Talk:Brazilian Portuguese

message: Brazilian Portuguese is one of the several variants of the Portuguese Language, it is not a "dialect", as mentioned in the text. 
The Portuguese Language is officially a single language composed of several variants from Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Principe, Guiné Bissau, East Timor, and Brazil. 
All these countries have Portuguese as their official language. None of them have any difficulty whatsoever understanding each other in written communication - the grammar and the spelling is almost entirely the same, except for a few spelling variations that are mutually agreed upon in an international treaty and are irrelevant for anyone's understanding of a text ("acção", in Portugal, and "ação", without a "c", in Brazil). 
The main differences lie in pronunciation and in choices and meanings of some words, but these differences DO NOT constitute or make up a different language, nor are they enough to make a dialect. No linguists or gramaticians consider any of the variations of the Portuguese language used in the countries listed before "dialects" - thus, anyone who does so does it out of his own prejudice or personal opinion, without scientific backing or sources, in oposition to the conclusions of specialists and the academia.
It should also be noted that anyone claiming that the Brazilian variation of the Portuguese Language is a "dialect" is indirectly claming that there is a "correct", "proper" or "original/unmodified" version of the language in Portugal. However, scientific evidence shows that the Portuguese language in Portugal also underwent change and is not "standard" or the "original" form of the language that others must copy. 
In many ways, the Portuguese used in Brazil is older than its variant from Portugal. Here are two examples: 
1) The "gerund" or "progressive" form of verbs: in the year 1500, when Portuguese navigator Pero Vaz Caminha announced the discovery of Brazil to the King of Portugal, he wrote "Em se plantando tudo dá" (anything that is planted will grow); the word "plantando" is written in its progressive form (ending with "ndo"); yet, the current citizens of Portugal insist that their shorter form of progressive verbs ("a fazer") is more correct, even though it was adopted in Portugal only in the XIX Century, under the influence of the French language; 
2) Luís de Camões, the poet that symbolizes the Portuguese Language, who lived in the XVI Century, wrote Decasyllabic quatrains (poems with 10 syllables) that can not be read correctly using today's pronounciation of Portuguese in Portugal, which has been progressively eliminating vowels in words. By doing so, whole syllables are removed and words such as "pelotão" (platoon) are shortened to "plutão" (Pluto, the planet); Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese of most African Portuguese do not eliminate vowels.
My purpose here is not to criticize European Portuguese. What I do mean to say is that all versions of the Portuguese language underwent change and are current versions of a common language of the past which does not exist anywhere in its pure original form. 
To make things short: it is wrong and prejudiced to call Brazilian Portuguese a "dialect"; it should be noted, as well, that 212 million people speak this so called "dialect", while the whole population of Portugal is 10 million. Abueno97 (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Historically, the word "dialect" has been used to mean "inferior to the standard". But in linguistics (and this article is about linguistics), it's used to describe a version of a language spoken in a defined area (regional or national), that has particular standard characteristics: so UK English and US English are both "dialects of English" (among others), without either one being "inferior" to the other; and the same applies to Portuguese (although I know a lot of Portuguese people who would disagree!). Morrisonneil12 (talk) 03:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Same language; not a "dialect"

message: In the description of the informal spoken register, there have been some attempts to change "os elevador" to "os elevadores" as if the lack of plural marker in nouns were uncommon or rare in informal spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Such phenomenon may even be stigmatized (as typical marks of informal spoken registers often are), but this does not mean it does not happen often. In fact, it is very common and widespread in Brazilian Portuguese. To back this affirmation, I added a citation from a reliable source to the article.
I can cite even more sources that reinforce that affirmation if you want. But do not change "os elevador" to "os elevadores" unless you are backed up by authoritative citations from reliable sources indicating that this is not a noteworthy characteristic of the informal spoken register of Brazilian Portuguese. --Antonielly (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Loss of certain plural marking traits as a typical phenomenon in the informal spoken register

message: This section has wrong information and is completely centered on what is common in the standard dialect of São Paulo. In most of Northeast, "tu" is the informal pronoun, "você" the semi-formal one and "o senhor/a senhora" the formal one. On the contrary of the text, "você" isn't preferred in any part of the Northeast, except for parts of Bahia and other smaller areas. The same happens in other parts of the country.
In the South, "tu" is entirely dominant, "você" is little used. The form "contigo" and "ti" is actually the most common one in many dialects of Brazil, especially in Northeast, South and North (but also parts of Southeast). So, it's time this section gets a little less "São Paulo-ish" and starts to consider all the dialects of Brazil when it's going to determine whether some form is or not the most common one. The pronunciation guide also leads one to believe [tSi] is THE form to be used in BP, while there are still quite a lot of dialects in Brazil that use [ti]. 189.13.30.6 (talk) 00:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Section "Tu and você" must be changed

