implications as well. If non-phonological
features, such as morphology, syntax, or the lexicon, are involved, we no longer
talk of an accent but rather of a language variety or dialect.
As used in linguistics, the term dialect◦ is merely a neutral way to designate
the speech of a region or social group. The reason this term has connotations
of folksy speech is that dialectal studies began, in the late nineteenth century,
with a focus on rural varieties, contrasting these with the formal educated vari-
eties associated with the written language. Nowadays, however, we realize that
“urban vs. rural” or “educated vs. uneducated” are only some of the many
possible dimensions of language variation. Urban varieties, prestigious or not,
are also dialects, as is the written norm embodied in prescriptive grammars.
It should be clear, then, that in linguistics the terms “dialect” and “language
variety,” or just “variety,” are simply ways of referring to a specific manifesta-
tion of a language, be it regional or social. Social dialects or varieties are also
called sociolects◦ , and some linguists prefer lect◦ as a generic term. The term
“macrodialect◦ ”, in turn, refers to a set of dialects or varieties.
In Chapter 5 we saw some of the processes whereby popular Latin changed
into Galician-Portuguese, which in turn split into Galician and Portuguese as
two differentiated, if closely related, languages. From the twelfth century on,
large groups of speakers migrated southward from the lands of the original
Portucalense County to the Coimbra and Lisbon regions. The presence of the
Court and the university (which was moved a couple of times between those
two cities) ensured that the south would remain the prestige center of European
Portuguese. As Portuguese society expanded and became more stratified, the
language underwent changes in three dimensions, namely time, geographical
space, and social context. Although we can focus on any one of these dimensions
for purposes of analysis, all three need to be taken into account.
There is a relationship between a language’s rate of change and its geo-
graphic spread. Icelandic, for instance, developed in Iceland from the speech

of Norwegian settlers in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. About 37 per
cent of a population of 277,906 live in the capital, Reykjavik, and except for
immigrant communities (in e.g. the US and Canada), Icelandic has remained in
its original territory of 39,768 square miles (103,000 square kilometers), with
limited direct contact with other languages. Unsurprisingly, it has remained
relatively homogeneous, and is defined linguistically in terms of usage in its
home territory.
Portuguese, on the contrary, has spread world-wide, putting down roots in
areas far vaster and more populated than its original territory. It has come into
close contact with many other languages, from which it has borrowed new
words, and the communities where it is spoken show a great deal of social
variation. It is only natural that it should have changed considerably, to the
point of providing a foundation for new languages, the Portuguese-based creoles
(6.5.1); and it is thus a diversified language, with no single standard defined by
a single speech community.
While diachronic change may look rather homogeneous when considered
in abstraction, its effects on the language’s territory are far more varied. For
example, although loss of the occlusive element [t] in the original Galician-
Portuguese phoneme // eliminated the contrast // : /ʃ/ in southern Portugal, that
contrast still exists in the north of the country. From a dialectological perspective
this diachronic change has not been complete, and decades may go by before
[] completely disappears, if it ever does. Thus answers to questions like “does
the sound [] exist in Portuguese?” or “do the sounds [] and [ʃ] contrast
in Portuguese?” will depend on whether we take “Portuguese” in the broad
sense of an ensemble of dialects, some of which have [], or in the narrower
sense of the standard variety of the language, which does not have [].
Social stratification may be encoded, often in subtle ways, by some corre-
lation between language features and social factors such as sex, age, ethnicity,
education level, and socioeconomic standing. Pinto (1981:175–178, 192) points
out that although grammarians began to label the sound [] as rustic at the end
of the seventeenth century, as late as the early nineteenth century a respected
grammarian such as Jerónimo Soares Barbosa insisted that []and [ʃ] should be
kept apart in educated pronunciation. In contrast, other contemporary grammar-
ians believed that pronouncing ch as [ʃ] rather than [] was the correct choice.
These opposing views were apparently influenced by scholars’ place of birth or
residence: those born or living in areas north of the Mondego River, where []
and [ʃ] contrasted, insisted on distinguishing between ch and x, whereas their
colleagues from southern areas where that contrast had been lost accepted [ʃ]
as the correct rendering for ch. Such variety of opinion suggests that although
the norm had not yet been fixed at the time, there was already a tendency to
consider ch = [ʃ] standard and to mark [] as geographically “dialectal” or as
socially “rustic.”

6.2 Continental Portugal

Taken as a whole, continental Portugal is quite homogeneous linguistically.
Regional differences are relatively small in comparison to other European coun-
tries, such as neighboring Spain, which has three major Romance languages
(Spanish, Catalan, and Galician), a few minor ones (Aranese [in Catalonia],
Aragonese, and Asturian), and a totally unrelated language (Basque). Por-
tuguese regional dialects in Portugal – usually labeled after the region’s name,
such as Minhoto in Minho or Trasmontano in Trás-os-Montes – are basically
mutually intelligible, and other languages are restricted to rather small border
regions (6.3). Cintra (1971:28) proposed for the whole area of Galician and Por-
tuguese a phonology-based division into three primary dialectal zones, namely
(a) Galician dialects, (b) Northern Portuguese dialects, and (c) Center–Southern
Portuguese dialects.
Galician contrasts with Portuguese by the absence of nasal vowels, and the
presence of a single voiceless alveolar fricative /s/, as opposed to Portuguese
voiceless /s/ and voiced /z/ (face:fase). Likewise, Galician has only the voiceless
palatal fricative /ʃ/, while Portuguese contrasts voiceless /ʃ/ with voiced //
(acho:ajo). Finally, unstressed vowels tend to retain their quality in Galician,
whereas in European Portuguese they tend to be reduced to [ə] or dropped
altogether.
Differences between Northern and Center–Southern Portuguese dialects are
likewise defined by a few phonological features. Regarding consonants, whereas
Center–Southern speech contrasts bilabial /b/ and labiodental /v/, Northern
has only the phoneme /b/, manifested by the allophones [b] and [β]. Conse-
quently, while word pairs like bala ‘bullet’/vala ‘ditch’ or cabo ‘handle’/cavo
‘I dig,’ contrast in Center–Southern pronunciation, they are homophonous in
the north. This difference forms the basis for the purely impressionistic pop-
ular notion that Northern speech mixes bs and vs, when in fact it has no vs to
speak of.
Northern dialects also articulate /s/ and /z/ with enough palatalization to make
them sound a bit like [ʃ] and [], as in Viseu [biew], esse [eʃə], as opposed to
[vizew], [esə] in Center–Southern pronunciation. Furthermore, as mentioned
earlier, Northern speech follows Galician in preserving the contrast /ʃ/ : //,
while Southern speech has only /ʃ/ (orthographically ch or x).
As regards the vocalic system, two features involve reduction of diphthongs
to simple vowels. In Center–Southern speech the original diphthong /ou/ has
long been reduced to a simple vowel [o], as in ouro [oɾu] ‘gold,’ Douro [doɾu].
Although this pronunciation has been incorporated in the standard language,
Northern speech preserves the /ou/ diphthong, phonetically either [ow] or [ɐw],
according to the region. The other diphthong affected is /ej/, pronounced [e]
in the south, as in feira [ferə]. This feature, unlike the preceding ones, is not

considered standard. Furthermore, the Lisbon variety of Portuguese renders the

diphthong /ej/ as [ɐj], as in feira [fɐjrɐ] ‘fair,’ thus preserving the contrast
/ej/ : /e/, albeit with a different timbre.
Other features contribute to further characterize regional pronunciation. We
have seen (5.2.2.) that medieval Portuguese had two contrasting pairs of sibi-
lants, apicoalveolar /s’/ and /z’/ and dorsoalveolar /s/ and /z/. Changes in sound
articulation have led to three different situations. One is the preservation of the
old four-way contrast in a conservative area (roughly including Trás-os-Montes,
Alto Minho, and part of Beira-Alta), as in the following scheme:
/s/ cego ‘blind,’ caça ‘hunting’ : /z/ fazer ‘make’
/s’/ saber ‘knowledge,’ passo ‘step’ : /z’/ casa ‘house’
In another area (part of Minho, Douro, part of Beira Alta and Beira Baixa)
there is only one contrast, involving the apicoalveolar sibilants, /s’/ : /z’/. Finally,
in the central-southern region (including Lisbon) there is also only one contrast,
but involving instead the two dorso-dental sibilants, /s/ : /z/, which are identified
as being standard pronunciation (Cintra 1995:28, Rı̈ı̈ho 1999:62).
The dialect area extending from Beira Baixa to Algarve deserves mention-
ing (Cintra 1995:155) on account of articulatory changes in the vowel system
that took place before the sixteenth century, and which linguists have called
the “Portuguese Vowel Shift” (Rogers 1979, Silva 1988:337). The most salient
contrast with the standard vowel system is the pronunciation of the stressed
vowel /u/ with the tongue forward, resulting in a front rounded vowel [ü], as
in maduro [madüɾu] instead of [maduɾu]. This feature occurs in the Castelo
Branco–Portalegre dialect, thus named after the two towns that signal respec-
tively its northern limit, Castelo Branco in Beira Baixa, and its southern limit,
Portalegre in Alto Alentejo.
More extreme changes are found in the speech of Barlavento (Windward) do
Algarve, on the southwestern tip of the peninsula. This dialect has two extra
vowels in stressed position, namely /ü/ and /æ/, giving a total of eight stressed
vowels, / i e ε ae a ɔ o ü/. The following examples (collected from Azevedo
Maia 1975:10–23), show some phonetic realizations:

