Ana
I was driving my car one day in Brazil while listening to the radio. I don’t remember what exactly the host and the guest were talking about, but I was really shocked when one of the men mentioned downsizing a company by using the English word “downsize”. At that time, I had had lots of experience with English alread and was even teaching it at a language school. Despite that, it was the first time I was hearing that word. Due to the practicality of the English language, it was not hard to add 2 plus 2 and understand what he was saying: they were going to fire people. How infuriating that was… Have you ever heard about how confusing and vague corporate jargon is used to mislead people and even to hide corruption? (Check out this short video then.) Well, imagine that being done to you with words from a completely different language? That’s just evil… But that’s just one example of a recent trend in Brazil: importing English words that already exist in Brazilian Portuguese.
Before going any further, I must say that I understand that this is part of the process of how languages’ lexicons evolve. In fact, Brazilian Portuguese greatly differs from its European counterpart due to the influence of Indigenous and African languages. However, this intense unilateral importation of words makes me consider the reasons why this is happening and what power relations and ideologies are in place right now. After all, languages don’t change on their own, their speakers need to accept and put the changes into use.
Well, it seems like, right now, Brazilians feel highly inclined to adopt these cool foreign words… They don’t buy products on “promoção” anymore; they only buy them on “sale”. Cheap AND fancy! Our politicians stopped spreading “notícias falsas”; they now spread “fake news”. Thank god! And who would want to be an “influenciador digital” when you can be a “digital influencer”? You have to aim higher! And, oh my god, I don’t know who I hate more: the person who imported the name “naked cake” or the person who actually invented it! It’s a cake without the frosting, why would you want that??
Anyway… Brazilians have long considered everything from Europe or the USA superior to what we have (we call it the “mongrel complex”). Add that to the insatiable need of the upper classes to dissociate from the masses and you have this useless trend. I mean, useless only in a practical sense; it actually represents the exclusion of many people, especially lower class. As sociolinguistic students, we know that adhering to the “wrong” language variety can hinder people’s access to job opportunities and development at school, anchor people to degrading stereotypes, and identify them as targets of regional discrimination. Therefore, I refuse to take this matter lightly and I avoid importing English words at all costs. What about you? Does your language import many words from English or from one other language in specific? What do you think of that?
Hi, Ana. I guess I can understand how you think about the fact that the Brazilians have long considered everything from Europe or the USA superior to what you have. This is actually somewhat similar to the situation in Taiwan. The local Taiwanese dialect (or even its culture) is thought of as an inferior one to Mandarin and English. In the Taiwanese context, it was mainly because of the influence from the historical trend.
-Chingheng
I enjoyed your post. Thank you for the laugh. The humour of the situation you describe shines through.
However, the borrowing of “cool and practical expressions from English” is true for most of the world. Almost everywhere.
Here’s the thing, you can personally resist employing a “foreign” word when a Brazilian term already exists This is a very worthy and idealistic linguistic action. In the end, however, language adaptation and change are a much stronger force. (It seems that way to me at least). But you are a worthy language warrior. Boa Sorte! Good Luck!
On the positive side, there is no danger of Brazilian Portuguese disappearing completely as there exists a large critical mass of Brazilian speakers. Not like the many small, beautiful tribal languages in the wilds of South America that were wiped out and are extinct. Now, that’s even sadder.
Ironically, ENGLISH is probably one of the most-prone-to-borrowing languages in history! A huge chunk of the vocabulary is from non-English sources. But of course in the context of your post, and the discussion, that’s a rather disingenuous thing to say. Robert Phillipson (the author of Linguistic Imperialism, 1992, OUP) calls English a “lingua tyrannosaura” because it devours other languages—sometimes, as you point out, by feeding on them parasitically. At the same time, no language can remain “pure” (Qur’anic Arabic probably comes closest…any opinions on that?). So we are caught on the horns of a dilemma, as usual. As speakers of languages under threat (but of course I am NOT in this category), how can people maintain the integrity of their languages, while allowing for the change and adaptation to new sociolinguistic circumstances that all languages naturally undergo?
Quranic/ Classical Arabic is strictly a written language. The spoken and written “Fus-ha” or Modern Standard Arabic is derived from it and used for literary and highbrow communicative purposes, (newcasters, professors, politicians etc). There are many, many Arabic language varieties and the speakers communicate in their regional dialects, Egyptian being one of the most common.
Beatrice
Yes, exactly, thanks Beatrice. You are underscoring the point that a language that is prevented from changing isn’t compatible with one that people speak, though they may continue to write it for centuries (as Latin and Greek remained written languages for the male elites of Europe, and Sanskrit for high-caste Hindu boys in South Asia, long after those languages had left the lips of actual speakers).