Effects of Indigenous Cultures 1

Effects of Indigenous Culture on Brazilian Portuguese

Della C. Henry

November 22, 2010

Effects on Indigenous Cultures on Brazilian Portuguese

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The United States boasts of being a “melting pot” of various cultures, races, and

ethnicities, but Brazil is even more thoroughly integrated with evidence of early

miscegenation between the early Europeans, native indigenous peoples and Africans.

The effect of this heterogeneous culture is present in the Portuguese language that is a

binding force spoken in the territory of Brazil that is the same size of the continental U.S.

Where early American settlers lived separately from the Indians, and the Africans

thereafter, early Portuguese settlers not only intermarried, but learned the predominant

indigenous languages principally Tupí, a form of Guaraní. Brazil’s early Portuguese

settlers found warm climes and peoples, though predominately cannibalistic, and adapted

to both immediately in the sixteenth century. This pattern of mutual benefit and

commiseration spread throughout the region along with the roots of Portuguese but was

overshadowed by the accessible native Tupí language. The next five hundred years show

signs of support for the concepts of language environment, the Ladder of Abstraction and

the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as the various cultures intermingle and expand indelibly

affecting a unique worldview that is apparent through the Portuguese spoken in Brazil.

John Geipel wrote about these effects rooted in “the folk traditions of three

continents, a dense and by now inextricable weave of influences originating in the Old

World and the New” (Geipel, 1993). In his article, Geipel traces the arrival of the

Portuguese in 1500 and the immediate intermarrying of whites and natives that created

veritable “dynasties”. For example, one legendary founder of São Paulo, today, the

largest city in South America, whose unique gun earned him the nickname Caramurú

(“Firemaker” in Tupí). This man of mixed-race heritage fathered seventy children with

his wife and several “cunhas” (squaws). This family spoke Tupí, what was quickly
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becoming the Lingua Geral (General language) that would take precedence throughout

the land by the seventeenth century when whites were outnumbered by the Tupí speaking

mixed-breed population. Tupí spread further as tribes migrated in response to growing

colonization and because of their continued search for Ybipita, the Land of Immortality.

The broad usage of Tupí was influenced greatly by the Jesuit priests who arrived

in 1549 learned the language, organized its grammatical structure and used the simple

language to convert natives to the Catholic faith. Noted historians visiting the tropical

land reported their amazement at the almost universal usage of the Tupí language from

the south, up the coast north, an on to the Amazons in the west.

By 1750, a new Chief Minister to Emperor Dom José I of Portugal, named

Pombal had received word of the influence and wealth being accumulated by the Jesuit

priests in Brazil. By 1759, he had expelled the Jesuits, banned the Tupí language and

implemented measures to promulgate proper Portuguese in Portugal’s richest territory.

Pombal’s “draconian measures” drove Tupí out, but signs of it linger on in the estimated

10,000 words Brazilian Portuguese words derived from Tupí origin.

In the case of Brazilian Portuguese the concept of language environment is

fundamental. Instead of imposing one language on the natives, therefore establishing

barriers of various types, the early settlers assimilated local customs thereby making good

use of what Postman delineates as the four elements of language environment: “people,

their purpose, the rules of communication by which they achieve their purpose, and the

actual talk used in the situation” (cited by Hybels & Weaver, 2007, p. 113). When the

Church arrived, they, too, worked within this framework and effectively spread
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Catholicism, the Tupí language and, by extension, cultural unity among the Brazilian

peoples.

Upon analyses of the effects of Tupí on Brazilian Portuguese, the Ladder of

Abstraction as a useful tool to evaluate the classifications of denotative meanings.

Impressively, Tupí words still account for the majority of the names of flora and fauna in

Brazil. Many, such as cashew, tapioca, piranha, jaguar, toucan, and petunia have gained

international acceptance. Further, Geipel suggests that after Latin and Greek, Tupí is

responsible for the greatest amount (around 40%) of scientific classification of

neotropical species. This seems to play directly into the importance of finding the “right

rung of the ladder for clarity” employed by the early settlers. Their main priority had to

be in securing shelter and food, therefore, it makes sense that this lowest, most concrete

level of the Ladder of Abstraction be firmly established, so firmly, in fact, that many have

stood the test of time.

From the concrete, one wonders about the effect of the Lingua Geral of Tupí on

the way people viewed the world around them and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Tupí

language itself is described as “simple” and based heavily on the things the Tupí saw and

used in their daily life therefore, their language was anchored in earthly images and rather

limited. Did this make them predispose their choices of interpretation as suggested in the

Hybels & Weaver summary of Sapir-Whorf? Possibly. This account for the duality of

the meaning of abacaxi (pineapple). This Tupí-rooted word signifies both the fruit, and

colloquially, a contentious or complicated situation. When you get a stressful phone call

at 5 o’clock on a Friday at work, most likely someone is passing on an abacaxi: a

problem. From personal experience in Brazil, I believe that Sapir-Whorf would be

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applicable in establishing the theory itself, but by comparing Brazilian Portuguese with

that of European Portuguese, tell tale signs of its Tupí influence will be made evident.

This topic is inexhaustible and linguistic coincidences abound that further align

with the three aforementioned communication concepts such as the Jesuits’ practice of

intermixing of local legend with stories of the Catholic saints, parallels whose lines are

blurred still today. The richness of the language environment, Ladder of Abstraction and

Sapir-Whorf on this one aspect would no doubt yield even further evidence of the effect

indigenous cultures on Brazilian Portuguese.

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References

Geipel, J., (1993). Brazil’s Unforked Tongue. History Today v.43 pp. 11-15. Retrieved
November 19, 2010 from http://ProQuest.umi.com

Hybels, S. & and Weaver, R.L., (2007). Communicating effectively (8th Ed.). New York:
McGraw-Hill.