Talk:Portuguese language/Archive 1

Problem of "Adeus" and "tchau"

I constatly put in the article that the use of "Adeus" can be seen has offensive. And all In my life, i only heard this word when someone doesnt like someone else. And people say "Adeus!" to them (meaning: I dont want to see you no longer). I use it with the same meaning. In fact, the use of "tchau" is more aprreciated by Portuguese people. I attested that when a british in Portugal said "tchau"; everyone was astonished with the man saying "at least this one tries to speak Portuguese". Almost noone uses, normally, the word "Adeus" because it is offensive. Everyone uses daily "tchau". It is obvious that the word "Adeus" can have better meanings. -Pedro 11:03, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am an American-born son of natives of Serra do Bouro, Caldas da Rainha. I have always used adeus to mean good-bye, and 'tchau' (which seems derived from the Italian ciao) seems like Brazilian usage to me. Perhaps things have changed since my parents lived in Potugal. Nelson Ricardo 17:07, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

• • Yes. "Ciao" is hello in Italian and “tchau” is derived from it. "Adeus" is linked with immigrants. Many believe that when people were departing to immigrate to other countries, people used "Adeus" thinking they would return, but they never returned. So the word started to mean “goodbye forever”. When Brazilian soap operas started transmitting in Portuguese TV the word “tchau “ was used, influenced by Italians there, possibly. So people in Portugal started using it, because it means “see you later” or something similar, but not goodbye forever what mostly Adeus now means. But it really depends on the tone that a person talks. -Pedro 22:42, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • • FWIW, I'm from Lisbon and I have to add that this is a non-issue. Although "Adeus" can be used in a dismissive way, so can "tchau" and this isn't portuguese-specific. You can see americans doing it on TV all the time. FYI, I use "Adeus" on a daily basis and no one was ever offended. - Jorge Lima
      • you're wright. --Pedro 13:05, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The discussion about adeus and tchau reflects diferences between Brazilian and European Portuguese. In Brazil, when someone says "adeus" in a colloquial conversation, he expects (or hopes) not to see the other person again.-Mauro1

• No it doesnt. It is quit the same. Read the conversation bellow. -Pedro 20:22, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I'm Brazilian and I can safely say we all speak the SAME language albeit with minor differences. In the case of "adeus", it's not normally used in Brazil and as far as I know it's not that popular in Portugal either. That said, it's not an offensive word at all and you'll hear Brazilians use the diminutive "adeuzinho" a lot, in very informal contexts. I also don't believe that the word means that someone doesn't expect to see the other person again.

Some Brazilians, especially when they come in contact with non-portuguese speakers, seem to have the habit of exaggerating the differences between Portuguese as spoken in Brazil and in Portugal when in fact you can mostly talk about accents and not different forms or 'dialects' in most cases. Apart from some tell-tale words that have minor spelling differences, written Portuguese is undistinguishable (between Brazilian and European 'forms') and citizens of either country would be hard pressed to spot any differences at all - unless, as I said, the tell-tale words are there.

Again, I believe this is a non-issue that only comes into discussion because non-native Portuguese speakers (who may justifiably have difficulties understanding either major accent) like to stress these differences; also, some Brazilians (especially) and some Portuguese also like to exaggerate certain distinctions.

We all speak and write the same language and the next ortographic reform should address most of the 'tell-tale' words I have mentioned.

If you're Brazilian and cannot understand a Portuguese person, or vice-versa, that's probably because you don't speak the language all that well, being native or not. This is a matter of deficiencies in both countrie's educational systems and not an evidence that there are "BP" and "EP" are drifting apart - something cannot drift apart from itself! [User = Livino]

PedroPVZ, do you still not realise that however much you insist, BP and EP will never be the same? you make some claims as if they were valid for both brazil and portugal just because you think/WANT them to be the same for both. what Mauro1 said is true, adeus in brazil is only used (if ever used) when you do not expect to see someone [ever] again. and even so, the word has a quite archaic feeling attached to it, and is generally not used in brazil. Vbs 08:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I'm Brazilian and I can safely say we all speak the SAME language albeit with minor differences. In the case of "adeus", it's not normally used in Brazil and as far as I know it's not that popular in Portugal either. That said, it's not an offensive word at all and you'll hear Brazilians use the diminutive "adeuzinho" a lot, in very informal contexts. I also don't believe that the word means that someone doesn't expect to see the other person again.

