Portuguese dialects

The Portuguese dialects are variants of the Portuguese language that are shared by a substantial number of speakers over several generations, but are not sufficiently distinct from the official norms to be considered a separate language. This definition therefore excludes the numerous Portuguese-based creole languages that differ radically from the norm in fundamental grammatical features.

The differences between Portuguese dialects are mostly in phonology, in the frequency of usage of certain grammatical forms, and especially in the distance between the formal and informal levels of speech. Lexical differences are numerous but largely confined to "peripheral" words such as plants, animals, and other local items, with little impact in the core lexicon. Dialectal deviations from the official grammar are relatively few. As a consequence, all Portuguese dialects are mutually intelligible; although for some of the most extremely divergent pairs the phonological changes may make it difficult for speakers to understand rapid speech.

Phrase- and sentence-level stress and tone patterns and differ significantly between dialects: south-central European Portuguese dialects are often described as a stress-timed dialects (consistent with the reduction of pre-stress vowels), while most Brazilian Portuguese dialects are syllable-timed.

This article does not cover Galician, the language spoken in the Galicia region of Northeast Spain and Northern Portugal. The question of whether is a dialect of Portuguese or a separate language is hotly disputed, because of its political and cultural implications.

Samples of some of the main dialects of Portuguese

There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. For example, the dialect in Espírito Santo has some differences from the one of Rio de Janeiro, but in general it is very close. A good example of Brazilian Portuguese may be found in the capital city, Brasília, due to the generalized population from all parts of the country.

Portuguese dialects of Brazil

Brazil# Caipira — São Paulo (state) countryside (ex. Piracicaba city), southern Minas Gerais (ex. Varginha city), northern Paraná (ex. Londrina city) and Mato Grosso do Sul# Cearense — Ceará# Baiano — Bahia#

Loudspeaker.png

Fluminense — States of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo (the city of Rio de Janeiro and adjacent areas have a particular way of speaking) # Gaúcho — Rio Grande do Sul# Mineiro — Minas Gerais#

Loudspeaker.png

Nordestino — northeastern states of Brazil (the interior area and Recife have particular ways of speaking) Note: the speaker of this sound file is from Rio, and he is talking about his experience with Nordestino and Nortista accents.# Nortista — Amazon Basin states # Paulistano — city of São Paulo# Sertanejo — States of Goiás and Mato Grosso (the city of Cuiabá has a particular way of speaking)# Sulista — south of Brazil and southeastern São Paulo (state) (the cities of Curitiba and Itapetininga have a particular way of speaking)

Portuguese dialects of Portugal

Portugal#

Loudspeaker.png

Açoriano — Azores#

Loudspeaker.png

Alentejano — Alentejo #

Loudspeaker.png

Algarvio — Algarve (there is a particular small dialect in the western area)#

Loudspeaker.png

Alto-Minhoto — North of Braga (interior)#

Loudspeaker.png

Baixo-Beirão; Alto-Alentejano — Central Portugal (interior)#

Loudspeaker.png

Beirão — central Portugal#

Loudspeaker.png

Estremenho — Regions of Coimbra and Lisbon (can be subdivided in Lisbon Portuguese and Coimbra Portuguese)#

Loudspeaker.png

Madeirense — Madeira#

Loudspeaker.png

Nortenho — Regions of Braga and Porto#

Loudspeaker.png

Transmontano — Trás-os-Montes

Angola

# Benguelense — Benguela province#

Loudspeaker.png

Luandense — Luanda province# Sulista — South of Angola

Portuguese dialects of Angola

Other areas
*

Loudspeaker.png

Caboverdiano — Cape Verde
*

Loudspeaker.png

Guineense — Guinea-Bissau
*

Loudspeaker.png

Macaense — Macau, China
*

Loudspeaker.png

Moçambicano — Mozambique
*

Loudspeaker.png

Santomense — São Tomé and Principe
*

Loudspeaker.png

Timorense — East Timor
* Damaense — Daman, India
* Goês — State of Goa, India

Classification

Africa

For historical reasons, the dialects of Africa are generally closer to those of Portugal than the Brazilian dialects, although in some aspects of their phonology, especially the pronunciation of unstressed vowels, they resemble Brazilian Portuguese more than European Portuguese. They have not been studied as exhaustively as European and Brazilian Portuguese.