message: The following example of informal speech is way too exaggerated, as if it intended to turn differences between formal BP and informal BP much larger than they are.
It simply replaces a verb that is extremely common in informal BP (precisar) with a synonym that is also common (ter que). The fact is: there is nothing formal about "precisamos" and nothing informal in "tem que". Both are actually totally correct in formal BP and totally common in informal BP!
Besides, the expression "faltar energia" is extremely common in informal BP, it has no sign of formality at all. It's true, Brazilians would also tend to say "vai faltar luz", but this expression isn't wrong at all in the standard BP. The analytic future conjugation "vai faltar" is totally accepted in formal Portuguese. So, it's informal, but it's also formal. "Vai faltar luz" is acceptable and correct for formal standards.
Therefore, the fact is: the difference between formal and informal BP isn't that big as it seems in this example. Actually, in many BP dialects where "nós" is still used commonly together with "a gente", it'd be perfectly possible to hear an informal frase this way (for example, in the Ceará dialect:
"Nós precisamo informar todo mundo que vai faltar energia nos elevador"
[nOjs prisi'z3mu i~foh'ma todu mu~du ki vaj faw'ta eneh'Zi3 nuz ElEva'do]
On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to write in formal BP in this following way:
"Nós temos que falar para todos que vai faltar luz nos elevadores"
(compare with the given informal example "A gente tem que falar pra todo o mundo que vai faltar luz nos elevador")
Is it clear??? :-)
P.S.: The correct form, even in informal BP, is "todo mundo" (everybody), NOT "todo o mundo" (all the world).
189.13.30.6 (talk) 00:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you on most things. There are wide stylistical differences between formal and informal registers of BP (vocabulary selection ["preferred words" between a set of synonyms to represent an idea, definition of "neutral" lexical choices], preferred sentence organization patterns, prosody, phonological realization, etc.), but the grammatical and lexical differences between informal and formal BP is far from being so big as many people claim. Just some remarks:
* You do not need to mark in the orthography the difference between "precisamos" and "precisamo". It is just a phonological ellision that occurs on many Brazilian dialects, which does not need to be represented in spelling. The same thing happens with final "r" in infinitive verbs such as "cantar" ("cantá") and "beber" ("bebê"). There is a one-to-one alignment between graphemes ("s"/"r") and phonemes (the null phoneme) in these cases. The same cannot be said about the lack of plural agreement in nouns (as you have correctly observed).
* "Falar" can be, among other things, a synonym of "dizer" in informal BP, but AFAIK not in standard BP. Thus "falar algo p(a)ra alguém" is "dizer algo para alguém" in formal BP. But "falar inglês" is covered by both formal and informal BP.
* Both "todo mundo" and "todo o mundo" are correct in the sense of "everybody". See:
** todo o mundo = toda a gente (lit. all the world = all the people) -- notice that the article is kept in both "todo O mundo" and "toda A gente".
** todo mundo = toda pessoa (lit. every world = every person). "Todo mundo" = "todos os mundos (que existem)" = "todos".
So, in this case, I think it would be better to write "todo (o) mundo" in the example to indicate the optionality of the definite article.
Maybe the best solution for our Wikipedia article would be to have some examples instead of artificially coining just one sentence that includes every possible informal feature from BP. Some preliminary suggestions:
*Todos vocês são doidos!
*'(O)cês é tudo doido!
-
*Disseram-me que todos estão com medo de nós.
*Me falaram que todo (o) mundo 'tá com medo da gente.
-
*Não há troco.
*Tem troco não.
-
*Vocês foram ao banco hoje?
*'(O)cês foi (lá) no banco hoje?
-
*Você aí, pegue-a para mim!
*Você aí, pega ela pra mim!
-
*Deixa-me ver isto.
*Deixa eu ver isso (aqui).
-
*Ele a fez comer tudo.
*Ele fez ela comer tudo.