Some Brazilians, especially when they come in contact with non-portuguese speakers, seem to have the habit of exaggerating the differences between Portuguese as spoken in Brazil and in Portugal when in fact you can mostly talk about accents and not different forms or 'dialects' in most cases. Apart from some tell-tale words that have minor spelling differences, written Portuguese is undistinguishable (between Brazilian and European 'forms') and citizens of either country would be hard pressed to spot any differences at all - unless, as I said, the tell-tale words are there.

Again, I believe this is a non-issue that only comes into discussion because non-native Portuguese speakers (who may justifiably have difficulties understanding either major accent) like to stress these differences; also, some Brazilians (especially) and some Portuguese also like to exaggerate certain distinctions.

We all speak and write the same language and the next ortographic reform should address most of the 'tell-tale' words I have mentioned.

If you're Brazilian and cannot understand a Portuguese person, or vice-versa, that's probably because you don't speak the language all that well, being native or not. This is a matter of deficiencies in both countrie's educational systems and not an evidence that there are "BP" and "EP" are drifting apart - something cannot drift apart from itself!

"Adeus" can be compared to the English "farewell". Both express departure, and it's somewhat hard to hear any of them nowadays. The word means "que Deus te acompanhe" (something like "May God look after you" in English). It is expected from someone a "goodbye forever" sense when "adeus" is said, at least in Brazil. It is very formal, yes, yet it doesn't mean "I don't want to see you anymore". That's nonsense. By the way, the word itself is not offensive. People might look weird at you and misunderstood you if you use the word in an inappropriate way (depends on many things), but the word alone is not offensive. Too much bias on this talk page. The "adeuzinho" expression mentioned above has nothing to do with this, either. That's slang, and the sense is milder.

As for "tchau", it's often used, and it can be compared to something like "goodbye", or even "see you later" in some cases. It can be used for departure situations as well, so it's more versatile than "adeus".

The information I'm sharing here comes both from common sense (my life experience) and from what I just checked in the Aurélio dictionary, the most famous one in Brazil. – Kaonashi 15:23, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

okay, im not a native portuguese speaker, but i did however go to brasil for 6 months on a student exchange, and i remember that after the first day that i went to school over there i said "Adeus", to all the people that i met, and at the time i didnt understand it, but they all got very aggitated and started saying a whole heap of shit in portuguese (at the time i think i knew probably 20 or 30 wrods), later when id (more-or-less) learnt the language, one of them explained to me why they acted like that the first day. It was becuase they thought that i wasnt going to come back the next day (or ever), because i had said "Adeus" and not "tchau". Now this was in salvador, and from what i understand bahianos, have a slightly different dialect to other brazilians, so i dunno, thats just my experience. The bellman 02:38, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)

I live in Lisbon and from my experience (I know that's not very scientific) "tchau" has a more limited set of situations in which it is used. It is _only_ used informal contexts. Rarely will one say "Tchau. Até amanhã" in place of "Adeus. Até amanhã" or similar to a person that one doesn't treat by "tu" (tuteia). It is completely innapropriate. Otherwise, if two people say good-bye, eg, two friends, colleagues, or young people, etc., they'll probobly use "tchau", "fica bem" or other similar informal expressions, as "adeus" could sound a bit, say, dull. However, it does occurr in such situations, it's not just that frequent as "tchau". As for the '"adeus" meaning "Que Deus vos acompanha"', so does good-bye (contraction of "God be with ye"). --212.113.164.102 22:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Eu sou brasileiro e aqui no Brasil usa-se tchau para se despedir, e adeus para se despedir em casos que as pessoas nunca mais vão se ver na vida.

Hugo (Brasil)

What to do with Galician?

