Brazilian German

The German-based varieties spoken by German Brazilians together form a significant minority language in Brazil. "Brazilian German" is strongly influenced by Portuguese and to a lesser extent by Italian dialects as well as indigenous languages. German dialects and Germanic languages are particularly strong in Brazil's South and Southeast Regions. According to Ethnologue, ca. 3 million people in Brazil speak the Hunsrik Language, 1.5 million speak Standard German and 8,000 speak Plautdietsch.

For the people group of Brazilians with German ancestry, see German Brazilians.
Brazilian German
Brasilianisch Deutsch
Pronunciation[ˈdɔʏtʃ]
Native toBrazil
Native speakers
4,508,000[1]
Latin
Official status
Official language in
 Brazil[2]

[3][4]

Language codes
ISO 639-3(included in pdt)
Glottologriog1239

German speakers from Germany, Switzerland and Austria make up the largest group of immigrants after Portuguese and Italian speakers. They tended to preserve their language longer than the speakers of Italian, which is closer to Portuguese. Consequently, German was the second most common family language in Brazil at the 1940 census. However, even in areas that are still dominated by German speakers, most are bilingual. Today, German is increasingly cultivated as a cultural heritage, and several municipalities have recently given co-official status with Portuguese to one Brazilian variant or another of it.

The language Hunsrik is the most significant variant, and the term Riograndenser Hunsrückisch is sometimes used so as to include all forms of Brazilian German. It is particularly well represented in the two southernmost states, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. But especially in Espírito Santo there are significant pockets whose dialect is based on East Low German (East Pomeranian),[5][3][4] and some other dialects can be found locally due to 20th century immigration.

Hunsrik
Main article: Hunsrik

Hunsrik, a language derived from the Hunsrückisch dialect, is also referred to as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch (or Brazilian Hunsrückisch) after the country's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. It is also strongly represented in Santa Catarina, where the local variant is referred to as Katharinensisch, and in Paraná. Together, these three states form Brazil's South Region. The area attracted significant immigration from German-speaking countries.

German immigration to Rio Grande do Sul started in 1824.[6] The German workers and settlers came from many different regions, but especially from the poor regions Hunsrück and nearby Palatinate. The German dialects began to mix with each other, adopting elements of the languages spoken by other immigrants, to form varieties that differed from municipality to municipality, often from family to family, and which had no relation to the dialect lines in Germany.[7] However, in most places the Hunsrück dialect proved dominant.

Initially, the immigrants had to organize their own school system,[8] but this was to change. Due to lack of exposure – from 1938 till 1961, German was not even taught at higher schools.[9] – Standard German became restricted to formal contexts such as church, whereas all daily interactions happened either in dialect or in Portuguese, from which the required words for innovations were also taken.[10]

Speakers of Hunsrik are typically bilingual with Portuguese, but are not necessarily familiar with Standard German. The elementary school of Santa Maria do Herval, a municipality in Rio Grande do Sul with a population of roughly 6,000, teaches Hunsrik and uses a new orthography for this which is closer to Portuguese than to Standard German conventions, this follows a research by SIL International and lead by professor Ursula Wiesemann to standardize the language according to its actual use in the local communities and social networks.[11] This method is also used for teaching on other local municipalities with native Hunsrik speakers. A concurrent standardization approach lead by the professor Cléo Altenhofen criticizes this detachment, demanding a closer orthographic tie between Hunsrik and Standard German, and arguing that the efforts should try to revert the Portuguese influence over the language by keeping a very conservative orthography, in a way that it would be only a variation of the original Hunsrückisch dialect.[12][13]

In July 2018, the mayor of Blumenau, Mario Hildebrandt, signed Decree no. 11,850/2018, which created the Bilingual Erich Klabunde Municipal School, offering teaching in Portuguese and German.[14][15][16]

Co-official status[17]

East Pomeranian
Main article: East Low German
Main article: East Pomeranian dialect

East Pomeranian, a dialect of Low German, is spoken in many places in southeastern and southern Brazil:

[4]

  • Spoken in Rondônia since 1970.[18]
  • In Santa Leopoldina, first European settlement in Espírito Santo, the descendants of immigrants from Switzerland and Luxembourg now speak East Pomeranian.[18]
  • Santa Maria de Jetibá (previously part of Santa Leopoldina) is Brazil's center of Pommeranian culture with 90% (ethnic?) Pommeranians.[18]
Municipalities where East Pomeranian dialects are co-official in Espírito Santo, Brazil.
Co-official status[17]

Other German dialects in Brazil

See also

References
  1. Hunsrik, Ethnologue (2016).
  2. "IPOL realizará formação de recenseadores para o censo linguístico do município de Antônio Carlos-SC - IPOL". e-ipol.org.
  3. Gippert, Jost. "TITUS Didactica: German Dialects (map)". titus.uni-frankfurt.de.
  4. "Pommern in Brasilien - LernCafe – Online-Journal zur allgemeinen Weiterbildung". www.lerncafe.de.
  5. Archived November 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  6. Altenhofen, Cléo Vilson: Hunsrückisch in Rio Grande do Sul, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, p. 24.
  7. Altenhofen, p. 42.
  8. Altenhofen, p. 69.
  9. Altenhofen, p. 38.
  10. Altenhofen, p. 45.
  11. Wiesemann, Ursula (2008). "Contribuição ao desenvolvimento de uma ortografia da língua Hunsrik falada na América do Sul". Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  12. "Brasilien: Hunsrücker Platt wird zweite Amtssprache". volksfreund.de. 2014-03-27. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  13. "Uff Hunsrickisch schreiwe: Entrevista mit Cléo Altenhofen / Escrever em Hunsrückisch: Entrevista com Cléo Altenhofen | IPOL". ipol.org.br. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  14. "Blumenau é pioneira na criação de escolas bilíngues". Archived from the original on 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  15. "Blumenau terá duas escolas bilíngues". Archived from the original on 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  16. Decreto Nº 11.850, de 24 de julho de 2018, Leis Municipais, acessado em 29 de setembro de 2019
  17. "IPOL realizará formação de recenseadores para o censo linguístico do município de Antônio Carlos-SC". Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  18. Bost, Bodo: Pommersche Sprache erlebt Renaissance in Brasilien. VDA Globus 1/2010.
  19. Município de Itarana participa de ações do Inventário da Língua Pomerana, Prefeitura Municipal de Itarana
  20. «Lei Municipal nº 1.195/2016 de Itarana/ES». itarana.es.gov.br
  21. "Pomerano!? | Língua Portuguesa". Lpniceia.wordpress.com. 2008-12-27. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  22. Göz Kaufmann (2004). "Eine Gruppe - Zwei Geschichten - Drei Sprachen. Rußlanddeutsche Mennoniten in Brasilien und Paraguay". Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik. 71 (3): 257–306. JSTOR 40505042.
  23. "Mennoniten - junge gemeinde - Mennoniten in Lateinamerika / Paraguay / Brasilien / Bolivien / Mexiko / Südamerika". Jungegemeinde.de. 2007-03-18. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  24. René Laglstorfer. "Schuhplattln auf Brasilianisch". derStandard.at. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  25. "Fundação Cultural Suábio-Brasileira". Retrieved 4 August 2015.
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