-
*Como que você pôde me abandonar?
*Como que 'ocê pôde abandonar eu?
-
*Ele disse para eu fazer isso.
*Ele falou pra mim fazer isso.
-
*Que coisas são essas?
*Ques coisa é essa?
-
*Vem a mim!
*Vem ne mim! ("ne" = "em", a back-formation of no and na when you remove the article present in the contraction. Remember the music "Pinga ni mim", where people write "ni" because non-standard words are popularly written with a greater compliance to actual pronunciation than to consistency with the standard ortographical system, where such non-standard word would be more properly written ne. See also the next example.)
-
*Eu confio em vocês."
*Eu confio n'ocês.
-
*Ele pegou o carro de vocês emprestado?
*Ele pegou o carro d'ocês emprestado?
-
*Isto é para vocês.
*Isso (aqui) é p'r'ocês.
-
*Vou com você.
*Vou co'cê.
There could also be some good example highlighting the mixture of "'(o)cê" and "te".
What do you think? --Antonielly (talk) 10:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks for your excellent remarks. The problem with emphasizing that that or that verb is preferred in formal speech is that, in the english Wikipedia, which will be read by English speakers and other foreigners, we mustn't convey false impressions about Portuguese. "Informar" isn't formal BP, it is Portuguese, period. Every Brazilian uses this verb, though not as often as "dizer" and "falar" (actually, the fact that "to speak" is more common than "to inform" is true in every language in the world).
Your examples are good, but then there's always a big problem with creating examples of informal BP: some informal usages are restricted to an area. The only forms of informal BP that do represent all the country's dialects are among others: lack of plural "s" when there is already an article or other reference before the noun/adjective (for example, informal BP will always say "Mulheres fazem isso toda hora", but always "As mulher faz(em) isso toda hora"; use of proclisis in all cases; lack of 2nd person conjugation (with the exception of parts of Pernambuco and South); lack of 3rd person object pronouns ("eu vi ele" and not "eu o vi"); and some others.
And the references in other specific sections MUST be corrected: the "tu/você" section says "contigo" is little used in Brazil, when in fact it IS the most frequent form in almost all Brazil.
In you examples, I can cite as regionalisms (mostly related to Minas or Goiás, am I right??): 
1) VOCÊ: All the examples given in the article are with "você", when it's a fact that at least 1/3 of Brazilians prefer using "tu" in informal speech. That happens as a major usage in the Northeast, in the North, in the South and in poorer classes of Rio de Janeiro - a huge part of Brazil.
2) OCÊ: it's a regionalism, it doesn't represent informal BP. In other parts of Brazil, what predominates is "você" or "cê", but not "ocê" (and that when "tu" isn't by far the preferred form).
3) NE/NI MIM: it's used only in Center-West and Minas, as far as I know. In Northeast and other regions people never say that.
4) N'OCÊ, D'OCÊS: again, only in Center-West, Minas and nearer regions, but not in the rest of the country.
5) QUES COISA SÃO ESSA: again, only in Minas and nearer areas.
6) LACK OF PLURAL VERB CONJUGATION: it happens as a major usage in some parts, but in many parts of the country even among poor classes it's not that frequent as to let us say it "characterizes informal BP". In Ceará and, I suppose, in many parts of the country, most probably a poor person would say "Eles comero" or even the formal "Eles comeram".
So, my suggestion is: let's simply make a reference to the various usages of Brazilian dialects, perhaps including some typical examples (as "n'ocês" characterizes the Mineiro dialect, frequent change of /v/ into /h/ in Cearense dialect, etc.). As for informal BP itself, let's simply say the really important differences, not exaggerating the differences, because in fact informal BP is very, very similar to formal BP. I think the differences don't appear in even 5% of the grammar or vocabulary.
189.13.30.6 (talk) 20:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange example of informal speech

