phonetic map of Brazil

[gusl]

Someone has come up with the following map:


I am trying to draw a linguistic map of Brazil based on phonological features (i.e. want to draw lines like the pronunciation of the "r" in Britain), but I also want to draw lexical lines (like the bucket-pail line in America). The most salient variations in Brazilian Portuguese are the following:

Phonetic Variations
s -> [sh] in Rio and Recife but [s] elsewhere. "casca": [kashka] vs [kaska]
s before t -> [sh] in most of the Northeast. "casca"[kaska], "bosta"[boshta]
ti, di -> [tshi], [dzhi] (like in Japanese) in most of Brazil, with exceptions in the Northeast and the South. "bom dia, tia": [bõ dzhía, tshía] vs [bõ día, tía]
intervocalic rr -> [h] in most of Brazil, except in the South, where it's [r] or [rr] (not sure). Where it becomes [h], it usually goes to -> [] (null) when at the end of a word (e.g. all verbs), with exceptions in some places if the next word begins with a vowel.
e, o at the end of a word -> [i], [u] except in the South e.g. "violino": [violínu] vs [violíno]
e, o in early syllables of late-accent words -> [i], [u] in some places in the Northeast. e.g. "violino": [viulínu] vs [violínu]
Nasalization of vowels preceding a nasal consonant: in most of Brazil, "banana"[bãnãna]. Some places in the South, including perhaps Mineiro and Fluminense dialects, would say [banãna]
inho, inha -> [i~o, i~a] in most of Brazil but [i~] in Mineiro.
[u~a] in most of Brazil vs [uma] in São Paulo
em at the end of a word -> [e~i~] in most of Brazil. "também"->[també~i~]
In São Paulo, this is taken further: "entender"[enteindér]
In Rio, schwas are often inserted after the vowel in the accented syllable. This feature of their speech is considered rather ridiculous by most Brazilians, and it's target of many jokes and impressions of Rio surfer dudes.

Lexical Variations:
macaxeira vs aipim
biscoito vs bolacha
farol vs sinal de trânsito
uma tapa vs um tapa

Variations in Intonation and Rhythm:
Northeasterns supposedly talk in a singing tone, especially when asking a question.

Variations in Grammar:
tu quer (Northeast), tu queres (Maranhão, Rio Grande do Sul)

Variations in Word Choice:
The polite forms "o senhor", "a senhora" may be the only respectful address of older people in some regions.

Comments

[thepublicguy.livejournal.com]

You're lucky you only have linguistics divisions in your country, as far as I can tell. I have linguistic divisions in my immediate family.

My idiot of an older brother insists on speaking with a northern accent even though everyone else speaks with a southern accent. We spent four years in the north when he was between the ages of 14 and 18 and he says this was his formative period. A brother who's one year younger than him has no trace of the accent. Even my mum who lived in the north till she was 20 or so has no trace.

For him, it's a political statement that makes him feel as if he's in touch with his working class roots and socialist values. (Explanation: a southern accents is usually posh although there are downmarket variants.)

To me his accent is just an affectation. The kind of thing I'd expect from someone with a major-league anxiety disorder who wants to fit in with people he identifies with, regardless of how odd it seems to those who grew up with him.

As you can tell, I'm not a dispassionate observer.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

My sister sometimes affects a blend of pretentious Rio-Mineiro-Southern accents, especially when talking on the phone. I hate, hate, hate it, and I cringe when I hear it.

Yet, I'm not so sure that there is a fine line between affectation and "genuine" accent. This is probably much more the case when we're talking about second languages (as English is for me). Right now I comfortably speak with a convincing "East Coast" American accent (so say the Californians I've met). But I can also sound less American while being "true to myself". I think I could speak your Southern England accent convincingly if I lived there for a year (I already lived in London for 4 years, you see... my first fluent English accent (i.e. not counting English lessons before living there) was a blend between my Northeast Brazilian accent, the Londoners I spoke with and the American spoken at school). 6 years later, I have apparently gotten rid of all traces of my Brazilian accent when speaking English (with very occasional incidents of a mispronunciation... though my grammatical "accent" surfaces a little more often) but now I'm speaking American.

há controvérsias

[(Anonymous)]

gustavo, esse seu mapa aí tá meio estranho. não sei se é possível dividir assim os sotaques no brasil, já que há uma diferença sutil (mas sensível) de estado pra estado. de pernambuco pra a paraíba já se nota muita diferença. daqui pra alagoas, então, nem se fala. falo do nordeste, que é uma região que eu conheço quase todos os estados e os sotaques de cada um e digo que é diferente. e quando se entra no interior dos estados aí é que a coisa muda mesmo.

