Culture of Brazil - Language

Language

Main article: Brazilian Portuguese See also: Languages of Brazil

The 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.

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Famous quotes containing the word language:

    “There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
    Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
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    In brininess and volubility.”
    —Robert Graves (1895–1985)

    “I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
    For else it could not be,
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    —Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

    “It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay.”
    —Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)