message: Definite article before a possessive
The following section also has claims that don't correspond to reality:
 
In EP, a definite article normally accompanies a possessive when it comes before a noun: este é o meu gato 'this is my cat'. Notheastern BP dialects drop the definite article and leave the possessive alone: esse é meu gato. In Southeastern speech, especially in the standard dialects of the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the definite article is normally used as in Portugal. Formal written BP tends however to omit the definite article in accordance with prescriptive grammar rules derived from classical Portuguese.
I can't speak about the other regions, but what is said about Northeastern BP simply isn't true. Now, it's correct that Northeasterns tend to prefer dropping the definite article, but it's not a rule and, actually, saying "este é o meu gato" or "o meu gato é este" is very common, albeit perhaps not the preferred form. I think the same applies for every other region in Brazil: some form may be the most frequent, but in no way the other usage is dropped.
And, finally, there is no prescriptive grammar rule that requires the omition of the definite article. Both forms are entirely correct and are formal BP. However, the classical texts prefer to omit it, though the other form is also correct. It's a matter of preference, of status, I'd say.189.13.30.6 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Oh my god, another exaggeration

message: The article says:
:BP also uses ter in existential sense, whereas EP would use haver, hence "não tem dinheiro" ("it has no money") in addition to "não há dinheiro" ("there is no money").
The translations to English are too literal. I don't know Portuguese well (yet :) but i suppose that the proper English translation in both cases is "There is no money". Can someone please clarify it?
Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's right. In both cases the meaning is "There is no money". I think the text should clarify that, literally, "ter" means "to have", but not in that situation. That sentence can't mean "it has no money", because in fact "não tem dinheiro" is a case of sentence without object, what happens in many cases in Portuguese, what is analogous to the non-existence of subject when using "haver". 189.13.71.177 (talk) 17:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is yet another "difference" that I fail to understand as such: both forms are used in EP. The sentences convey subtly different ideas, or at least different ways to express the same idea using different constructs: "Ele não tem dinheiro/Eu não tenho dinheiro" means "He has no money/I have no money", whereas "Não há dinheiro" is used for example in the following context: "Tive que deixar o ginásio... não há dinheiro", which could be translated has "I had to leave the gymn [membership]... there is no money". This isn't used in English, but it transmits a more general "lack of money" not directly attached to a subject except by context. In this example it could be substituted by "não tenho dinheiro", and more often than not it is. When an ATM machine doesn't have money the most common way of saying it is indeed "Não tem dinheiro" in EP. If no ATM machine in the city had money then "Não há dinheiro" would be used. Again, I fail to understand the difference in usage, and the example should either be corrected or the whole thing deleted, since it makes little sense. --85.138.209.64 (talk) 23:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The examples you gave don't show the usage of the verb "haver" in expressions which indicate existence. When one says "Não tem dinheiro" in the same way you said, it's just a case of "sujeito oculto" (hidden subject), as Portuguese is a pro-drop language. The so called "haver" meaning existence is another thing: it's not a case of dropping the subject, but actually the nonexistent subject that happens in Portuguese in many situations. So, what is particular of Brazilian Portuguese is the use of "ter" replacing "haver" in expressions of existence, where there is no subject at all: "Não tem ninguém aqui" (There isn't anybody here). Let me clarify it: you may say "Não tem dinheiro" referring to a person you've mentioned before, so the real meaning in English is "He has no money"; AND you may say "Não tem dinheiro" as a Brazilian uses it, meaning simply "There is no money", without referring to anyone, and in Portuguese grammar it configures a nonexistent subject (notice that, if you use the subject in the plural, the verb remains the same in the singular: "Não tem pessoas aqui", for example) - and this form replaces the traditional "Não há dinheiro" (in Latin, "habere" also meant "to have").YgorCoelho (talk) 19:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarify existential "ter" 

message: Are we really certain that in cases like  "Voce^ e' burro, cala a boca!" that the 2nd person imperative is being employed in place of the 3rd person imperative? I would think a more logical explanation is that the present tense is being co-opted for imperative functions. I.e., "Voce^ vai" to "Vai voce^!"
This makes alot more sense than supposing that Brazilian Portuguese speakers, most of whom have entirely dropped the 2nd person altogether, would have retained the 2nd person imperative to take over the 3rd person imperative. You never see a similar 2nd to 3rd person shift in any other situation, (e.g. "Voce^ falas"), which leads me to believe that "Cale a boca" vs. "Cala a boca" is rather an imperative/present tense merger.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.173.248 (talk) 01:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, it is using indicative for commands: Faz você! (instead of Faça você); O senhor vai sempre em frente! (instead of Vá sempre em frente!), Vocês me dão licença! (instead of Dêem-me licença). With the verb SER only subjunctive command is used: Seja você! (Seja tu! in regions that use tu), not imperative of tu: sê você/tu!, or indicative: é você!; you can also use infinitive for commands: favor não me ligar depois da meia-noite!, passar bem!, which is very common in Brazil, and rare in Portugal.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Martens (talk • contribs) 13:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

text: I don't think so. As a Brazilian Portuguese speaker, I think we probably do use the 2nd person imperative for 3rd person "você" imperative, because in fact the transition from "tu" to "você" wasn't as fast and total as non native speakers may think. Actually, only in São Paulo and some areas near to that state the pronoun "tu" has been dropped altogether. In the rest of Brazil, it subsists with diverse uses, from highly informal to slightly formal, depending on the dialect. So, probably during the transition from "tu" to "você" people kept both ways to say the imperative form of the verbs. In everyday conversations Brazilians tend to use both ways ("faz" and "faça", "tem" and "tenha"). It seems to me that the 3rd person imperative is more formal and authoritative, while the 2nd person imperative sounds more informal and less imposing (for example, "Faz isso para mim" in general sounds less like an order than "Faça isso para mim"). Nonetheless, apart from these subjective uses according to the context, both forms are widely used, and seldom they are preceded by the personal pronoun, what could indicate we'd be using the present indicative (anyway, that wouldn't be a proof of that, indeed, because in Portuguese there is no problem in emphasizing the imperative mood by adding the normally hidden personal pronoun; that is also done with the 3rd person imperative which has no equivalent form in the indicative, v.g. "Você me dê isso agora!", 'You give me this now!', is just the same case as "Tu/você me dá isso agora!").177.42.146.153 (talk) 06:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imperative 