/ε / > [æ] terra [tærɐ] for st. [tε rɐ] ‘land’

pedra [pædɾɐ] for st. [pε dɾɐ] ‘stone’
pesca [pæʃ kɐ] for st. [pεʃ kɐ] ‘fishing’
/ɔ / > [o] porca [poɾkə ] for st. [pɔ ɾkə ] ‘sow’
cova [kovɐ] for st. [kɔ vɐ ‘pit’
cobra [kobrɐ] for st. [kɔ brɐ] ‘snake’
/u/ > [ü] tudo [tüdə ] for st. [tudu] ‘all’
uma [ümɐ] for st. [ümɐ] ‘one (f.)’
azul [azü ] for st. [azul ] ‘blue’

Survival of this regional vowel subsystem may have been due at least in
part to the fact that the regions of Alentejo and Algarve were largely iso-
lated from the rest of the country until relatively recent times. Azevedo Maia
(1975:23) pointed out that while some of these variations seemed to be on the
wane elsewhere in the country, in Algarve they were found in the pronunciation
of people of all age groups. These features also appear in some of the island
dialects (6.4).

6.3 Border talk

In Europe and elsewhere, most borders are artificial constructs established for
political reasons rather than to mark linguistic or cultural differences. Never-
theless, over the centuries European borders have proved rather permeable as
people from both sides crossed them to carry on their daily business. In such sit-
uations of language contact, which provide an ideal breeding ground for mixed
speeches, inhabitants have been known to have varying degrees of proficiency
in two or more languages. Despite Portugal’s general linguistic homogeneity, a
few pockets of diversity exist, usually in areas under Spanish jurisdiction that
were settled by Portuguese speakers, or conversely, in areas settled by speakers
of Galician, Leonese, or Spanish which are part of Portuguese territory.
In the process of settling border disputes with Spain, Portugal has kept several
northern villages of Galician or Leonese speech (Santos 1964–1965:91). On
several points along the border between Minho and the Galician region of
Ourense there are towns (such as Soutelinho da Raia, Cambedo, and Lama de
Arcos) where Portuguese coexists, in varying proportions, with Galician and/or
Spanish. In the northern district of Bragança (Trás-os-Montes) there are border
villages (Riodonor, Guadramil) where traces of Leonese dialects once spoken
are still present in popular speech (Cruz et al. 1994).
When dialectal studies started in Portugal at the end of the nineteenth century
(Vasconcellos 1970), such situations of language contact promoted conditions
of bilingualism, trilingualism, or language mixture which were supported by
the relative isolation of those rural regions and an extremely low literacy rate.
Although it was remarked in the 1960s that some of those dialects were on the
wane (Santos 1964–1965:138), factors such as the current revival of Galician,
an open border, access to television and radio in Portuguese, Spanish, and
Galician, and frequent travel may foster varying degrees of active or passive
bilingualism among the inhabitants of those regions.
A resilient instance of non-Portuguese speech is found further west, in the
district (Concelho) of Miranda do Douro in the Trás-os-Montes region, where
Mirandese (Mirandês), a variety of Leonese, is spoken by a few thousand peo-
ple. It has been suggested that Mirandese once covered a wider area along
the border (Ferreira 2002:140) and that a situation of active bilingualism was

prevalent until the sixteenth century, with Portuguese and Mirandese used
for complementary communicative purposes in a diglossic◦ situation (Martins
1995). Its continuity, and perhaps survival, is assisted by a law passed in 1999,
which recognizes

the right to cultivate and promote the Mirandese language, as a cultural asset and instru-
ment of communication, and support of the identity of the region of Miranda . . . . [and]
a child’s right to learn Mirandese. [The law also authorizes] public agencies . . . in the
concelho of Miranda do Douro . . . to issue their documents together with a version in
the Mirandese language. (Law # 7/99, Diário da República # 24 /99)

While this law is clearly favorable to Mirandese, its wording implies that the
original documents will continue to be issued in Portuguese, with a Mirandese
version being optional.
Three subdialects of Mirandese have been identified, namely Raiano, Cen-
tral, and Sendinês, although the relative independence of Sendinese from Miran-
dese has been maintainted by Ferreira (1994). A feature shared by all three is the
preservation of intervocalic Latin /l/ and /n/, which have been lost in Portuguese,
as in plenu > Pg cheio, Mir. cheno, solu > Pg só, Mir solo ‘alone.’ Raiano
and Central also have initial /ʎ / corresponding to Ptg /l/, as in llobo/lobo ‘wolf,’
lliebre/lebre ‘hare,’ as well as a rising diphthong, /wo/ or /je/, where Portuguese
has /o/ or /e/, as in fuonte/fonte ‘fountain,’ cuorpo/corpo ‘body,’ mulhier/mulher
‘woman,’ bielho/velho ‘old.’ In Sendinês, on the contrary, there is no initial /ʎ /
and instead of those diphthongs we find high vowels: libre/lebre, tirra/terra,
curpo/corpo.
There is an old tradition of oral literature in Mirandese (Barros 2002:141–
142) and efforts are currently under way to record and transcribe representative
texts. The following passage was recorded in 1998 in the village of Picuôte:

Era ua beç dues comadres, l tiu era pastor. I el fui-se a deitar cun la comadre, cun
outra, cun la mulhier daquel pastor e apuis, pul meio de la nuite, staba l cura deitado
na cama cun la tie i el batiu, i el metiu-se debaixo de la cama. Pula manhana, quando
se lhebantou, bestiu las calças de l cura, l pastor. Quando andaba cun las canhonas: –
Ai diabo que you trago las calças dun cura! (Alves 1999:29)
[Portuguese:] Era uma vez duas comadres, o marido era pastor. E ele foi-se deitar com
a comadre, com outra com a mulher daquele pastor, e depois, pelo meio da noite, estava
o padre deitado na cama com a mulher e ele bateu, e ele meteu-se debaixo da cama.
Pela manhã, quando se levantou, vestiu as calças do padre, o pastor. Quando andava
com as ovelhas: – Ai, diabo, que eu levo as calças dum padre!
[Once upon a time there were two women, the husband was a shepherd. And he went to
sleep with a woman, with another, with the wife of that shepherd, and later, in the middle
of the night, the priest was lying in bed with the wife and he knocked, and he crawled
under the bed. In the morning, as he got up, he put on the priest’s pants. When he was
walking with the sheep [he said]: “What the devil, I’m wearing a priest’s pants!”]

A case of linguistic hybridism is found in the village of Barrancos, located

on the Portuguese border between Beja in Baixo Alentejo and the Spanish
provinces of Huelva and Badajoz (Extremadura). The Spanish presence in Bar-
rancos goes back to 1253, when a land grant was made to a Spanish princess
who married King Afonso III. Since the border in this area was not finally con-
sidered settled until 1926, it is not surprising that the inhabitants (under 3,000)
speak a mixture of Portuguese and southern Spanish. A salient phonological
feature, normal in southern Spanish though not in Portuguese, is the aspiration
or loss of syllable-final /s/: dois filhos > doi[h] filho[h], doi filho, detrás >
detrá[h], detrá. Another feature is the loss of final /r/ as in correr > corrê,
buscar > bu[h]cá (Stefanova-Gueorguiev 2000).
On the Spanish side of the border there are a few Portuguese enclaves such as
the town of Olivenza (Pg Olivença), but the general tendency is for the younger
generations, particularly in urban environments, to be Spanish-speaking, or at
any rate Spanish-dominant bilinguals. Nevertheless, efforts are being made (as
in the case of Mirandese on the Portuguese side) to preserve at least some
of that linguistic heritage. A decree passed in 2000 by the Culture Department
(Consejerı́a de Cultura) of the Autonomous Region of Extremadura recognized
as a cultural asset the variety of Galician-Portuguese, with Leonese features,
traditionally known as “A Fala,” spoken in the towns of San Martı́n de Trevejo,
Eljas, and Valverde del Fresno, in the Jálama Valley (Vázquez-Cuesta 1971:
76, Viudas Camarasa 2001).
While such legal measures provide conditions favorable to minority dialects,
the extent of their effectiveness remains an open question. The pressure of the
standard official language, public education, the media, and increased oppor-
tunities for travel and work in other countries of the European Community
may work against their preservation. As one might expect, such varieties have
tended to fare better in fast-shrinking rural areas than in towns. Whatever their
outcome, such efforts evince a positive change of attitude toward regional vari-
eties which, until relatively recently, were left to their own devices, when not
persecuted outright.

