Language
Main article: Brazilian Portuguese See also: Languages of BrazilThe official language of Brazil is Portuguese. It is spoken by about 99% of the population, making it one of the strongest elements of national identity. There are only some Amerindian groups and small pockets of immigrants who do not speak Portuguese.
Reflecting the mixed ethnic background of the country, Brazilian Portuguese is a variation of the Portuguese language that includes a large number of words of Native American and African origin.
Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. There are significant communities of German (mostly the Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian dialect, of Venetian origin) speakers in the south of the country, both of which are influenced by the Portuguese language. Not to mention the Slavic communities, Ukrainians and Poles which are also part of these minorities languages.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Brazil
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“These are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)