message: The following conversation started at talk:Curitiba, as it was originally about Curitibano. Since it applies to a number of similar articles, all linked from the section , I'm moving it here. — Sebastian 18:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's one possibility; another one would be to merge that article into Brazilian Portuguese#Regional accents. There are only a handful of descriptions of regional varieties of BP, so I shouldn't bloat that article too much if we did that for all of them. And if it does get longer, it would still be more encyclopedic to single that section out into one article, rather than having an eternally unfinished stub for each accent. — Sebastian 21:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I like your suggestion better than mine. One thing is I think the Brazilian Portuguese is fairly long, and while we could have a section there for all the different dialects, another possibility might be to create Brazilian Portuguese regional dialects as the main article for all the dialects, instead of including them all in Brazilian Portuguese.  Just an idea. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  17:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course - that's what I meant by "into one article". I just didn't know if we had enough material; but if you're up for the task, I fully support you; it will certainly be better than any of the small stubs we have now. I was thinking of adding  to the current accent articles, but that doesn't seem to allow for the case of merging to a new article, so I'll just add notes to their talk pages. — Sebastian 18:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regional accents 

message: When I was in Rio a couple of years ago I heard several speakers pronounce words like "noite" as [nɔitʃ] rather than the expected [ˈnɔitʃi].  Apparently more educated/upper class people seemed more likely to say [nɔitʃ] while apparently less educated/lower class people seemed more likely to say [ˈnɔitʃi].  Does anyone more knowledgeable have any comment on this?  Cheers.  Grover cleveland (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I hear that all the time from BP speakers, so you're not the only one who's heard it, if that makes you feel better.  I've heard it in all kinds of words.  I've heard futebol pronounced [futʃˈbow] (or [bɔw]; I'm not sure about the vowel there; I'm used to Spanish).  I've also heard many words ending in -ente pronounced with a final [tʃ] and sede sounding like English sedge (I'm not sure if the vowel was open or close once again).  However, I can't tell you anything else about it :)  I suppose they don't feel like they need to pronounce the final /i/ because the pronunciation of the /t/ or /d/ as a postalveolar affricate tells you that it's there.  I can assure you, though, that they're not near as bad as EP speakers when it comes to elision of unstressed vowels :) 208.104.45.20 (talk) 12:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Here's a great audio clip of people (some native speakers and an American) discussing palatization in BP.  Toward the end (about 80% of the way through), they talk about this elision.  Here's a PDF that goes along with the audio and briefly discusses elision at the end.  208.104.45.20 (talk) 12:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Elision of final unstressed /i/?

message: Portuguese makes extensive use of verbs in the progressive aspect, almost as in English.
:BP seldom has the present continuous construct estar a + infinitive, which, in contrast, has become quite common in EP in the last centuries. BP maintains the Classical Portuguese form of continuous expression, which is made by estar + gerund.
:Thus Brazilians will always write ela está dançando ("she is dancing"), seldom ela está a dançar.
The text implies that the distinction is between progressive versus non-progressive use. The problem I run into here is that estar + gerund is also progressive. Even though distinct use differences exist in aspect (see below), the gerund cannot be seen as less grammatical. periphrases in Romance: aspect, actionality, and grammaticalization - pp 133-134 To me that means no less a progressive tense.
:from + past participle or Estar + gerund? Aspect and Syntactic Variation in Brazilian Portuguese:
In contemporary BP, estar + gerund and ter + participle actually appear in the same context when
the aspectual interpretation is iterative, and are commonly found in the data provided by a same
speaker. That is a synchronic evidence of their variable use, as shown below:
* (1) Eu estou estudando muito ultimamente.
:I am studying much lately
:"I have been studying a lot lately" (iterative)
* (2) Eu tenho estudado muito ultimamente.
:I have studied much lately
:"I have been studying a lot lately" (iterative)
 * note: for that matter, english has much the same thing, but commonly made clear with emphasis:
* (1) I am studying a lot lately.
:I am studying a lot lately
:"I have been studying a lot lately" (it's become a habit)
* (1) I have been very studious lately.
:I have been very studious lately
:"I have been studying a lot recently" (it's become a habit)
I suggest changing the first sentence to reflect that the difference being highlighted is one between estar + inf and estar + gerund, or else change the content of the difference displayed to reflect the usage differences, (ie, the examples should not show minimal differences, but like the examples above, show deeper differences). --— robbiemuffin page talk 12:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  present progressive 

message: FYI, see discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#Brazilian_Portuguese  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.234.145 (talk) 20:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese 