acho que é praticamente impossível fazer um mapa desses sem ser genérico demais, o que acaba sendo grosseiro.

em compensação, o sotaque baiano nem é tão diferente assim do resto do nordeste pra merecer uma divisão de destaque. no acre, por exemplo, o sotaque deles é quase tão carregado quanto no rio, só que bem diferente. no mato grosso, é uma mistura de paulista com mineiro mas em brasília ele já não tem muita coesão. no paraná é uma grande mistura de paulista do interior com gaúcho também do interior.

enfim, isso são apenas exemplos pra dizer que não é possível se fazer um mapa dessa forma.

cecils.

Re: há controvérsias

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Esse mapa não é meu. Eu o coloquei aí pra dar uma idéia. Realmente, fica artificial fazer divisões dessa maneira. Por isso que eu prefiro fazer um bocado de linhas, uma por característica. Cada linha divide o país em 2 ou mais regiões, dependendo de quantas variedade existem. Por exemplo, a linha to "ti,di" divide o Brasil em 2. As variações do "R", porém, podem dividir o Brasil em muito mais regiões.
Porém até essas linhas variam de uma forma contínua, de tal maneira que fica melhor usar uma gradiente. Porém quando fica complicado demais, o jeito é aproximar.

Se vc leu com cuidado, deve ter visto que eu disse que só estava destacando as variações mais salientes. Dessa forma, entre Recife e João Pessoa só muda uma característica, ilustrada por "casca": [káshka]vs[káska]. Pra gente, a diferença entre Pernambuco e Alagoas pode ser grande, mas pra quem vem de fora não é. Espero que no futuro até as diferenças mais sutis estejam catalogadas, porém pelo que eu tenho visto até agora, o caminho hoje é catalogar primeiro as diferenças maiores.

Pessimista!

só mais um

[(Anonymous)]

só pra complementar: de recife pra joão pessoa (que são dois lugares super próximos) há uma diferença bem maior que a ilustrada por você (o casca e cashca). há, por exemplo, a diferença de entonação, que já distingue bem um sotaque do outro, além dessa forma de pronunciar o s antes de algumas consoantes.

e, definitivamente, o mapa de sotaques é bem mais complexo do que possamos imaginar. e eu não tou sendo pessimista. quisera eu que as coisas pudessem ser tão simples quanto esse mapa.

Re: só mais um

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Ninguém disse que o mapa ilustra tudo. É óbvio que não.

é.. porém intonação é um pouco mais difícil de se escrever, prever, analisar, etc. Teria que gravar a pessoa falando, e depois analisar as freqüência. Além disso, as regras de intonação dependem do conteúdo pragmático da conversa, ou seja: pergunta, resposta, discussão, ênfase, sermão, ironia, relação de poder entre os falantes, etc...

Minha regra é fazer as coisas simples primeiro.

[selfishgene.livejournal.com]

In Albion's Seed David Hackett Fischer argues that the linguistic and cultural variations in American English trace back to different regions of England. New England corresponds to East Anglia, Mid-Atlantic to Midlands etc.
Does Brazil have the same relation to Portugal?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Probably not.
As far as I know, variations are mostly due to non-Portuguese-speaking influences, such as native Indian languages, African languages, and most recently Italian.

I myself can't tell an Angolan from a Portuguese accent. Let alone across regions of Portugal.

Not just Brasileiros...

[reflexion.livejournal.com]

Variations in Intonation and Rhythm:
Northeasterns supposedly talk in a singing tone, especially when asking a question.

Some (equally non-Portuguese) friends of mine and I used to think it was funny the way our Portuguese friends did this (not just questsions - just generally very sing-song and lilt-ish), especially when they did it in other languages too (particularly our native English.) Very pleasant, in a way, once you get used to it.

Then again, the sing-song intonation on questions in particular seems to exist in other countries/continents as well, since I know South Africans and Australians who do it strongly enough for you to be aware of it constantly.

Re: Not just Brasileiros...

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I can do an ok impression of a Portuguese accent. Their singing is different from ours: it's faster, and the intonation patterns resemble an English intonation. Our tone for asking people to do something is particularly sweet (maybe even resembling babytalk), maybe to compensate for the fact that otherwise, we would be literally ordering them (it's the same sentence in both cases: modifiers such as "please" are often optional.. it really depends on your relationship to the person and your attitude towards them).

I've acquired English intonation pretty well (mostly American, although I can do "standard London" too), although as late as 3 or 4 years ago, this is how people would pick up on my accent.