6.4 The Atlantic islands: Madeira and the Azores

The Madeira archipelago (pop. ca. 271,000) comprises two inhabited islands,
Madeira and Porto Santo, situated about 640 km (398 miles) off the Moroccan
coast. The archipelago of the Azores (pop. ca. 237,000) includes nine islands
divided into three groups: Eastern Azores (São Miguel and Santa Maria), Central
Azores (Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial), and Western Azores
(Corvo and Flores), located in the middle of the Atlantic, at about the same
latitude as Beja in Portugal or Washington, DC. Settlement of these two hitherto
uninhabited island groups began in the middle of the fifteenth century. Madeira

and Porto Santo were settled quite successfully due largely to their mild climate
and fertile soil, while the Azores were settled more slowly on account of low
demographic resources and other factors (Mendorica 2000:21).
Rogers (1946, 1948, 1949) provides an ensemble view of the speech of both
Madeira and the Azores. By and large the Azores are unevenly studied, with the
speech of some islands, such as São Miguel, having received far more attention
than that of others. The main phonological consonantal features in the speech
of both island groups coincide with those of Central–Southern dialects, e.g. the
/b/ : /v/ contrast and the occurrence of fricative [ʃ] rather than affricate [] in
words written with ch.
In Madeira, however, there is palatalization of /l/ after [i] or [j], as in vila
[viʎ ɐ] ‘village,’ telefone [teʎ ifon]. Some features from northern Portugal
occur in the vowel system, such as the pronunciation of /ei/ as [ej] instead
of [e] and /ou/ as [ow] instead of [o]. Furthermore, [ow] alternates with [oj],
as in coisa/cousa [kowzɐ] / [kojzɐ] ‘thing.’ Vocalic features found in Algarve
which reappear in Madeira include the fronted vowel [ü] as in escudo [ʃküdu]
and the articulation of stressed /a/ as a back low–mid [ɔ] as in casa [kɔzə].
There is also a tendency to diphthongize stressed high vowels, e.g. /i/ (filho
[fɐjʎ u] for st. [fiʎ u]) or /u/ (lua [lɐwɐ] for st. [luɐ]).
Linguists (Silva 1988, Rogers 1948) have pointed out that Miquelense, the
dialect of São Miguel, is the variety that departs most strikingly from standard
European Portuguese. This is due primarily to the effects of the aforementioned
Portuguese Vowel Shift, brought to the island in the sixteenth century by settlers
from Algarve. The following examples (from Silva 1988:337) give an idea of
the range of such divergence:
/i/ > [i] fita [fitɐ] for st. [fitɐ ] /a/ > [ɐ ] cabra [kɐ bɾɐ ] for st.
‘ribbon’ [kabɾɐ ] ‘goat’
/e/ > [ε ] pretu [pɾε tu] for st. /ɔ / > [o] porca [poɾkɐ ] for st.
[pɾetu] ‘black’ [pɐ ɾkɔ ] ‘sow’
/ej/ > [e] peixe [peʃ] for st. /o/ > [u] porto [puɾtu] for st.
[pejʃ] ‘fish’ [poɾtu] ‘port’
/ε / > [æ] terra [tærɐ ] for st. /u/ > [ü] uvas [üvɐ ʃ] fos st.
[tε rɐ ] ‘earth’ [uvɐ ʃ] ‘grapes’
Phonetic variation of vowels has been interpreted as socially significant by
Silva (1988), who determined that pronunciation of /a/ as either central [a] or
back [ɑ] or [ɔ], in the same person’s speech, is not random. The variant [a],
which coincides with the standard pronunciation, is the prestige form, while
the variant [ɔ], traditionally considered typical of São Miguel pronunciation, is
considered less prestigious by outsiders. The back variant [ɑ], in turn, seems
to be a compromise solution: unlike [ɔ] and like [a], it is unrounded, but unlike
[a] and like [ɔ], it is backed. In other words, it is sufficiently similar to [a] to

share some of its prestige value and also close enough to [ɔ] to partake its value
as an index of regional or ethnic identity.
A more recent analysis by Cruz and Saramago (1999), based partly on Cintra
(forthcoming), suggests that Madeira and the Azores should be considered a
dialect area in their own right because they share a number of features, some
of which are either regional or non-existent in mainland Portugal. The authors
support this view with data from their own acoustic analysis of vowel harmony
(more intense in Azores) and final /s/ (more intense in Madeira). They also find
that stressed vowel quality is unstable and affected by the quality of preced-
ing unstressed vowels and by the quality of the final unstressed vowel. This
phonological process, reportedly found on most Azorean islands but particu-
larly evident on Terceira, involves changing the stressed vowel into a rising
diphthong by inserting a semivowel whose articulation has the same tongue
position as a preceding unstressed vowel or semivowel:
insertion of [j]:
e ferve [ifjεɾ vi] st. [ifεɾ vi] ‘and (it) boils’
ceifar [sejfjaɾ ] st. [sejfaɾ ] ‘to reap’
insertion of [w]:
buscar [buʃkwaɾ ] st. [buʃkaɾ ] ‘fetch’
ao gato [awγ watu] st. [awγ atu] ‘to the cat’
The stressed vowel may in turn assimilate to the semivowel in area of articula-
tion, becoming palatalized if the semivowel is [j], or velarized if the semivowel
is [w]. Vowel instability is apparent in the fact that several forms may occur not
only in the same dialect but in the speech of the same speaker:

cidade [siðaði] ∼ [siðjäði] ∼ [siðεði] for st. [siðaði]

fumar [fumwaɾ] ∼ [fumwɑɾ] ∼ [fumɑɾ] for st. [fumaɾ]

This diphthongization process has been identified in continental Portugal

(Beira Baixa, Alto Alentejo, Beira Alta). In Madeira, diphthongization of
stressed vowels preceded by a syllable with a high vowel or a semivowel is
likewise found, as in the examples below, although there is no further palatal-
ization of a vowel preceded by a palatal semivowel.
inverno [ı̃vjεɾnu] for st. [ı̃vεɾnu] ‘winter’
comer [kumweɾ] for st. [kumeɾ] ‘to eat’

In Madeira, when the stressed vowel is high, there is a tendency for unstressed
high final vowels to be articulated as a relatively weak [i]:
limpo [l ı̃pi] for st. [l ı̃pu] ‘clean’
bico [biki] for st. [biku] ‘bird’s beak’

Words ending in unstressed [u] may have their stressed vowel velarized,
particularly if it is /a/, which may be pronounced as [ɑ] or even [ɔ], as in
carro [kɑu], [kɔ] ‘car’ (with loss of the final vowel), contrasting with st.
[kau]. This phenomenon apparently occurs, with varying frequency, in the
speech of all Azorean islands.
As regards final /s/, on Madeira it may either be articulated as [ʃ] or [z] as
in the mainland, or eliminated, or articulated as [j] when preceding a vowel
beginning with a voiced consonant or a voiceless fricative, thus originating
a falling diphthong, as in os donos [ujdonuʃ], st. [uʃdonuʃ] ‘the owners’ or
os machos [ujmaʃuʃ], st. [uzmaʃuʃ] ‘the males,’ or as veias [ajvejɐʃ], st.
[azvejɐʃ] ‘the veins.’ On the Azores, and particularly on Flores, this process
reportedly takes place regularly, occurring also before voiceless stops, as in as
pegadas [ɐjpεaðɐʃ], st. [ɐʃ pεaðɐʃ] ‘the footprints.’
With the exception of transformation of final /s/ into [j], these features of
island speech also occur, albeit unsystematically, in continental Portugal. Cruz
and Saramago hypothesize that their regular occurrence on the islands may
result from a settlement pattern lacking “noticeable predominance of settlers
from any given region” (1999:732). Furthermore, while the pressure of standard
language has limited the occurrence of those features on the continent, lack of
such pressure on the islands has made it possible for those features to be present
in the speech of all social groups, thus contributing to the characterization of
the islands as a whole as a dialect region.

6.5 Africa
The presence of the Portuguese language in Africa is the outcome of a colonial
situation that began with the conquest of Ceuta by Portugal in 1415 and lasted
until the middle of the 1970s. The five African countries where Portuguese has
official status – Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São
Tomé and Prı́ncipe (see Table 1.1 for demographic data) – are collectively known
by the acronym PALOP (Paı́ses Africanos de Lı́ngua Oficial Portuguesa).
Portuguese was adopted as a lingua franca◦ by the various ethnic groups
involved in the struggle for independence from the early 1960s. This was an act
of language planning as well as a conscious political decision to use Portuguese
“as a bridge in the face of inter-regional barriers to communication” (Katupha
1994:91). Its retention as an official language after independence in the 1970s
can also be seen as a pragmatic move. In multilingual countries such as Angola,
Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, adoption of Portuguese has obviated the
potentially divisive choice of an African language spoken by some ethnic groups
but not others. In this context, Lopes (1997b:493) states:

the Portuguese language is and will most likely be, in our lifetime, the national lingua
franca . . . [for] Mozambicans who speak different mother tongues.

When universal proficiency has been achieved, it will be no doubt advanta-

geous for all citizens to share a language which, having been used for over eight
centuries for all kinds of literary and non-literary purposes, can be a vehicle for
the development of a national culture (Ferreira 1988), as well as for communi-
cation among those five countries and between them and Portugal and Brazil.
There is, however no way of guessing how long it may take for a significant
majority of the population to acquire that proficiency. At present, Portuguese
is an exogenous language, spoken by less than 40 per cent of the population.
Furthermore, it is the native or dominant language of a rather small percent-
age of the population. This situation, sharply different from that of Portugal or
Brazil, where most people speak Portuguese natively, has specific implications
for the future of the language in Africa. Furthermore, since in Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Prı́ncipe several Portuguese-based creoles
are also spoken, a brief overview of these languages should help put things in
perspective.