message: I have placed a "citation needed" tag on the sentence "Nevertheless, the comparatively recent development of Brazilian Portuguese (and its use by people of various linguistic backgrounds), the cultural prestige and strong government support accorded to the written standard has maintained the unity of the language over the whole of Brazil and ensured that all regional varieties remain fully intelligible". I would like to see some linguistic sources that support the idea that the regional varieties of Brazilian Portuguese would have become mutually unintelligible by now in the absence of the aforementioned factors. I have particularly strong doubts about the role of the government's support: the English-speaking countries have managed to sustain uniform national standards and retain a high degree of mutual intelligibility internationally without large-scale state involvement in setting standards for the language. However, I know next to nothing about Portuguese, so any reliable sources on the subjects would be appreciated.VonPeterhof (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unity of the language 

message: The first sentence of this article includes the phrase "roughly all", as in, the language in question is "written and spoken by roughly all of the 190 million inhabitants[1] of Brazil".  (There is a source for this, but I can't read it, since it's apparently in Brazilian Portugese... which is fine, but I can't read it.)  I am not sure what "roughly all" means.  It really doesn't seem like an acceptable phrase, at least not in English.  Usually "roughly" means "approximately", as in "more or less", but it can't be "more or less" than "all" -- it can only be equal to or less than "all".  "Roughly all" seems to leave us with two choices -- either it's "almost all," in which case that's the phrase that should be used, or it's not known for certain whether it's "all" or not, in which case I think the better phrase is "virtually all".  The latter is slightly weasel-y, but it does convey the sense of uncertainty.  After all, if we say "all", then one person out of 190 million makes it incorrect.  So "virtually all" may be the way to go.  What do you all think?  (Especially those of you who can actually read the source.)  Neutron (talk) 21:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The source is no help at all, since it does not make any statements about language use (only about the number of people who live in Brazil). "Virtually all" sounds fine. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 07:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Roughly all" 

message: The section on diglossia is silly and unscientific, and should be deleted. What the article really needs to clarify is the difference between standard language, colloquial language, and popular (i.e uneducated) vernacular, which, in Brazil, is not really that different from, let's say in Québec or the Netherlands (both places which are not normally associated with "diglossia").
I will give you a concrete example. The sentences below would be standard in Brazil:
: Os meninos pegam os peixes.
: Eu a vi saindo de casa ontem.   (Note: In Portugal, Vi-a ...)
: Ela me viu saindo de casa ontem.   (Note: In Portugal, Ela viu-me...)
: A pessoa com quem eu conversei era carioca.
: A deputado cuja proposta foi aceita era paulista.
:  O que você quer que eu faça ?
:  Você quer que eu o ajude ? 
: Se eu vir o João, dou-lhe o recado.
: Se você não fizer a tarefa, será reprovado.
The following sentences on the other hand belong to the so-called colloquial (i.e. educated middle-class) language.
: Os meninos pegam os peixes. (*)
: Eu vi ela saindo de casa ontem.   
: Ela me viu saindo de casa ontem.   (*)
: A pessoa com quem eu conversei era carioca. (*)
: A deputado cuja proposta foi aceita era paulista. (*)
:  O que você quer que eu faça ? (*)
:  Você quer que eu te ajude ? 
: Se eu ver o João, dou o recado prá ele.
: Se você não fizer a tarefa, vai ser reprovado. (**)
:(*) Note: same as the standard.
:(**)Note: also standard, though different from above. 
:In the popular language (frowned upon by  educated middle-class speakers, but nonetheless very common among uneducated speakers), the same sentences would look quite different, e.g.
: Os menino pega os peixe. 
: Eu vi ela saindo de casa ontem.   
: Ela viu eu saindo de casa ontem.  
: A pessoa que eu conversei com ele era carioca. 
: A deputado que a proposta  dele foi aceita era paulista. 
:  O que você quer que eu faço ? 
:  Você quer que eu te ajudo ? 
: Se eu ver o João, dou o recado prá ele.
: Se você não fazer a tarefa, vai ser reprovado. 
Now, let me put a question to the non-native speakers of Portuguese who are reading this discussion: looking at the set of examples above, would you call  this "diglossia" ? 161.24.19.112 (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on Diglossia

message: The article's first statements about the degree of difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese are documented by references to Say It in Portuguese and Portuguese for Dummies. Can someone, please, replace these lightweight-sounding textbooks for beginners with a more authoritative reference or two? Kotabatubara (talk) 03:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Portuguese for Dummies''

message: This article, including all its mistakes, is matched word for word in a section beginning on page 39 of something like a book in the Google Books collection, at <http://books.google.com/books?id=XudKcVNit2UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=luca+scala+brazilian+portuguese&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SAV6UZq5Jorj4AP_tIHIBQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA>.  I say "something like" a book because it doesn't have the customary title page. Is this article composed entirely of copyrighted material from a book, or did the book download it from Wikipedia to sell in hard copy, or what? Should we continue to edit the article? Or, if it's going to be removed for plagiarism, why bother? Kotabatubara (talk) 04:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The link no longer goes to the "book" that I saw; so the problem, if there was one, is now either solved or hidden. Kotabatubara (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Which came first, this article or the "book" in Google Books?

