Mineiro
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Mineiro redirects here; for the Brazilian footballer nicknamed Mineiro, see Mineiro (Footballer).
Mineiro (
pronunciation (help·info)) feminine, Mineira) is the Brazilian Portuguese term for the inhabitants of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and also the characteristic accent spoken in the heart of that state.
[edit] History
Minas Gerais was settled during the late 17th and early 18th centuries by a mix of recent Portuguese immigrants (reinóis or "emboabas") and earlier colonists that came from São Paulo (paulistas). There was an intense rivalry between the two groups, fighting over the gold mines (from which the name of the province was taken, Minas Gerais means "General Mines"). These conflicts required the intervention of the Portuguese Crown after a serious uprisal developed into civil war (Guerra dos Emboabas) with the final defeat of the "paulistas" in 1708. See the article "Guerra dos Emboabas" in the Portuguese language Wikipedia.
Recently, the influence of mineiro has been increasing and spreading, due to local pride and rejection of other accents[citation needed].
[edit] Accent characteristics
- Reduction (and often loss) of final and initial unstressed vowels, especially e, i, and u: parte ("part") becomes part' (with soft affricate T). Common to most of Brazil.
- Assimilation of consecutive vowels: o urubu ("the vulture") becomes u rubu.
- Weakening (and usual loss) of final /r/ and /s/: cantar ("to sing", with the final /r/ sounding like the "r" in the French name Pierre) becomes cantá and os livros ("the books") becomes us livru. Common to most of Brazil.
- Loss of the plural ending /s/ in adjectives and nouns, retained only in articles and verbs: meus filhos ("my children") becomes (sometimes)meus filho, (most of the time) meus fii OR meus fiu.
- Intense liaison: abra as asas ("spread your wings") becomes abrazaza. Para onde nós estamos indo? ("Where are we going?") becomes Pronoistamuíno?. However, see [1]: this is far from being the most common usage.
- Realization of most /ʎ/ as [j]: alho ("garlic") becomes homophonous with aio. Probably the most characteristic feature of the Mineiro accent.
- Replacement of some diphthongs with long vowels: fio (thread) becomes fii, pouco (few) becomes poco.
- Apocope of final syllables. -lho becomes [ij] (filho → fii' ), -inho becomes -im' (pinho → pim' ).
- Soft pronunciation of "r": rato ("mouse") is pronounced [hatu]. Very common in other parts of Brazil.
- Sonorization of final "s" before a vowel. Not only common, but in fact mandatory in Brazil as a whole. Definitely not a particular characteristic of Mineiro accent.
- Diphthongization of stressed vowels: mas ("but") becomes mais and três ("three") becomes treis. Common in other parts of Brazil, particularly Rio de Janeiro.
- Occasional affrication of "d" before "e" at the beginning of the word: deserto ("desert") is pronounced [dʒi'zɛhtu] instead of [de'zɛɾtu].
- Loss of initial "e" in words beginning with "es": esporte becomes [spɔhtʃi][citation needed].
- Another important trait of Mineiro is the absence of remarkable features of other accents, like the retroflex R (caipira), palatalization of S (carioca), strong dental R (gaucho), or "singsong" nordestino intonation[citation needed].
[edit] See also
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