6.5.1 Pidgins and creoles: An excursus

As mentioned in 1.3, a remarkable by-product of the contact of Portuguese
with African languages in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the develop-
ment of hybrid languages called pidgins◦ and creoles◦ . A pidgin, often called
a trade language on account of its customary association with business, is
a much simplified, essentially oral language formed by combining elements
taken from the languages of people trying to communicate without know-
ing each other’s language. Its structure usually involves the vocabulary of the
socially dominant language (called the lexifier or superstrate language), with
a trimmed-down version of the grammar of the socially subordinate (or sub-
strate) language. Although a pidgin is nobody’s native language, when the
offspring of pidgin speakers acquire it as their first language, it becomes a
creole.
A well-known instance of a pidgin is Sabir (< saber ‘to know’), which
was spoken by merchants, sailors, and warriors round the Mediterranean in the
Middle Ages. It had an Italian and Occitan lexical basis and was still in use,
in various forms, in places on the North African coast in the early nineteenth
century. Its other name, Lingua Franca – that is, “language of the Franks,”
as Europeans were called by non-Europeans – survives as a designation of a
language which, like English, is used for a variety of communicative purposes
by speakers of other languages.
Since the early fifteenth century, contact with African languages, and the
familiarity the Portuguese had with techniques for simplifying their own lan-
guage to communicate with foreigners, promoted the rise of pidgins. Although
the precise circumstances surrounding their genesis continues to be a topic
of debate (see, for example, Whinnom 1965; Naro 1978, 1981; Clements

1992, 2000, Holm 2004), Portuguese-based pidgins were formed and used
not only between Europeans of various nationalities and Africans, but also
among Africans who did not share a common language. This process con-
tributed to rise to the creoles currently spoken, with regional variations, in
Guinea-Bissau, on Cape Verde, and on São Tomé and Prı́ncipe. A creole is
also spoken on the island of Annobón, which was originally settled by the
Portuguese and was a Spanish colony from 1778 to 1968, when it became part
of the territory of the Republic of Equatorial Africa (formerly known as Spanish
Guinea).
Like pidgins, creoles are structurally simplified, but whereas a pidgin may
hold, at least in its initial stages, a kind of dialectal relationship with its lexi-
fier, a creole is an autonomous entity. Consequently, in dealing with language-
planning issues such as the establishment of a standard grammar or the compila-
tion of a dictionary that can be used by speakers of partially divergent varieties,
it is necessary to find solutions that take into account the creole’s own structure
rather than the structure of the original lexifier language. There are substan-
tial differences among the different Portuguese-based creole varieties found in
Africa, for even though a large portion of their lexicon is Portuguese, each has a
number of loan words from different African languages. It has been argued that
such differences do not necessarily alter the shared structure of Portuguese cre-
oles (Ploae-Hanganu 1998), but nonetheless each creole – like any language –
follows its own process of diachronic change, and differences tend to accumu-
late over the years.
If the lexifier coexists with a creole – as Portuguese does in Cape Verde, São
Tomé and Prı́ncipe, and Guinea-Bissau – its very presence may turn out to be
an obstacle – though not necessarily an insurmountable one – to the use of the
creole in socially prestigious activities such as education, the media, and the
administration. Rather than accept the creole as it is, the educated segments of
society, whose social prestige benefits from their command of the lexifier, may
consider that the value of the creole depends on its ability to approximate to the
lexifier in spelling or vocabulary. Since creoles are essentially oral, however,
there may be a great deal of regional variation, and consequently the task of
developing a viable writing system requires choosing a specific variety as a
point of reference.
The decision processes involved in such language planning are fraught with
technical and social problems. First, creoles are not necessarily discrete entities
but form a continuum where it is not always clear where one variety ends
and another begins. Secondly, decisions on how to represent sounds and sound
combinations in spelling require an informed view on whether, and to what
extent, the written creole should or should not look like the lexifier language.
Further, deciding which syntactic structures should be taken as a basis for the
standard may prove a vexing issue, encroaching upon the prestige of speakers of

competing varieties. Given such a diversified situation, it is no surprise that the

task of developing a relatively standardized norm for Portuguese-based creoles
is still in its early stages.
The extent to which a creole both resembles and differs from its lexifier
language can be appreciated by comparing a text in Guinea-Bissau creole with
its translation into Portuguese:

I ten ba un bias un omi ku tene kandonga, ma i ka tene kusa riba. I tene un kacon tras.
I mbarca son un amparante ku sukundi na kacon. I bai i bai tok i ciga na Safin. Jintis
e bin pidi buleia. I inci jintis karu. Suma cuba na cobi i mbarka kil jintis tras. E bai
tok e ciga na Jugudul. Cuba para, cuba para son. Amparante manera ku i miti dentru
di kacon i iabri son kacon. Ku velosidadi ku karu na bin ba ki jintis oja son manera
ku kacon iabri. Omi lanta. Kada kin na kai na si ladu. Kada kin na kai. Te pa e ciga
Gan-Mamudu, tudu ku sta ba na karu e muri. Amparante boka mara. Ma i bin fala elis
kuma i cuba ku pul ba i miti dentru di kacon. Ami i ka kuma di difuntu. I ka algin ku
muri ku tenedu na kacon. Bu obi. (Couto 1994: 131)
Havia um homem que tinha uma candonga que não tinha teto. Na carroceria havia um
caixão. Em seguida o cobrador embarcou e se escondeu dentro do caixão. Assim foram
até chegar a Safim. Algumas pessoas pediram carona. O homem encheu o carro de gente.
Estava chovendo muito, mas embarcaram todos atrás [na carroceria]. Continuaram a
viagem até chegar a Jugudul. A chuva parou. O cobrador saiu de dentro do caixão.
Na velocidade em que o veı́culo corria todos viram o caixão se abrir. O homem se
levantou. Cada uma das pessoas caiu para um lado. Todos caı́ram. Todos que estavam
na candonga caı́ram, até chegar a Gã Mamudu todos morreram. O cobrador ficou sem
fala (boquiaberto). Apesar de ele lhes ter dito que não era defunto, que se metera dentro
do caixão por causa da chuva. (Couto 1994:131)
[There was a man who had a candonga (bush taxi) that did not have a roof. In the back
there was a coffin. Then the conductor got on and hid inside the coffin. They went on
like that until they got to Safim. Some people asked for a ride. The man filled the car
with people. It was raining a lot, but they all climbed in the back. The trip went on until
they got to Jugudul. The rain stopped. The conductor got out of the coffin. At the speed
at which the vehicle was running everyone saw the coffin open. The conductor got up.
Every person fell out by the wayside. Everyone fell out. The conductor was speechless
(open-mouthed). Every one who was on the candonga fell off, by the time they got to
Gã Mamudu everyone died. Even though he told them he was not a corpse, that he had
got into the coffin because of the rain.]

6.5.2 The continental countries: Angola, Mozambique, and

Guinea-Bissau
As pointed out by Lopes (2002b:22), Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique
have considerable linguistic diversity, in the sense that no single language is spo-
ken by over 50 per cent of the population. Furthermore, the close links between
linguistic diversity and ethnic variety impinge upon efforts to bring about

language unification. The three countries originated from colonial entities

created by fiat following the Berlin Congress in 1884, at which European
powers agreed to partition Africa without regard for existing ethnic groups.
Consequently, the task of establishing a post-colonial nationhood was one
for which their previous experience had not prepared them (Cahen 1994).
Portuguese remains primarily an urban language, and major cities, such as
Luanda and Benguela in Angola, and Maputo and Beira in Mozambique, are pre-
dominantly Portuguese-speaking (Barbeitos 1985:422; Castro et al. 2001:234–
236). In Angola, for example, about 46.4% of the residents of urban areas speak
Portuguese, as opposed to about 11.9% in the countryside (MICS 1997:29). In
rural or semi-rural areas, however, teaching Portuguese as a second language
is likely to remain a priority task for some time to come.
Consensus is lacking regarding figures pertaining to languages, not only
because of a lack of reliable statistics but also because some linguists consider
as separate languages what others would classify as dialects of the same lan-
guage. Available information, however, shows that in Angola and Mozambique
bilingualism or even multilingualism is the rule for the majority of the popu-
lation. Although pidgin varieties may have existed (Holm 1989:271), there are
at present no Portuguese-based creoles.
In Mozambique about 3% of the population speak Portuguese as a native lan-
guage (Lopes 2002c:51), and about 43% speak it as a second language. Of the
native languages, Emakhuwa is spoken by about 25% of the population (Lopes
2002b:23), three fourths of whom speak at least one of some twenty Bantu lan-
guages, distributed with considerable geographic overlapping and none with a
clear majority. Non-Bantu languages such as Swazi or Zulu are also spoken in
border areas. Surrounded by countries where English has official status, inter-
acting directly with South Africa, and having joined the British Commonwealth
in 1995, Mozambique has witnessed a growth of interest in learning English,
which seems destined to play the role of every educated person’s “third lan-
guage,” that is after a native African language and native or school-learned
Portuguese (Matusse 1997:551). As regards geographic distribution, 79% of
the speakers of Portuguese live in urban areas, whereas 74% of the speakers of
African languages live in rural areas (Castro et al. 2001:234–238).
In Angola there are about 40 languages, belonging primarily to the Bantu
family. Some 29.8% of the population speak Umbundu (the only language spo-
ken only in Angola), followed by 26.3% who speak Portuguese, with Kimbundu
in third place with 15.4% (MICS 1997:29). Kimbundu seems to be in a process
of replacement by Angolan Popular Portuguese. Kikongo is spoken by some
1.5 million people (Barros 2002:37–38). Fluency in Portuguese is limited, and
most speakers speak a variety of European Portuguese influenced by native
languages (Mingas 2000, 2002:47).
Even more than in Angola and Mozambique, in Guinea-Bissau, where over
fifteen African languages are spoken, Portuguese was spoken at the end of the