message: I deleted the statement "It is spoken by 51% of all [sic] the speakers in South America." To begin with, the only language mentioned so far in the article is Portuguese, so a reader could be forgiven for thinking that "speakers" means "speakers of Portuguese". We know that Brazilian Portuguese claims more than 51% of the Portuguese-speakers in South America (maybe 99%?). Okay, maybe the statement was intended to say 51% of the inhabitants or the population of South America. That may be a fact, but it's a fact "with attitude", a kind of boosterism that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia (note the redundant use of "all"). There is no need for the encyclopedia to portray different languages as rivals. Kotabatubara (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Speakers

message: This article seems to have one important omission. While it sketches how the use of Portuguese spread and evolved in the colonial era, it doesn't say where Brazilian Portuguese comes from. Latin American Spanish comes from Andalusian and Canarian, while American English shows some north English influence. Brazilian Portuguese, too, must have been shaped by the dialects that the original settlers spoke, and no doubt these origins account for some of the differences between (standard) EP and BP. Steinbach (talk) 22:07, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Most immigrants to Brazil were from northern and insular Portugal, but Brazilian Portuguese is most similar to central and southern Portuguese dialects. The same is true for the different flavors of Portuguese across the many African nations where it's spoken. We can't assert that it is because the central-southern Portuguese dialects are more conservative, though, because while it's true that Brazilian and African Portuguese are less innovative, I've never read a source on European Portuguese be authoritative on the subject. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 08:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precise origins of BP 

message: The situation is changing really fast in Brazil. Nowadays, people tend to speak Portuguese correctly. Nowadays the language really resembles the standard variety (I mean grammar itself, not pronunciation) and 90% of the people I know are really careful with their speeches and grammar. And people in Brazil tend to understand Spanish better than European Portuguese because of the phonology and not because of grammar. and again I repeat, the situation is changing and more people now are graduating from high school and going to the university.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by KennedyBroseguini (talk • contribs) 07:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:   Situation is changing 

message: Speaking of changes in Brazil, the article says "With the new wave of thousands of Portuguese establishing themselves in Brazil since the 2010s recession, it is not impossible that the accent will undergo some new changes that will bring the two accents closer together." People come to an encyclopedia looking for facts; so, is this kind of speculation about the future appropriate? And does "since the 2010s recession" mean that the recession is over before the 2010s are half over? Kotabatubara (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speculation about future 

message: Contrary to what the article said, I am unable to find ISO language codes for Brazilian Portuguese, except for the hearing-impaired one. I will thus edit that portion. BTW, a section on the hearing-impaired variant would be interesting. To several other disputes in this page, I point the fact of the lack of an ISO code. Which also makes it dubious to need an Internet code... So, question, why an internet code? YamaPlos talk 18:35, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: article for Brazilian Sign Language does exist!. Yes, a small section in this article  (and redirect) would be appropriate YamaPlos talk 18:55, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is there an Internet code pt-BR, but no ISO code for Brazilian Portuguese? 

message: In a language with grammatical cases, putting the object at the beginning is very common, yet they are not called topic-prominent languages. What makes Brazilian Portuguese different? Because the word order is less strict despite the lack of cases? --2.245.145.148 (talk) 21:36, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Topic-prominent language 

message: 'Majoritary' is not an English word!89.142.215.24 (talk) 14:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  'indisputably majoritary' 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110903041217/http://www.abralin.org/abralin11_cdrom/artigos/Lucelene_Franceschini.PDF to http://www.abralin.org/abralin11_cdrom/artigos/Lucelene_Franceschini.PDF
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow wikipedians,
I have taken the advice of one of our fellow editors and attempted to change the tone of the article from a contrast/compare of EP vs BP to an article that focuses on Brazilian Portuguese.  
I am also adding a great Dialects section from the main Portuguese language page. It is well cited and I believe the proper place for it is on the Brazilian Portuguese page.  I will not delete it from the main Portuguese page because I feel it is important to showcase there also because there are more Portuguese speakers in Brazil than anywhere else in the world.  Let me know what you think.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rorschaq (talk • contribs) 22:18, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese 

message: In the section "Other influences" I've tried to rewrite some passages for clarity without changing the meaning of the contents. I preserved the use of the terms "radical Romanic", "nativization", and "decreolized" because I am not qualified to suggest better terms, but I would like some pidgin/creole experts to reassure me that these are legitimate linguistic terms and are being used accurately here. Kotabatubara (talk) 16:57, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: "Radicalized" and "nativized", but not "decreolized"?

