The Portuguese and their Linguistic Arrogance
Every foreigner living in Portugal has at least once heard something like: “Brazilian people don’t speak real Portuguese” or “Brazilians use wrong grammar” or “learn our Portuguese, not theirs”. But what is really going on for them to say such things?
Author’s note: this post was updated in April 2024.
Portuguese people have their strengths and flaws as the rest of peoples of the world. Likewise, they are not free from prejudice. And, one of the most evident ones to me is the one they have against immigrants. Although I am aware that someone is going to read this and say: “not all Portuguese”, regarding the topic I want to address and after five years living in Portugal, I dare to say: maybe not all but, sadly, most of them.
Linguistic prejudice is one of the most subtle ways of discrimination because we can easily disguise it as a matter of personal preference.
During the last few years, there have been a lot of people moving to Portugal, some because they want to and some because they need to. I moved to Portugal in 2018 and even though I am Venezuelan, I speak European Portuguese because my grandparents and my dad were born in Portugal and I learned the language from an early age. So, even though I haven’t been directly affected by this type of prejudice, I am used to seeing it quite often. I also used to be in many Facebook groups where foreigners interested in moving to Portugal would ask their questions about life in the country which many times included the conversation about the language. Throughout the years, locals started joining those groups, and the topic of Brazilian Portuguese vs. European Portuguese has remained one of the most controversial ones.
Currently, Portuguese is the official language in seven countries and it has a co-official status in two others. However, the harshest comments I have heard from Portuguese people are mostly against Brazilian Portuguese. Official statistics show that the number of Brazilian people living in Portugal is really high compared to other nationalities. In 2017, Brazilian people accounted for 20.3% of immigrants residing in Portugal, while in 2021, this percentage rose to 36.9% according to the most recent population census.
There are facts and myths (which people believe to be facts) to explain why Portuguese people discriminate against Brazilian Portuguese so blatantly, but let’s start by clarifying that no linguistic judgement is free from prejudice. In the exact moment you have the audacity to point out what is the right or wrong way of using a language, you are climbing up a huge mountain of racism, classism, xenophobia, sexism and talking from up there.
Fact: European Portuguese is different to the one spoken in former colonies.
Obviously. The English spoken in the USA is not the same as that spoken in England, the French spoken in Canada is not the same as that spoken in France, and the Spanish spoken in Spain is not the same as that spoken in Latin America. Do people who speak different variants understand each other? Yes, they do. Are some variants better, nicer or cooler than the others? No, they aren’t. Languages change in order to adapt to their speakers’ needs and they will continue changing.
Myth: if you speak Brazilian Portuguese, you won’t be able to communicate in Portugal.
During the first stages of learning a new language you will only be able to understand the variant you are learning. Try, for example, understanding any of the Latin American variants of Spanish if you are a non-native speaker learning European Spanish. The same happens with Brazilian and European Portuguese, if you are learning Brazilian Portuguese you will feel more at ease understanding Brazilian speakers, but once you learn some of the phonetic variations, you will for sure be able to understand all variants.
Myth: The only difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese is the accent.
Definitely not. Written grammar has been unified by the Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990, but we have to remember that grammar rules were originally created following the use of the language and not the other way around. The first grammar rules were born from the use of written language by recognised authors. That’s how grammar became a tool of power and control, and that’s why we were raised thinking that if we don’t respect grammar rules we are ignorant or “uncultured”. This way of thinking goes against a quite obvious principle which is that language is meant to be functional and as long as we are communicating what we need to communicate, we are not using language in a wrong way.
In Brazil, they are taught the unified Portuguese grammar but what are you supposed to do with rules that you learn at school and never use in real life? — Leaving aside that, thinking that everyone had access to the education you had is quite privileged. Just think for a second: how did you learn to speak, the way your teachers taught you or the way people around you spoke?
