Good evening, Portuguese-speaking foreros:
I'm reading a book called "Babel" by Gaston Dorren. One of the chapters is completely devoted to Portuguese. Even though I'm not new to linguistics and its neighboring disciplines, I do not know a huge ton about Portuguese and its history along with legacy. I would like to know your opinion on how far-fetched the infromation in the excerpt below is. I assume the author might have adorned his work to make the entire book more breath-taking by distorting some factual information and simplifying the real state of affairs. It's not a closely guarded secret that Brazilian Portuguese differs from its European elder brother more profoundly than Latin American Spanish from Castillano, though.
The excerpt:
“Among the Portuguese there is a widespread sentiment that, as the inventors of the language, they’re surely more entitled than their trans-Atlantic cousins to be the judges of what is proper and correct usage. The Brazilian variety has an impoverished grammar, or so many Portuguese people feel. They dislike the Brazilians’ indifference to the TU-VOCÊ distinction (for informal and formal ‘you’, like French TU and VOUS). They dislike the way the Brazilians move pronouns to positions where no pronouns ever ought to move, or omit some of them altogether. Some Portuguese even dislike that the Brazilians have done away with their pet archaism, a conditional mood with a pronoun placed smack bang in the middle of the word: in COMÊ-LO-IA (would eat it), COMERIA means ‘would eat’, with the object pronoun LO spliced in (erasing the r).
If the Portuguese are unhappy about their linguistic dethronement, the Brazilians are hardly aware of any such acrimony. They seem to look upon Portugal in much the same way that many people look upon their ageing parents: after the turmoil of adolescence and the economic struggles of early adulthood, a new, more distant fondness has set in.” (sic)
Excerpt From Babel by Gaston Dorren
This material may be protected by copyright.
I would like to hear your opinion on the excerpt or on the whole chapter if you are already familiar with the book.
With kind regards,
Jennifer
I'm reading a book called "Babel" by Gaston Dorren. One of the chapters is completely devoted to Portuguese. Even though I'm not new to linguistics and its neighboring disciplines, I do not know a huge ton about Portuguese and its history along with legacy. I would like to know your opinion on how far-fetched the infromation in the excerpt below is. I assume the author might have adorned his work to make the entire book more breath-taking by distorting some factual information and simplifying the real state of affairs. It's not a closely guarded secret that Brazilian Portuguese differs from its European elder brother more profoundly than Latin American Spanish from Castillano, though.
The excerpt:
“Among the Portuguese there is a widespread sentiment that, as the inventors of the language, they’re surely more entitled than their trans-Atlantic cousins to be the judges of what is proper and correct usage. The Brazilian variety has an impoverished grammar, or so many Portuguese people feel. They dislike the Brazilians’ indifference to the TU-VOCÊ distinction (for informal and formal ‘you’, like French TU and VOUS). They dislike the way the Brazilians move pronouns to positions where no pronouns ever ought to move, or omit some of them altogether. Some Portuguese even dislike that the Brazilians have done away with their pet archaism, a conditional mood with a pronoun placed smack bang in the middle of the word: in COMÊ-LO-IA (would eat it), COMERIA means ‘would eat’, with the object pronoun LO spliced in (erasing the r).
If the Portuguese are unhappy about their linguistic dethronement, the Brazilians are hardly aware of any such acrimony. They seem to look upon Portugal in much the same way that many people look upon their ageing parents: after the turmoil of adolescence and the economic struggles of early adulthood, a new, more distant fondness has set in.” (sic)
Excerpt From Babel by Gaston Dorren
This material may be protected by copyright.
I would like to hear your opinion on the excerpt or on the whole chapter if you are already familiar with the book.
With kind regards,
Jennifer