message: The long lists of foreign words in the article could be moved to another article or collapsed with an appropriate template box. -Inowen (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article has long lists 

message: In the section that talks about the use of existential verb ter there is this line:
* replacing haver when it means "to exist" with ter ("to have"): há muitos problemas na cidade[14] ("there are many problems in the city") can be heard, but is much rarer than tem muitos problema(s) na cidade.[15]
The sentence taken out of context, making it unnatural to Brazilian Portuguese speakers. "Tem muitos problemas na cidade" is not a representation for 'existential ter', in fact, in the source, it is part of the sentence "mas reconhece que a saúde ainda tem muitos problemas na cidade", which translates to "but he recognises that the health [system] still has many problems in the city". As such it is misleading, as "Há muitos problemas na cidade" is far more common than the non-existent "tem muitos problemas na cidade". The correct representation of existential ter in this sentence would be "a cidade tem muitos problemas". TheLucasSchimmel (talk) 23:54, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad example for existential TER verb 

message: The section titled "Palatalization of final sibilants" says nothing about final sibilants being rendered palatal; it's entirely about the vowel change from /mas/ to /majs/, /tres/ to /trejs/, etc.  The palatalization of final /s/ is, instead, mentioned in passing in the section titled "Phonetic changes".  But it seems like a major, noticeable trait that deserves more prominent presentation.  Can someone with more than my knowledge of BP dialects fix this?  Are /s/ palatalization and epenthetic /j/ independent of each other?  Is epenthetic /j/ only in final syllables that are stressed?  Is mas "but" stressed? Kotabatubara (talk) 22:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have edited to make the section titles more in line with their contents. Kotabatubara (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Palatalization of final /s/ 

message: The article says BP is "also known as Latin American Portuguese or Latin Portuguese", but I cannot find any evidence that either of these terms is used in real life.  The Google Ngram Viewer finds no instances of "Latin American Portuguese", with or without a hyphen.  Meanwhile, instances of "Latin Portuguese" are extremely rare.  Most appear in the titles of Latin-Portuguese bilingual dictionaries.  The remainder appear in series of language names, separated by a comma.  Nor does either term appear in the Corpus of Contemporary American English.  If there are no objections in the next several days, I volunteer to delete that deceptive phrase. Kotabatubara (talk) 04:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Latin Portuguese"? 

message: Recognised minority language in the Philippines?
Where is the source of that information? Jumark27 (talk) 06:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Those were recent unsourced IP edits. I've reverted them. –Austronesier (talk) 10:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recognised minority language in the Philippines? 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Latin Portuguese and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 29#Latin Portuguese until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  signed, Rosguill talk 19:09, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Latin Portuguese" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: Why does an article on the language need to include a photographic tour of architecture? Kotabatubara (talk) 02:23, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  So many photos! 

message: The Phonology section, at least, goes on and on and on without a clear explanation of the actual phonology (phonemes and allophones) of Brazilian Portuguese.  It starts with detailed side points and keeps going along those lines.  
The vowel charts do not clearly indicate whether the letters are supposed to be phonemes or phonetic sounds; shouldn't // or [ ] be used?
MAIN POINT: As far as I can tell from other sources (e.g., Whitlam, Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar; Perini, Talking Brazilian), the sounds e and ɛ, and o and ɔ are respective separate phonemes, as minimal pairs exist (at least in stressed position), such as "sede" and "forma".  But are a and ɐ separate phonemes, or just allophones of /a/?  If the former, how about showing a minimal pair, if one exists?  If allophones, how about delineating the respective environments? 2603:9000:AC08:A600:885D:2254:F3CA:F6F3 (talk) 22:49, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. This article and Portuguese phonology still suffer from too much phonetics and too little phonology. The latter used to be really bad (ranty with bad English and bad IPA, the culprits were a small group of Brazilian editors) until I started to fix it about two years ago. It's still far from perfect, but my time and especially my understanding of Portuguese phonology is limited. I can only do so much in this area and I'm sure that my English isn't impeccable either - feel free to call out my hypocrisy on the user talk page, lol. Sol505000 (talk) 16:00, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonology 

message: I searched a bit for Colombia and Paraguay and could not find anyþing. Gusano64 (talk) 11:59, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  We should erase all countries under "Recognised Minority Language" due to lack of sources