The factors that influence changes in a language are many but let’s take into account that Brazil is surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries. It is unavoidable for Spanish to sneak into Brazilian Portuguese and vice versa. For example: the preferred version of present continuous in European Portuguese is “to be + a + infinitive” (estou a comer, estamos a falar), instead, Brazilian people use “to be + gerund” (estou comendo, estamos falando) exactly like we do it in Spanish. Still, I perfectly understand Brazilian when they speak using that form, and they perfectly understand me when I use the European one.
Let’s also not forget elements such as the size of Brazil, the amount of speakers of the language and the socioeconomic differences and injustices that, without a doubt, influence the language, such as the high illiteracy numbers. It would take us a lot of time to go through each aspect, but I think the point has been illustrated and, most importantly, no one needs to explain or justify the way they speak a language.
It is also very clear to me how linguistic prejudice also reveals prejudice towards the speakers of that language. It is known that Portuguese are not the most welcoming when it comes to Brazilian people due to reasons that I am not going to address in this text. Furthermore, we are not talking about a matter of taste because if so, the comments coming from Portuguese people would sound like opinions and not like facts.
The biggest irony in all this situation is how much they hate when someone says that Portuguese is just ugly Spanish or when the Galician claim that the Portuguese are just speaking wrong Galician, but they love to tell every foreigner how wrong Brazilian Portuguese is and how right European Portuguese is. Without even mentioning the fact that they are often accusing people of using wrong grammar while using wrong English grammar.
In conclusion, all this intolerance, ignorance and xenophobia disguised in comments like the ones I have been adding to this text are a sad proof of the not-so-nice side of the Portuguese. I really hope this topic starts being addressed at schools, to avoid children to turn into adults that make those kinds of comments and see the world in that biased way. Can you imagine for a second living your whole life being told that your language, your tool to express what you think, is wrong just because you use it in another way than someone else?
It’s 2024 and I’ve recently started revising and editing some posts I have on this platform. Funny enough, the day I was editing this text I had to teach an English class to a Portuguese student that I have had for a couple years. I would say she’s the average Lisboeta that hires me as a teacher, a middle-class woman in her 40s who got an education and works for an important private company. She works in the area of energy sustainability, but the more she is able to communicate her ideas in English, the more I realise she lives in her own bubble of privileges. She is very nice but even knowing that I am an immigrant she has at least thrice made anti-immigrant and racist comments in our one-on-one lessons. I think they come from ignorance rather than from malice, but they still create a very uncomfortable environment. This time, we were doing a speaking exercise about the major problems in education and she decided that the worst problem that the Portuguese education system is facing nowadays is that there are too many Brazilian students enrolled in public schools.
Apparently, her youngest daughter attends public school and some days ago she was home and instead of using the European Portuguese name for a toy, she referred to it with the Brazilian term. I was just listening to her story that quickly escalated into a rant with my best poker face. She told me that her daughter doesn’t watch any type of TV or videos online, so that the only way she could have picked up that word was at school. I think seeing the lack of empathetic expressions on my face made her more angry. She even stopped speaking in English at some point because she didn’t have the words to express herself. As her face was turning red, she told me that there are way too many Brazilian kids in the public school her daughter attends, that the culture in those schools should be Portuguese and not Brazilian, and that “they” (Brazilian people) should be spread around the country because currently their communities are too homogenous. Luckily, our lesson was done (as was I) and the only thing I did was to ask: so, you believe that this is the worst problem that the Portuguese education system is facing? She hesitated: well, yes… — Alright, then, let’s keep our lesson until here and we will continue with the next chapter next week. Thanks for your attention.
I don’t think I have too much to add to my anecdote. This time I wasn’t so affected by her comment, the bar is on the flor for her, but I found curious that this happened exactly the day I chose to edit this post. I believe it presents a very clear example of how this type of prejudice against a language variation actually hides the prejudice against their speakers.
Para todos os falantes de português que tenham interesse neste tópico, recomendo a leitura Preconceito Lingüístico do Dr. Marcos Bagno para uma primeira aproximação.