Most Linguists (but some do not agree) say Portuguese and Galician are the same language - there are even dialectal maps. But politically they are separated languages, with very different ortography, w/strong spanish influence in sounds and lexicon, especially in the cities. Instituto Camões(organization of the Portuguese language, studying it) does not comment about Galicia. How should we treat this language in the article in order to be Neutral? Ethnologue is ambiguous in this, including it has a Portuguese dialect or as a language. The government of Galicia itself is ambiguous. -Pedro 11:02, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article should say the truth: even though the government and many people say that Galician is a separate language from portuguese, there are many people who think that Galician and Portuguese is the same language, including linguists from Galicia, Portugal and Brasil. Galicia was even present in both portuguese spelling reforms (see [1]), and there are teachers, writers and many people in Galicia who write everyday using the portuguese ortography. So I think it's something important and it should be shown in the article. That doesn't mean that the article should say that it's the same language (for many people it isn't), but there are too many supporters of this theory to be just ignored. -SugarKane 20:00, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Catalan Portuguese

but by the 14th century Portuguese had become a mature language with a rich literary tradition, becoming a popular language for poetry in Iberia, adopted by many Leonese, Castilian, Aragonese and Catalan poets.

Probably this belongs more to Galician-Portuguese, but I doubt that there was significant activity in Galician-Portuguese in Aragon and Catalonia. They already had Occitan as a poetry language! Can you cite some examples? -- Error

• Nops, the language was understood has Portuguese then (at least since 1290) - that is 13th century. Galician-Portuguese is a modern denomination for a common language. BTW Galician-Portuguese is understood has Old Portuguese.

Com efeito, o galego-português, língua falada, com pequenas diferenças, no noroeste da Península Ibérica, aquém e além do rio Minho, tornou-se, até cerca de 1350, a língua literária de toda a Peninsula, pois foi o idioma adoptado pelos poetas leoneses, castelhanos, aragoneses, catalães e, naturalmente, também pelos galegos e portugueses, perdurando isoladamente até cerca de 1450, data aproximada da sua substituição pelo castelhano. - Maria Ema T. Ferreira (Portuguese Romance Philologist) - If you dont understand I'll translate, about names that's the hardest thing, I know many names (many not tipical of Portugal nor Galicia), but were they were from, i dont know. -Pedro 01:25, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Barbarians

As each barbarian tribe spoke Latin in a different way, the uniformity of the Peninsula was soon disrupted, leading to the formation of well-differentiated languages (Portuguese-Galician, Spanish and Catalan).

Is that a mainstream theory? I understand that the influence of Barbarians may be limited to some words and maybe opening or closing communications among certain areas. The number of Barbarians was too low to impose their patterns on the Ibero-Romans. -- Error

• I dont know, but yes it is a theory. Do you know a better hypotisis? I'm thinking and I'm starting to agree with you. I read in some places that it is just a temporal and natural alteration of Spoken Latin. What do you think? But, remember, the Barbarians became kings and rulled Iberia. But they were seen has barbarian and they adopted Latin culture and language. Why There was formed 3 different languages then? And for what I've seen of Spanish, it was even in the middle Ages very different from Portuguese, although much more similar than today. It is better to change the article. -Pedro 01:32, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Only Galician MEP

The only Galician deputy in the European Union Parliament, Camilo Nogueira, speaks in Portuguese

Is he the only Galician MEP or just the only Galician nationalist MEP? -- Error 00:31, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• If there are Galicians in other parties, you're correct! -Pedro 10:39, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Camilo Nogueira is no longer in the European Union Parliament. In 2004 elections his party (BNG) did not get enough votes. By the way, he was not the first to speak portuguese in the EU Parliament. José Posada had done it before - 19:30, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

the 3 missing sounds

I've changed the sounds section. The article still misses three sounds: b, g and d between vowels (not very clear info about these sounds to be systematic and standarized). I dont know if I should put the diphtongs in the article. -Pedro 23:06, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Alterations in the article

someone added info about Galicia in the article. Possibly a Galician (because of some of the added info). Should I delete it or place it in some specific area of the article? BTW I dont believe that 100% of people in Galicia speaks Galician. It is a very high number, but not 100%. And if it should continue in the table it should go with a notice.-Pedro 19:25, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lusitanic Romance