twentieth century by only 0.03% of the population (Couto 1991:116). Balanta

is spoken by some 27% (Lopes 2002b:23), and there are three creole varieties,
namely that of Bissau and Bolema on the coast, that of the town of Bafatá in
the hinterland, and that of Cacheu in the north of the country. Depending on the
source chosen, between 50% and 90% of the population speak a Portuguese-
based creole that is widely used in urban areas.
The complex relationship between creole and Portuguese involves a con-
tinuum linking standard Portuguese to creolized Portuguese, to Lusitanized
creole, to traditional creole, to creole influenced by African languages, and to
the African languages themselves. The transition from one link to the next is
relatively smooth, and “only the ends of that continuum are completely alien
to each other” (Couto 1994:53). Varieties can also compete with each other.
For example, a Lusitanized variety known as kriol lebi (crioulo leve or ‘light
creole’), spoken primarily in the Bissau and Bolema area, competes in the media
with the traditional kriol fundu (crioulo fundo or ‘deep creole’) associated pri-
marily with the Cacheu area. At the time of writing (2004), a trend was reported
in favor of using a variety of kriol fundu in certain sectors of the media, so as to
take advantage of “its inherent richness and mechanisms for expanding itself to
report on themes that have typically been reserved for kriol lebi or Portuguese”
(Brian King, personal communication).
If a creole variety were to become the language of national communication,
it would offer the considerable advantage of not belonging to any ethnic group
in particular and so it could be shared by everyone without impinging on eth-
nic pride. During the anticolonial struggle in the 1960s and 1970s, creole was
taken to the hinterland by revolutionaries, who used it as a language of intra-
ethnic communication. After independence, efforts have been made to increase
media use of light creole, officially or officiously called Kriol (Henriques
1985), which has been adopted by government agencies such as the National
Assembly and the Supreme Court “to ensure the clarity of the proceedings”
(King 2001:35–41).

6.5.3 The island countries: Cape Verde and São Tomé and Prı́ncipe
The two island countries, Cape Verde (ten islands) and São Tomé and Prı́ncipe
(two islands), were uninhabited when the Portuguese arrived in the second half
of the fifteenth century. Their population comprises mostly Africans from the
mainland and descendants of Portuguese settlers, many of whom were exiles
or deported convicts. Intermarriage of Europeans and Africans accounts for an
Afro-Portuguese socioeconomic elite.
In colonial times islands of both archipelagos served as trading posts for the
traffic of slaves, who went to São Tomé from the kingdom of Benin (in today’s
Nigeria) and later from the regions of Congo and Angola. Slaves from several
ethnic groups went to Cape Verde from the region that is now Guinea-Bissau.

Cape Verde comprises two groups of islands, Sotavento (Leeward) and

Barlavento (Windward). Virtually everyone speaks a creole as a first language
and an educated minority is fluent in Portuguese. The creole variety of the island
of São Vicente (located in Barlavento) is known for its “light” features, which
bring it closer to Portuguese than to other creoles, such as the one spoken on the
island of Santiago (Holm 1989, 2000; D. Pereira 2000; Espı́rito Santo 1985).
The creole of Barlavento has a reputation of being particularly different from
those of Sotavento, although recent work has shown that São Vicente creole
seems to be “more permissive, among other reasons, because of the importance
of the European presence in the settlement of the island,” whereas Santiago
creole “is more resistant” to outside influences (D. Pereira 2000:44).
On São Tomé there are two creole varieties, known as Sãotomense or Forro
(spoken by some 85,000 speakers, clearly the majority of the population) and
Angolar (about 9000 speakers). The latter is spoken by an ethnic community
of descendants of slaves who escaped from the plantations. The creole known
as Principense or Lunguyè, spoken on Prı́ncipe, has about 4000 speakers. Both
Angolar and Principense are said to have few young speakers and to be used
primarily by older persons, “and even so only in very private situations,” and
may thus be on the wane, whereas Forro may be undergoing a decreolization
process (Mata 1998:33–34).
The island societies are thus essentially bilingual and creoles constitute their
main native languages. Command of Portuguese ranges from the European
standard, spoken by a minority, to vernacular Portuguese and on to the creole-
influenced, rudimentary Portuguese spoken by the less educated (Ramos 1985).
The lack of a regional norm of Portuguese has been pointed out as an obstacle
to the teaching of the language (Pontı́fice 2002:57–58).

6.5.4 Whither Portuguese?

Due to the fast pace of national and international events, assessments of social
situations must be considered provisional, and linguistic matters are no excep-
tion. While negative feelings about the former status of Portuguese as a colonial
language seem to have been largely overcome, the absence of local roots may
limit some of its effectiveness as a language of national solidarity in multilin-
gual societies (Lorenzino 2000:446). Portuguese may, nevertheless, turn out
to be a viable “supra-national” alternative to the national African languages.
Given the many obstacles, such as lack of funds for education and a shortage
of teachers, for most of whom Portuguese is a school-learned rather than native
language, new learners’ proficiency is likely to continue ranging from rudi-
mentary fluency to a vernacular Portuguese influenced by local languages, to
standard European Portuguese spoken by an educated urban minority.

Diglossia◦ , which will be discussed in some detail in section 8.2, is a situation

characterized by a relationship of social subordination between two varieties
of the same language or between two different languages. The subordinate
variety is usually a vernacular used at home, in community life, and sometimes
in some popular literature. The superordinate variety is reserved for formal
venues, such as formal education, law courts, and serious literature. Learning
it usually requires years of formal training that is not necessarily available to a
majority of the population.
In the African case, Portuguese functions as the superordinate variety, while
creoles and African languages play a subordinate role and are generally lim-
ited to informal contexts, although this situation may be changing somewhat in
Guinea-Bissau, as mentioned in 6.5.2. Two factors are particularly important.
One is the role of Portuguese since the beginning of the struggle for inde-
pendence, as a symbol of national unity (Larsen 2003); another is its prestige
and power, for as underscored by Lopes is a comment applicable to all PALOP
countries, “Portuguese has provided Mozambican speakers with unprecedented
power for mobility and advancement in society” (1997a:21). Since much more
widespread proficiency than is currently the case would be necessary for Por-
tuguese to serve effectively as a common language for all citizens, a situation
with diglossic features may endure for some time.
In the early days of colonization native languages were used in education by
the Jesuits, but this practice was forbidden in 1759 by the Portuguese govern-
ment, which expelled the Jesuits from the colonies. Portuguese was introduced
as an instructional medium and was maintained through a succession of educa-
tional reforms aiming primarily at integrating Africans into the labor market.
African languages were kept out of the education process and students were
punished if caught using them at school (Martinho 1991:167).
Use of standard European Portuguese as the exclusive medium of educa-
tion, even when students do not understand it, tends to work against efforts to
increase literacy in Portuguese. Some scholars believe that speakers of African
languages or creoles would stand a better chance of becoming fluent and literate
in Portuguese if they could learn it as a second language after having become
literate in their own native language (Couto 1994:62–65). This approach, how-
ever, is hampered by the circumstance that native languages and creoles are
essentially oral and lack a written system as well as a tradition of use in for-
mal education. Whatever solutions are ultimately envisaged, it is clear that any
serious language policy must take indigenous languages into account (Firmino
1995a, 1995b).
Efforts to develop writing systems for African languages in Angola and
Mozambique have yielded only modest results, on account of the large number
of languages involved and also of the intrinsic difficulty of choosing a variety
acceptable to a majority of speakers. The technical aspects of developing a

