Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is a form of the Portuguese language used mostly in Brazil. It is spoken by most of the 180 million inhabitants of Brazil. Standard Brazilian Portuguese is strongly influenced by the dialects of the many Brazilian regions. It is also spoken through immigrants and their descendants in Canada, United States, Portugal, and Japan — where it is spoken by Japanese-Brazilian migrants.

Phonology

In many ways, compared to European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is conservative in its phonology. In some areas of Brazil, the speech is close to that of Portuguese as spoken in the 16th and 17th centuries. This also occurs in São Tomean Portuguese.

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BP maintains unstressed vowels to a greater extent than EP. BP maintains the five vowels {{IPA|/a/}}, {{IPA|/e/}}, {{IPA|/i/}}, {{IPA|/o/}} and {{IPA|/u/}} fairly consistently in pre-stressed positions, while EP tends to raise {{IPA|/o/}} to {{IPA|}}, to raise {{IPA|/a/}} to {{IPA|}} and to delete unstressed {{IPA|/e/}} entirely, maintaining it (as a very short, close central unrounded vowel {{IPA|}}, a sound that does not exist in BP) only in careful speech. In post-stressed position, both BP and EP raise {{IPA|/o/}} to {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|/a/}} to {{IPA|}}. BP, however, raises {{IPA|/e/}} to {{IPA|}}, while EP deletes both sounds (or maintains them as a short {{IPA|}} in careful speech). A word like quente "hot" is {{IPA|}} in BP but {{IPA|}}) in EP. The word Setembro "September" is {{IPA|}} in BP but {{IPA|}} in EP.

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One of the most noticeable tendencies of BP is the palatalization of {{IPA|/d/}} and {{IPA|/t/}}, which are pronounced as {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}, respectively, before {{IPA|/i/}}. The word presidente "president", for example, is pronounced {{IPA|}} in Brazil, but {{IPA|}} in Portugal. This pronunciation began in Rio de Janeiro and is often still associated with this city, but is now standard in other major cities such as Belo Horizonte and Salvador, and has spread more recently to some regions of São Paulo, where it is common in most speakers under 40 or so. It has always been standard among Brazil's Japanese community, since this is also a feature of the Japanese language.

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BP tends to break up clusters where the first sound is not {{IPA|/r/}}, {{IPA|/l/}}, or {{IPA|/s/}} by the insertion of {{IPA|/i/}} (although clusters ending in {{IPA|/l/}} or {{IPA|/r/}} are allowed, as are {{IPA|/ks/}} and sometimes {{IPA|/kt/}}), and similarly to eliminate words ending with consonants other than {{IPA|/r/}}, {{IPA|/l/}}, or {{IPA|/s/}} by the addition of {{IPA|/i/}}. Syllable-final {{IPA|/l/}} is vocalized to {{IPA|}}, and syllable-final {{IPA|/r/}} is weakened in most regions to {{IPA|}} or {{IPA|}}, or dropped entirely (especially at the ends of words). Combined with the fact that {{IPA|/n/}} and {{IPA|/m/}} are already disallowed at the end of a syllable in Portuguese (being replaced with nasalization on the previous vowel), BP has a phonology that strongly favors open syllables, as in Japanese. This sometimes results in rather striking transformations of common words. The brand name "MacDonald's", for example, is rendered {{IPA|}}, and the words "rock" and "hockey" are both rendered as {{IPA|}}. (Initial {{IPA|/r/}} and doubled 'rr' are pronounced in BP as {{IPA|}}, as with syllable-final {{IPA|/r/}}.)

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Nasalization is much stronger in BP than EP. This is especially noticeable in vowels followed by {{IPA|/n/}} or {{IPA|/m/}}, which are pronounced in BP with nasalization as strong as in phonemically nasalized vowels, while in EP they are nearly without nasalization. For the same reason, open vowels (which are disallowed under nasalization in Portuguese in general) cannot occur before {{IPA|/n/}} or {{IPA|/m/}} in BP, but can in EP. This sometimes affects the spelling of words. For example, EP, harmónico "harmonic" {{IPA|}} is BP harmônico {{IPA|}}. It also can affect verbal paradigms?for example, EP distinguishes falamos "we speak" {{IPA|}} from 'falámos' {{IPA|}} "we spoke", but BP has falamos {{IPA|}} for both.

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Related to this is the difference in pronunciation of the consonant written nh. This is {{IPA|}} in EP but {{IPA|}} in BP, a nasalized {{IPA|/j/}}, where the previous vowel is also nasalized.

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BP did not participate in many sound changes that later affected EP, particularly in the realm of consonants. In BP, {{IPA|/b/}}, {{IPA|/d/}}, and {{IPA|/g/}} are stops in all positions, while they are weakened to fricatives {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} in EP, as in Spanish. Many dialects of BP maintain syllable-final {{IPA|/s/}} and {{IPA|/z/}} as such, while EP consistently converts them to {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}. (Whether such a change happens in BP is highly dialect-specific. Rio de Janeiro is particularly known for such a pronunciation; São Paulo is particular known for not having it. Elsewhere, such as in the Northeast, it is more likely to happen before a consonant than word-finally, and varies from region to region or even from speaker to speaker.

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Another change in EP that does not occur in BP is the lowering of /e/ to {{IPA|}} before palatal sounds ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}} {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}) and in the diphthong em {{IPA|/??/}}, which merges with the diphthong ãe {{IPA|/???/}} in EP but not BP.

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An interesting change that is in the process of spreading in BP, probably originating in the Northeast, is the insertion of {{IPA|/j/}} after stressed final vowels before final {{IPA|/s/}}. This began in the context of {{IPA|/a/}}?for example, mas "but" is now pronounced {{IPA|}} in most of Brazil, making it homophonous with mais "more". The change is spreading to other vowels, however, and at least in the Northeast the normal pronunciations of voz "voice" and Jesus are {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}. Similarly, três "three" becomes {{IPA|}}, making it rhyme with seis "six" {{IPA|}}; this may explain the common Brazilian replacement of seis with meia (literally "half", as in "half a dozen") when spelling out phone numbers.

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