Are you sure that the Romance from Galicia and N Portugal is called Lusitanic Romance? Lusitania is more Southwards than that. Do we have maps? -- Error 23:04, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Yups thats the name. The Callicians (like many others) also adopted the name "lusitanian" when the Romans conquered the area during the Lusitanian war. That is also the named used when studying Portuguese lang. History.-Pedro 23:51, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Arabic loans

But there is no loan word in lexicon related to human feelings, all remaining of Latin origin

Isn't alboroço a Portuguese word? --- Error 23:08, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Yes, it means confusion, fight. What that has to do with feelings? -Pedro 23:58, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Alborozo in Spanish means "happiness", "joy". "Confusion" would be alboroto. But I checked a dictionary and while the Portuguese word is cognate of one of them (the dictionary is confusing), it doesn't seem to have evolved in the same way. I checked the Spanish al- words and there are no "feelings" words but for alborozo. Interesting. -- Error 00:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

portuguese domination on wikipedia

this discussion started here. some related discussions have also been going on here.

i just had to get this off my chest. i've been away for a while and realise now that things seem to be getting worse. PedroPVZ just can't help himself. oh yes, he is a two-face indeed. he posts flames and insults, and deletes them as soon as the addressee has read them. later, he writes flowery posts to try and keep his image clean. in that way i guess he has really succeeded, cos by doing so he has made it virtually impossible to find all the compromising posts he might have written. also, he disrupted the chronological order of the posts, making it look like he'd written some "nice things" before i had posted criticisms to him, which can fool people into thinking that some things i wrote were not necessary (as nobody checks the timestamps anyway even though they're in most signatures). not to mention his "NPOV" reverts/deletions, which is when someone posts something he doesn't like and/or he wants to hide, and so he deletes the contributions claiming "NPOV". now, as "NPOV" reverts seems to have become slightly outdated after i first pointed it out, he became doing something more serious, which is "vandalism" reverts/deletions. that's right, as you guessed it, he will delete things he doesn't like and claim "vandalism", and as most people assume "vandalism" really means vandalism, they alsmost never bother to see what was the "vandalism" (they might check the particular version changes if it's been marked as "NPOV", but not as "vandalism"). a recent example of "vandalism" deletion is here (more details on the brazilian portuguese talk page). only now i realise PedroPVZ knows a lot less about brazilian portguese (BP) than i expected and that PedroPVZ's knowledge of BP is seriously questionable. i'm saying this after just having read his claim in the BP article (this claim was actually added a while ago but i only noticed it after someone deleted it and PedroPVZ readded it) that "vou convosco" is "standard" in brazil and "vou com vocês" is "vernacular". that is just plain absurd!! just ask any brazilian! as i mentioned on the BP talk page, not even the most purist brazilian would claim "convosco" is standard, that's something you will only get in the bible!!!!! PedroPVZ writes things that he thinks are the same or WANTS THEM TO BE THE SAME in both brazil and portugal without actually knowing it's the case. one example is the problem with "adeus" and "tchau". he first tried to claim "adeus" was an "offensive" term in both portugal and brazil but declined after many portuguese people pointed it wasn't true. the word "adeus" (not that commonly used in brazil) is not exactly offensive in BP, but has a strong meaning similar to the english "farewell" and that's probably what PedroPVZ meant originally, in an attempt to unify BP and EP. then, as some brazilian guy later posted explaining what it meant in brazil, PedroPVZ came again, this time claiming that "adeus" isn't a strong word after all, and that "It is quit the same". this rambling isn't finished yet! PedroPVZ claims all websites in english about BP are wrong (in his own [deleted] words "stupid", "crazzy", "nationalist" and "anti-brazilian", etc <-- the last two adjectives sometimes even come close together!). it's obviously clear that since it's so difficult for PedroPVZ to try and hide the existence of such websites having content he dreads so much, that the only thing he can do is claim everything in english not written by himself is wrong. that's also why he claims the whole message boards of brazzil.com are wrong/"questionable", because unlike here in wikipedia, where he deletes everything he doesn't-like/wants-to-hide, he can't do that in a public message board, where people post whatever they like and everyone else is free to read. AT THE MOMENT: i have made some small edits in both the "Portuguese language" and "Brazilian Portuguese" articles, and i wish i could do it more often and also had enough strength to argue with this kind of people. it's very hard when someone dominates articles like this and nobody else is allowed to contribute to it, but i realise i am not completely alone and there are some people like 195.29.131.90 (i wish they were registered) also trying to stop this domination. CONCLUSION: PedroPVZ is a brazilian wannabe, but that probably cannot be helped. Vbs 12:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