workable writing system, already mentioned in relation to creoles, are another

obstacle.
Although school instruction is conducted in Portuguese, creole is used on
radio and television, as well as in some of the press, and thus a struggling, though
apparently viable, body of publications in creole is under way. This includes not
only comic books and fiction works but also publications of a more practical
content such as election materials, health education, technical information, and
so on. Publishing in creole is hampered by dialectal variation, and although
proposals have been made for a unified written norm, that goal is far from having
been reached (Augel 1998:35–37). The essentially oral nature of creoles, bound
by no single grammatical standard and tolerating a great deal of variation in
pronunciation, syntax, and the lexicon, contributes to the preservation of creole
continua. Since developing a writing system requires choosing a specific variety
and therefore excluding others, the process of establishing a norm raises issues
akin to those involved in developing a writing system for African languages.
According to King (2001:41), in Guinea-Bissau in the 1980s “at least two
standardized Kriol alphabets were elaborated, yet no single standard was
adopted or promoted by the state.” Eventually, the Bissau variety of “crioulo
aportuguesado” or Lusitanized creole “completely superseded the other two
principal dialects” (King 2001:35) in most written materials. Ironically,
increased use of this variety of creole may lead to a “decreolization process
[that] accelerates every passing day” (Couto 1994:66). The fact that differences
between creoles are sometimes deep enough to interfere with mutual intelligi-
bility – as in the case of Guinea-Bissau’s fundu and lebi varieties, or in that of
the Capeverdian variety spoken on the island of São Vicente (D. Pereira 2000) –
further complicates standardization efforts.
It has been suggested that learners’ linguistic background also interferes
with their formal learning of Portuguese, particularly among children from
families of low socioeconomic standing, who speak non-standard Portuguese,
alone or in combination with a native language and/or a creole (Pontı́fice 1991).
African languages also borrow words from Portuguese, usually with phonolog-
ical adaptations. Examples of this process include oral diphthongs reduced to
vowels (caixa > kaxà ‘box’) or split by a glide (queijo > kexjù ‘cheese’); nasal
diphthongs are made oral and reduced to simple vowels (pão > pawu ‘bread’);
consonant groups are split by a vowel (grade > gàradà ‘grille,’ cerveja >
sàràvhexjà ‘beer’). At the morphological level we find verb infinitives marked
by two Bantu elements, such as the prefix ku- and the infinitive-marking suf-
fix -a (passear > kùpàsı̀yàrà ‘to stroll,’ arrumar > kùrùmàrà ‘to fix’) (Sitoe
1991:109–110).
Linguists have pointed out that there is something artificial in a situation in
which European Portuguese remains the standard for language teaching and
use, even though most speakers and learners have little or no contact with

that variety (Lopes 1997a:41; Silva 1991:102). Because Portuguese is learned as

a second language by persons who get little or no feedback from native speakers
of standard European Portuguese, their language tends to undergo a process
of nativization, whereby it acquires specific features from African languages.
This happens not only at the lexical level, where borrowing from the national
languages is to be expected, but also at the phonological and morphosyntactic
levels (Mingas 2000).
Some scholars (such as Gonçalves (1985, 1996), Firmino (1995a, 1995b),
Lopes (1997a), and Marque (1985)) have debated the issues involved in defin-
ing an African variety (or varieties) of Portuguese, with specific features for
each country. Endruschat (1995) analyzed differences in the placement of clitic
pronouns between EP and Angolan and Mozambican varieties, and research
carried out in Mozambique (Stroud and Gonçalves 1997–1998) has yielded a
corpus of oral production for systematic analysis. Loan words from African
languages are found not only in the colloquial language but also in the literary
variety, as in the following items from Quimbundu: kixima > cacimba ‘rain
water well,’ kubata > cubata ‘house,’ muamba ‘chicken stew,’ maka ‘fight,
confusion,’ quinda ‘basket,’ soba ‘chief, chieftain,’ gimbo ‘money,’ guimbo
‘machete,’ milongo ‘medicine,’ quituxe ‘crime’ (Santos 1991; Oliveira 1991).
A sign of integration of loan words into the lexicon is their use in the formation
of new words by derivation (3.8.1). In Mozambique, for example, a borrowed
noun such as lobolo ‘a fee paid to a bride’s father by her betrothed’ has yielded
the derived verb lobolar (< lobolo + -ar) ‘to pay the tribute owed to one’s
bride’s father.’ Another regular process is the extension of the meaning of a
Portuguese word, such as alarmar ‘to startle,’ as in alarmar um carro ‘to install
an alarm system in a car.’ Semantic extension may involve syntactic change,
as in the use of nascer ‘to be born’ in the transitive sense of ‘to give birth to,’
e.g. eu nasci três vezes: duas meninas e um rapaz ‘I gave birth three times: two
girls and a boy’ (Lopes 2002a). Making a verb transitive is easily achieved by
omitting the preposition required in standard EP, as in the following examples
from Gonçalves (1996:74):
(1) a. MoP Não queriam obedecer ordens dos professores.
‘They did not want to obey the teachers’ orders’ (cf. EP obedecer
às ordens).
b. MoP O inspector acertou aqueles indivı́duos.
‘The inspector hit (with a shot) those individuals’ (cf. EP acertou
naqueles indivı́duos).
Generalized transitivity makes possible passive sentences in which a seman-
tic benefactive (4.2) occurs in the syntactic function of the subject, a construc-
tion not considered grammatical in EP, as in these examples from Gonçalves
(1996:75):

(2) a. MoP O irmão foi concedido uma bolsa de estudos.

‘The brother was awarded a scholarship.’
b. EP Uma bolsa de estudos foi concedida ao irmão.
‘A scholarship was awarded to the brother.’

(3) a. MoP Segundo nós fomos explicados isso deve-se a questões de

ordem prática.
‘As we were explained (= was explained to us), that is due to
practical reasons.’
b. EP Segundo foi-nos explicado, isso deve-se a questões de ordem
prática.
‘As was explained to us, that is due to practical reasons.’

Possibly because it is a school-learned language, spoken and written Por-

tuguese tends to include words and expressions that would be considered lit-
erary, or at any rate typical of formal written styles, in European Portuguese.
This usage creates blends of formal and informal styles in the same sentence
as in example 4, where formal items such as fundos, alocar, execução, emprei-
tada cooccur with the nearly-slang expression comer o dinheiro ‘to embezzle,’
literally ‘to eat the money.’

(4) Os fundos alocados para a execução da empreitada não chegaram,

porque comeram o dinheiro. (Lopes 2002a)
‘The funds allotted to the project did not suffice because [they] ate
the money.’

Such a situation underscores the need pointed out by Lopes (1997b:499,

n. 16) for linguistic analysis to take into account “considerations of syntax,
idiom, style and usage related to social and cultural features of the Mozambican
way of life,” a line of research further developed by Lopes et al. (2002). Much
work remains to be done, for as scholars have argued (Brito 1999), the evidence
available is fragmentary and based largely on data that have yet to be submitted
to statistical analysis, and consequently it would be premature to evaluate claims
about the formation of country-specific varieties of Portuguese. Clearly, issues
related to language acquisition and the definition of regional standards are likely
to remain topics of lively debate in the foreseeable future.

6.6 Asian twilight

As mentioned in Chapter 1, Portugal’s seafaring and trade activities in Africa
and Asia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made Portuguese an inter-
national language. It was used in oral and written communication, not only
between Portuguese seafarers and administrators and local rulers, but also by

Dutch and English explorers and explorers of other nationalities in their African
and Asian contacts (Cintra 1999a:293). Portuguese also provided a foundation
for pidgins and creoles, and it has been suggested (Clements 2000) that a generic
Portuguese-based pidgin participated in the formation of creoles in Asian com-
munities formed by Portuguese settlers, their native spouses or companions,
and eventually by their descendants, for whom that pidgin became a creole.
Recent research (Tomás 1992) suggests the presence of African elements in
Asian Portuguese creoles.
The development of creoles in Asia was aided by the circumstance that
the number of native speakers of Portuguese in the colonies was relatively
small, and shrank further as Portugal’s maritime empire was gradually lost
to the British and the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Goa, Daman (Pg
Damão), and Diu remained Portuguese until 1961, when they were taken over
by India and reorganized as a single Union Territory. Even during the colo-
nial period, however, the Portuguese language was spoken only by an educated
minority, while the general population spoke Indo-Portuguese creole, Konkani,
or other Indian languages. After 1961 the new Indian administration continued
operating in Portuguese for a few years as it converted to English, and schools
likewise changed to English on a gradual basis. Although still spoken as a fam-
ily language by some people and taught at the university as a foreign language,
Portuguese is clearly on the wane in India (Rodrigues 2000; Cahen et al. 2000).
This situation was aptly summed up by Teyssier (1985:47), who underscored
the residual nature of Portuguese or Indo-Portuguese creoles in a few remaining
Asian communities. The Portuguese-based creole of Sri-Lanka, for example,
was still spoken by about 1,000 people or less in the early 1970s (Theban
1985:276), although “prospects for its survival can only be described as
bleak” (Smith 1978:32). In Macau (pop. 453,700, area 25.4 square kilometers,
9.8 square miles), by the end of twentieth century Chinese had become the
language of young people (Batalha 1985). When sovereignty was returned to
China in December 1999, the region became the Macao Special Administrative
Region, and Putonghua was recognized as the official language, with Portuguese
remaining official but in a secondary role (Mann and Wong 1999:32). There is
no reason to expect it to regain any significant ground.
A similar situation obtains in Hong Kong, where a once viable Portuguese-
based creole was reported as having disappeared a decade ago (Charpentier
1992; Baxter 1990). In Malaysia, Papia Kristang (‘Christian talk’) or simply
Kristang, spoken in Malacca by some 1,000 people, is “the last surviving variety
of Creole Portuguese in South East Asia which still functions as a mother tongue
and home language of a speech community” (Baxter 1988:vii). It remains to be
seen whether the adoption of Portuguese in 2002 as a coofficial language (with
Tetum) in East Timor will signal the beginning a new life cycle for Portuguese
in Asia. Even if it does, teaching it as a second language to a population with

low literacy levels in their own native languages (Costa 1995) may prove a
formidable task, if for no other reason then because Portuguese has to compete
with English, widely used throughout Asia as a second language with a much
wider international reach.