Brazil

Brazilian dialects are divided into a northern and southern groups, where the northern dialects tend to slightly more open pre-stressed vowels. Due to the economic and cultural dominance of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, their dialects end up having some influence on the rest of the country. However, thanks to the migration from the Northern states to the Southern states, this influence can be seen as a two-way phenomenon. Cultural issues also play their roles and speakers of the Gaúcho dialect usually have strong feelings about their way of speaking and are largely uninfluenced by the other dialects.

Between Brazilian Portuguese, particularly in its most informal varieties, and European Portuguese, there can be considerable differences in grammar, aside from the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. The most prominent ones concern the placement of clitic pronouns, and the use of subject pronouns as objects in the third person. Non-standard inflections are also common in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese.

Portugal

The dialects of Portugal can be divided into two major groups:
*The southern and central dialects are broadly characterized by preserving the distinction between and , and by the tendency to monophthongize ei and ou to and . They include the dialect of the capital, Lisbon, which however has some peculiarities of its own. Although the dialects of the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira have unique characteristics, as well, they can also be grouped with the southern dialects.
*The northern dialects are characterized by preserving the pronunciation of ei and ou as diphthongs , , and by having merged with (like in Spanish). This includes the dialect of Porto, Portugal's second largest city.

Within each of these regions, however, there is further variation, especially in what concerns pronunciation. For example, in Lisbon and its vicinity the diphthong ei is centralized to , instead of being monophthongized as in the south.

It is usually believed that the dialects of Brazil, Africa and Asia derived mostly from those of central and southern Portugal.

Barranquenho

In the Portuguese town of Barrancos (in the border between Extremadura, Andalusia and Portugal), a dialect of Portuguese heavily influenced by Extremaduran is spoken, known as barranquenho.

Portunhol/Portuñol

In regions where Spanish and Portuguese coexist, various types of language contact have occurred, ranging from improvised code-switching between monolingual speakers of each language to more or less stable mixed languages. They are often designated by the common term portunhol (portuñol). The best studied example of this is Portunhol Riverense, spoken in the region between Uruguay and Brazil, particularly in the twin cities of Rivera and Santana do Livramento, where the border is open and a street is the only line dividing the two countries.

Notable features of some accents

Many regional accents have special phonological characteristics. Below are some of the most remarkable:

Conservative features

*In some regions of northern Portugal and Brazil, the digraph ou is still pronounced as a falling diphthong , although it has been monophthongized to by most speakers of Portuguese.
*In the dialects of Alto-Minho and Trás-os-Montes (northern Portugal), the digraph ch still denotes the affricate , as in Spanish, although for most speakers it has merged with .
*Some dialects of northern Portugal still contrast the laminal sibilants c/ç and z with apical sibilants s(s) and s , although most speakers of the language no longer make this distinction.
*In northern Portugal, the phoneme has the velar nasal allophone at the end of words.

Innovative features

*In central and southern Portugal (except the city of Lisbon and its vicinity), the diphthong is monophthongized to . The nasal diphthong is often monophthongized to in this region, as well.
*In Lisbon and its surroundings, and are pronounced and , respectively. Furthermore, in this region stressed is pronounced or before a palato-alveolar or a palatal consonant followed by another vowel.
*In the dialect of the Beiras (central Portugal), has the allophone instead of , before words that start with a vowel.
* In the dialects of Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Algarve (Barlavento area) and São Miguel Island (Azores), the near-front rounded vowel replaces , in a process similar to the one which originated the French u. The dialect of São Miguel has also the front rounded vowel replacing , as in outra or boi.
*In some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, such as those of the Northeast and in Rio de Janeiro, is pronounced before .
*In Northern Portugal, the closed vowels /o/ and /e/, may be pronunced as diphtongs, such as in "Porto", pronunced as , "quê":, "hoje": or or even
*In the Caipira dialect, and in Goiás and Minas Gerais, is pronounced . The same sound replaces as the allophone of at the end of syllables.

See also

*Guttural R in Portuguese
*Portuguese phonology
*Galician
*Fala

External links

* Dialects of Portuguese at the Instituto Camões
* Lindley Cintra, Luís F. Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-Portugueses Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971.

Rate this Article

Was this article helpful?

Not at all Definitely                  1 2 3 4 5