did anyone see this??!!

"Written varieties - revert lusophobic and fake edit. If there were real linguists agreeing with that, we could consider putting that in the article."

PedroPVZ is out of control!! it's virtually impossible add anything to the article without going through an edit fight with him. the information i added (as i hope who's reading this has checked) was that "Although Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are generally cosidered to be dialects of the same language, there are those who disagree [2]". that doesn't in any way assert or claim that BP is a separate language, but only that some people believe it could be, something PedroPVZ strongly disagrees and so PedroPVZ simply wants to hide the existence of such people!!!!! and yes PedroPVZ, if you read the article that i pointed, you will see it was indeed written by a brazilian linguist!. besides, PedroPVZ's claim that "The differences are somewhat less than those between American English and British English" is at least strongly disputed if not plain biased, as there has been shown so many obvious differences even in basic words such as "you" and "good bye". for the latter word, hasn't anyone realised what PedroPVZ did?? he decided himself to abandon the real meaning of the word "adeus" in his own native dialect/language just to be able to claim it meant the same thing in both brazil and portugal!!! and some time ago, the american linguist Steven Roger Fischer (the guy who cracked the easter island scripts), in an interview to Veja (one of brazil's most important journalistic magazines), said BP is strongly influenced by spanish, and that the differences between BP and EP are bigger than those between american english (AE) and british english (BE). he also said that BP and EP are getting further and further appart, and that the opposite is happening to AE and BE. I KNOW WELL WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN!! anyone strong enough to try and fight (probably alone) against PedroPVZ will probably end up in a silly edit fight and then perhaps some third party will decide to lock the article obviously leaving PedroPVZ happy, since his biased claims have already infested everything, and so nobody would be able to change "his" article. Vbs 09:11, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE!! what PedroPVZ is doing is really serious please have a look at this! i tried editing the article again, but PedroPVZ keeps reverting it! Vbs 10:11, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

PedroPVZ has no limits whatsoever!! now he wants an edit war even over a "disputed" template!!!!! Vbs 15:55, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC) fortunatelly, the edit war over the "disputed" template stopped quickly after somebody else interfered. Vbs 12:25, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

for anyone reading this, a couple of the links i had posted were pointing to wrong edits, but i've corrected them now. Vbs 12:40, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I haven't been involved at all in this discussion/article, but after my poking around into the histories involved, it looks like PedroPVZ has been acting inappropriately for Wikipedia. PedroPVZ, please remember that Wikipedia is a communal effort, and that neither these articles nor these topics are yours. You do have a number of good contributions to Wikipedia, and that's a wonderful thing, but please try to play nicer with others and especially avoid personal attacks. --Improv 23:17, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

American and British--just not true

The statement "The differences are somewhat less than those between American English and British English" is not backed up by any sources that I know of. "Somewhat" means a lot and the statement is not confirmed by reality. British and American English have few syntactic differences (placement or use of pronouns, use of verb tenses etc.), some lexical differences recognized by most speakers, and some phonetical differences, based on regions (Scotland, Ireland, Liverpool, Birmingham, East London, Southern American, Black American English etc.). The problem is one of contact. English and Americans are in great contact with each other by way of travelling, mass media, and mutual reading of literature. Such is not the case with Brazil and Portugal. While Portuguese have been exposed to the Brazilian accent through music, soap operas, artistic performers, commercials on television, and Brazilian immigrants, the opposite is not true. Few Brazilians have ever heard a Portuguese person speak, fewer have seen a Portugese film or TV program, and even fewer have read Portuguese literature (Curiously, in Portugal a tiny percentage of the population has read anything from Brazil, a country of 175 million people). In conclusion, the two varieties might not be that different in their essence, but lack of contact with one or the other makes them appear very different and creates problems of communication.