6.7 Emigration and contact with other languages

Emigration from continental Portugal and the islands increased considerably in
the twentieth century, so that between 1964 and 1974, according to Bloemraad
(1999:103), “about 100,000 Portuguese were leaving the country every year.”
Motivated primarily by the need to find work opportunities, emigration led
to the establishment of Portuguese-descent immigrant communities in several
countries around the world.
The presence of Portuguese immigrants in Western European countries
became statistically significant after the 1960s, and although most countries
received at least some immigrants, the most numerous communities are found
in France and Germany. In France there were about 765,000 Portuguese in the
late 1980s, about half of them in the Paris region. In Germany there were slightly
fewer than 110,000 in 1981 and as they started going back to Portugal that fig-
ure decreased to about 77,000 by 1986 (Dias 1989:18). With the establishment
of the European Union and increasing ease of travel thanks to affluence and
better roads in Spain and Portugal, frequent visits to the homeland have become
commonplace.
Prolonged contact with the host country’s language(s) and increasing bilin-
gualism within the community have contributed to the development of dis-
tinctive, though not necessarily stable, varieties of mixed speech referred to
as emigrês ‘Emigrese’ (Dias 1989). The development of an Emigrese variety
does not seem to have taken place in Germany, where influence of German
on the speech of Portuguese immigrants and their descendants is limited to
the kind of interference that is expected when languages come into con-
tact (Dias 1989; Sousa-Möckel 1995). French, on the other hand, seems to
have left a deeper mark, linguistically as well as socially, on the immigrants
and their descendants, as noted in studies on French-dominant adolescents
attending school in Portugal (Mesquita 1986; Afonso 1998; Bendiha 1998;
Matos 1991).
An analysis of immigrants living in Paris by a Portuguese psychiatrist (Barros
Ferreira 1988) revealed regular patterns of French influence. As one might
expect, there were many loan words that represented unknown or unfamiliar
terms, such as Fr veau > vô for Pg vitela ‘veal,’ Fr poubelle > pubela for Pg
caixote do lixo ‘dustbin,’ Fr vacances > vacanças for Pg férias ‘vacation.’ Other
loan words, however, either replaced ordinary Portuguese terms (Fr seau > sô
for Pg balde ‘pail,’ Fr balai > bàlé for Pg vassoura ‘broom,’ Fr serpillière >

sarapilheira for Pg esfregão ‘cleaning rag’). Others were simply adapted for
ease of pronunciation, as Fr lessive > lessivia for Pg lexı́via ‘bleach.’
Morphological loans included regular change of the French adjective-
forming suffix -eux into -oso, as in affreux > afrôso, malheureux > malerôso,
dangereux > dangeroso for Pg. terrı́vel ‘terrible,’ infeliz ‘unhappy,’ perigoso
‘dangerous,’ respectively.
Borrowing sometimes yielded unexpected results, as in the case of Fr retraite
‘retirement’ > retrete (cf. Pg retrete ‘outhouse’). French verbs in -er and -ir
were systematically changed into Portuguese verbs in -ar and -ir, respectively,
as in Meu marido trompava-me for Meu marido enganava-me ‘my husband
was betraying me,’ from Fr tromper ‘betray’ > trompar.
Contact with English has been particularly significant in Australia, South
Africa, and above all North America. Portuguese emigration to Australia
involved no more than 1,000 individuals until the middle of the twentieth cen-
tury, and increased through the 1980s mostly due to an exodus from the former
African colonies and from East Timor. By the end of that century there was
an estimated community of 65,000 people of Portuguese origin (though only
under 18,000 Portugal-born), with over 50% of them living in New South Wales
(Rocha-Trindade 2000a:23).
In South Africa Portuguese immigration also grew in the second half of the
twentieth century, mainly from Madeira, and by the last decade of the century
the Portuguese-descent community had increased by some 100,000, including
people coming from Angola and Mozambique after decolonization, to reach
about 600,000–800,000 (Dias 1989:16; Rocha-Trindade 2000a:23).
In Canada, where Portuguese immigration started in 1953, there are “approx-
imately 292,185 individuals . . . who claim a Portuguese ethnic origin” (Nunes
1998:i). About 92% of the Portuguese-Canadians live in the provinces of
Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. Major concentrations live in the
metropolitan regions of Toronto (48%) and Montreal (13%) (Nunes 1998:i).
Now in its third generation and increasingly integrated in Canadian society, this
community seems to be undergoing a process of language attrition as young
people either fail to learn Portuguese or stop using it. Researchers suggest
that in the Toronto area the retention of Portuguese fell from 83% in 1971
all the way to 60.5% in 1991 (Helms-Park 2000:128). Interference from other
languages seems particularly intense in Quebec, where Portuguese-Canadians
tend to learn and use both English and French (Dias-Tatilon 2000).
The largest communities of Portuguese ancestry in North America are in the
United States, and their establishment can be traced to the second half of the
nineteenth century, when whalers from the Azores, and later from Cape Verde,
started arriving in New England, California, and Hawaii.
Despite restrictive immigration laws in the 1920s, the influx of Portuguese
immigrants increased again after the 1950s, thanks to legislation favoring

victims of the volcanic eruption on the Azorean island of Fayal in 1957–1958,

but then slackened off in the 1980s. Portuguese-American communities exist
today on the East Coast, in and around New Bedford, Fall River, Lowell, and
Boston, and there are other significant communities in Newark, Providence,
Philadelphia, New York, and Hartford. The other significant community – again
mostly of Azorean origin, with Madeirans running a distant second – is located
in California, where immigrants started arriving in the second half of the nine-
teenth century, again attracted to the fishing industry, and ended up primarily
in the San Francisco Bay area, all the way south to San José and inland in the
San Joaquı́n Valley. In Hawaii, a Portuguese-American community, likewise
descended primarily from Azoreans and Madeirans, was established around
1878.
Reliable data about actual use of the Portuguese language in the USA and
Canada are scarce, and systematic large-scale sociolinguistic research has yet to
be carried out. A favorable sign is the existence, in the United States and Canada,
of a small but viable literature (Almeida 2001, Vaz 2001). A less favorable one
is that the press in Portuguese in California, once thriving, seemed limited to
two bimonthly bilingual papers in 2003. A few websites in Portuguese have
appeared in both Canada and the United States but it is difficult to estimate
their readership. Radio programs in the language are reportedly dwindling, as
are television programs, although cable television may play a relevant, if small,
role.
According to data from the USA Census Bureau (www.census.gov), in 1990
429,860 respondents declared Portuguese as their home language; in 2000 that
figure had jumped to 564,630, a difference of 134,770 that seems to require
careful scrutiny. Home use of the language is likely to be primarily by the older
generations, and the younger segment of the Portuguese-descent population
appears to be not only bilingual but increasingly English-dominant. A survey
of 100 Portuguese-American high school students (Borges 2001) found that
fewer than 50% of their parents used Portuguese at home. About 15% of the
respondents used the language because their immigrant parents did not speak
English, whereas another 15% reported talking to their parents in English,
even though the latter used Portuguese to address their own parents. The same
author reports that in 1998 secondary schools in the San Joaquı́n Valley cities
of San Jose, Turlock, Hilmar, Los Banos, and Tulare had about 550 students in
Portuguese language classes, while in all of California there were only seven
community-supported night schools offering language courses to fewer than
500 students. On the East Coast, Bento (1998) reports that at a language school
in Newark the number of enrollments dropped from 550 in 1983–1984 to 400
in 1988–1989 and to 250 in 1997–1998.
Works such as Pap 1949 and Dias 1989 give an idea of the processes
involved in forming this Emigrese variety. Intense borrowing, primarily at the
lexical level, includes not only single words but compounds and full idiomatic

phrases. Loan words are systematically adapted to Portuguese phonology, with

the resulting loss of certain contrasts that are functional in English. Thus the
English high front vowels (Table 2.4) /i/ (beet) and /i/ (bit) are both interpreted
as Pg /i/, as in milker > milca, freeway > friuei. Eng /i/ (bit), however, may
also be interpreted as /ej/, as in television > televeija, air conditioning > arcan-
deixa. Eng /t/, articulated as [ɾ] in intervocalic position (waiter, water), tends
to be interpreted phonetically as [ɾ], as in automatic > arameque; starter >
estara, radiator > radieira. Diphthongs are usually preserved, as in /ej/ bacon
> beica, brake > breique; /aj/ dryer > draia, size > saize.
While phonological adaptations are more or less predictable from a compari-
son of the two phonological systems, it is more difficult to predict which specific
words will be borrowed, since this will depend on the specific needs of the com-
munity. On the basis of compiled lists, however, one can detect a tendency to bor-
row the names of technological items that did not exist in the immigrants’ orig-
inal environment. Once brought into the lexicon of the community, items may
stay on indefinitely, even if the next generations, who are usually bilingual, more
educated, and likely to be English-dominant, are familiar with the English word.
It should be kept in mind that strange as the spelling of some items may
appear, it merely reflects an attempt to represent in writing what is essentially
a strictly oral adaptation to Portuguese phonology. The phonological processes
involved parallel those responsible for the anglicization of Spanish words like
burrito, tortilla, Los Angeles or San Jose to [bəɾitə], [təɾtilə], [ləsændələs],
[sə nə zej], making them unrecognizable to Spanish speakers from other coun-
tries. Below are some items that illustrate the borrowing and phonological
adaptation process:

Technology Culture-specific
television > televeijo sheriff > charêfe
market > marqueta tenement > tanamento
carpet > carpeta vacation > vaqueixa
store > estôa undertaker > anatêca
manager > maneja radiator > radiera
bookkeeper > boquipa son of a gun > sanabagana
grocery (store) > grosseria go to hell! > gorele!
New activities Clothing
to trim the bushes > trimar os buxos overalls > alverozes/
to drop a course > dropar un curso alveroles
to drive > draivar overshoes > alvachús
overcoat > alvacote

Another regular borrowing process is loan translation, in which an English

word or expression is literally translated into Portuguese: high school > escola
alta (Pg escola secundária), black coffee > café preto (Pg café simples),

boarding house > casa de bordo (Pg pensão), to watch television > vigiar
televeijo (ver televisão).
Activities are often encoded by combining an action verb and a noun, usually
involving direct translation:

fazer o parque ‘to park’ (Pg estacionar)

fazer a estoa ‘to go to the store’ (Pg fazer compras)
fazer o fainaute ‘to find out’ (Pg descobrir)
fazer uma direita/esquerda ‘to make a right/left’ (Pg virar à
direita/esquerda)
dar para trás ‘to give back’ (Pg restituir, devolver)
dizer para trás ‘to talk back’ (Pg replicar)
mandar para trás ‘to send back’ (Pg devolver)

Semantic extension, in turn, involves adding to an existing Portuguese word

the meaning of a like-sounding English word, as in the following items (with
spelling adjusted to approximate the pronunciation, since this is an oral variety
without regular written expresion):

Portuguese Meaning Immigrese (English-

word influenced meaning)
cela cell (e.g. prison) cellar
mecha wick match
especial special (adj.) special (item on sale)
bordar to embroider to board
grau degree (e.g. temperature) school grade
aplicar to apply (e.g. a compress) apply for something

Code-switching is also an active communicative device, as seen in these

examples cited by Dias (1989:103–104):

(5) a. Pintei a minha casa de blue. Ficou nice.

‘I painted my house blue. It turned out nice.’
b. A senhora não dá juice para o meu kid?
‘Won’t you give my kid some juice?’
c. Não sei why tu foste com ela.
‘I don’t know why you went with her.’

On returning to their place of origin, either on a visit or permanently, immi-

grants take back some of these items, which may end up adopted by their less
mobile compatriots. Borges (1960) points out that most such items collected
by her on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, were listed in Pap (1949) as
occurring in Portuguese-American speech.

Similar though apparently less extended interference phenomena from

English and French are noticeable in the Portuguese of Quebec, where Dias-
Tatilon has registered a variety of calques such as the following (2000:153,
adapted):
Luso-Québécois Québécois French or Standard Portuguese
English
inecessário unnecessary desnecessário
permitir algumas allow some weeks esperar algumas
semanas semanas
levar vantagem to take advantage aproveitar-se
dopar-se se doper drogar-se
apontamento appointment hora marcada
mesmo se é duro même si c’est dur mesmo se é difı́cil
o secondário le secondaire o liceu
The varieties of Portuguese spoken and written in the regions covered in this
chapter are, linguistically and culturally, an extension of European Portuguese.
The Azores and Madeira are of course a part of the Portuguese Republic, and
despite regional features, their language remains unmistakably Portuguese.
The PALOP countries have kept cultural links with Portugal, and while the
Portuguese spoken in those countries shows some specific features, not enough
time has elapsed for the development of autonomous varieties, although this
may come to pass. It is worth recalling that Portuguese-based creoles, as said
earlier, are autonomous languages and should not be thought of as dialects of
Portuguese.
As for immigrant communities around the world, if developments in North
America may serve as a point of reference, interference from contact languages
is likely to go on, coupled with increasing dominance of the national language(s)
among the young and decreasing numbers of native speakers as the immigrant
generations pass away. It is unclear to what extent Portuguese is likely to be
kept, beyond emblematic use, by the new heritage speakers, despite a sense of
ethnic identity which appears to endure, independently of language maintenance
(Stephens 1989; Noivo 2000: 163; Rocha-Trindade 2000:29).
As of late, Brazilians have been making their presence felt in growing num-
bers in the world immigration scene, especially in the United States, where since
the 1980’s their number has grown, particularly in California, Florida, New
York, and the Boston and New Jersey regions, where they share some space
with Portuguese-origin communities. Although reliable statistics are virtually
non-existent, partly because many such immigrants are undocumented, off-the-
record estimates by consular officials range between 500,000 and 1,000,000
for the whole country. This would make the 2000 census figure of 181,076
Brazilians sound rather low, in view of the 200,000 reported in the Miami

area alone (The Brasilians 2003 (May), 16-P) and some 40,000 in the Atlanta
(Georgia) area alone, where schools in Cobb County supposedly have some
5,000 Brazilian pupils.
Although no large-scale systematic studies of the speech of Brazilians living
in the United States have been carried out, casual observation reveals similar
patterns of adaptation of English words to everyday, as in the sample below:
Adapted term Source/meaning Standard Portuguese
enforçar to enforce (a law) fazer cumprir (uma lei)
afordar to afford poder pagar
tiquetar to ticket pôr uma multa
rentar to rent alugar
(6) a. Tem uma lei contra, mas eles não enforçam ela.
‘There is a law against (it) but they don’t enforce it.’
b. A gente queria rentar um penthouse, mas não dá para a gente
afordar, é muito caro.
‘We wanted to rent a penthouse but we can’t afford [it], it’s too
expensive.’
Another topic to be researched in the next decade is the outcome from contact
between the two varieties of Portuguese, either in the already mentioned regions
in the United States or in Portugal itself, where immigration from Brazil has
grown steadily in the last twenty years and an estimated 100,000 Brazilians,
both legal and undocumented, currently live (Beatriz Padilla, personal commu-
nication; see also Rocha-Trindade 2000). Brazilian television programs, and
particularly soap operas, are extremely popular and contribute to foster famil-
iarity with Brazilian Portuguese. This is important, because the situation of the
language in Brazil is very different from that in the other regions commented
on in this Chapter. Having grown primarily out of the speech of the original
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century settlers, it has taken deep roots and become
the native language of vast majority of the population, who may understand
European Portuguese, but do not identify with it. Though significantly diversi-
fied and endowed with an educated standard of its own, Brazilian Portuguese
has an unmistakable profile, about which we will talk in the next chapter.

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Expansion of European Portuguese-Artigo

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Expansion of European Portuguese-Artigo

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6 The expansion of European Portuguese

6.1 Aspects of language variation

homogeneity in pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon that will

6.2 Continental Portugal

considered standard. Furthermore, the Lisbon variety of Portuguese renders the

/ε / > [æ] terra [tærɐ] for st. [tε rɐ] ‘land’

6.3 Border talk

A case of linguistic hybridism is found in the village of Barrancos, located

6.4 The Atlantic islands: Madeira and the Azores

cidade [siðaði] ∼ [siðjäði] ∼ [siðεði] for st. [siðaði]

This diphthongization process has been identified in continental Portugal

When universal proficiency has been achieved, it will be no doubt advanta-

6.5.1 Pidgins and creoles: An excursus

competing varieties. Given such a diversified situation, it is no surprise that the

6.5.2 The continental countries: Angola, Mozambique, and

language unification. The three countries originated from colonial entities

twentieth century by only 0.03% of the population (Couto 1991:116). Balanta

Cape Verde comprises two groups of islands, Sotavento (Leeward) and

6.5.4 Whither Portuguese?

Diglossia◦ , which will be discussed in some detail in section 8.2, is a situation

workable writing system, already mentioned in relation to creoles, are another

that variety (Lopes 1997a:41; Silva 1991:102). Because Portuguese is learned as

(2) a. MoP O irmão foi concedido uma bolsa de estudos.

(3) a. MoP Segundo nós fomos explicados isso deve-se a questões de

Possibly because it is a school-learned language, spoken and written Por-

(4) Os fundos alocados para a execução da empreitada não chegaram,

Such a situation underscores the need pointed out by Lopes (1997b:499,

6.6 Asian twilight

6.7 Emigration and contact with other languages

victims of the volcanic eruption on the Azorean island of Fayal in 1957–1958,

phrases. Loan words are systematically adapted to Portuguese phonology, with

Another regular borrowing process is loan translation, in which an English

fazer o parque ‘to park’ (Pg estacionar)

Semantic extension, in turn, involves adding to an existing Portuguese word

Portuguese Meaning Immigrese (English-

Code-switching is also an active communicative device, as seen in these

(5) a. Pintei a minha casa de blue. Ficou nice.

On returning to their place of origin, either on a visit or permanently, immi-

Similar though apparently less extended interference phenomena from

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