Ray Vogensen

P.S. Please keep any disagreeing comments to the above on an educated level with valid arguments. I.E. no insults like "velho caduco" or "fulano nem sabe falar português".

• Good point. The fact, is that an American linguist (researching in Brazil) said that were less, I put the "somewhat" to be a bit NPOV. That is due to the phonetic structure of American and Brittish English, both are very free from the written language, unlike Portuguese. Portuguese dialects and variants have a very wide pronunciation on certain vowels: A, E and O. But almost the same on I and U (not allways!!). Portuguese dialects have also different approches in diacritic sounds and that's it.

Allthough there are few good sources on the net, I found this: http://www.linguist.de/reese/intonation-brief.html The most unified international language would be Spanish, in my oppinion and the most diversified German. -Pedro 00:27, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Ray, problem of communication between Portuguese and Brazilians? Are you saying that they do not uderstand or they think some word is odd? I really doubt that any Brazilian and any Portuguese do not understand a written text from the other country, but they see an use has odd, but understand it fully. Brazilians grow up reading Fernando Pessoa. -Pedro 02:09, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

understanding written texts doesn't necessarily prove anything. if that was the case why isn't spanish treated as a dialect of portuguese then? actually, there are even brazilians like me who have less trouble understanding spoken spanish than spoken iberian portuguese. and did you know brazilian portuguese is strongly syllable timed (as spanish is), while european portuguese is strongly stress timed? that is a very significant difference between BP and EP. another thing is, while some brazilian/portuguese people might not have too much difficulty understanding spanish speakers, the opposite is not true. spanish pronunciation is kind of "simple" (note the QUOTES), but both BP or EP have a lot of complicated stuff (nasals, less consistent spelling, etc) which makes them quite hard for spanish speakers to understand. in a similar way, just because EP speakers can understand BP speakers, it simply doesn't mean that the opposite is true. and did you know that not too long ago, before a spelling reform, spanish used to be even more similar to "portuguese"? it used to have double esses and cedillas, for example. this shows that similarities in written texts are not necessarily the best proof of similarities between languages. some portuguese books brazilian kids have to read in school can be quite hard to follow without the aid of a dictionary. besides, i have also made reference to a recognised linguist (Steven Roger Fischer), who said the differences are bigger than those between BE and AE. nobody should have to deppend on "PedroPVZ's kind permission" to make changes to the article, that's pretty outraging. Vbs 10:49, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am from Brazil, and I think I can say with enough safety that it's pretty obvious for everyone here (people that speak those languages) that the differences between the Brazilian Portuguese and the European Portuguese are far larger than the differences between the American English and the British English. You see, just think of all those sites and computer programs where you can choose different languages for the interface (Google, for instance). What are you most likely to find? A way of switching between BP and EP, or a way of switching between American English and British English?

Weird example, I know, but those two kinds of Portuguese are "almost" treated like different things. Sure, it's still the same language (despite all the crazy people that say they aren't), and I believe most Portuguese speakers are able to understand the opposite version without much trouble (both reading and talking). I do know not everybody can understand, and a lot of people have problems with it, but both versions are very, very close. However, they're not as close as those two kinds of English. I think that what the dude who posted the first comment said is very much true. It's hard to make non-Portuguese speakers understand this (and sometimes, European Portuguese speakers as well, it seems), but I don't think I'm being far-fetched with this.

For that matter, I do wonder why that small comment was added to the article. I can't see anything to back up that theory. – Kaonashi 23:27, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

i deleted it again. hopefully it won't come back from death anymore. Vbs 09:41, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)