Uruguayan Portuguese

History

The origin of Portuguese in Uruguay can be traced back to the time of the dominion of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, and the Empire of Brazil. In those times, the ownership of those lands were not very well defined, passing back and forth from the hands of one crown to the other.

Portuguese was the only language spoken throughout northern Uruguay until the end of the 19th century. To assure the homogeneity of the newly formed country, the government made an effort to impose the Spanish language into lusophones communities through educational policies and language planning, and the bilingualism became widespread and diglossic.

The varieties of Uruguayan Portuguese varies in dialect continuum which range from Rioplatense Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese. Nevertheless, it has one variant which is the most used, and could be taken as a case study: this variant is geographically located on the area having the cities of Rivera and Santana do Livramento as its center, and expanding over a strip of several kilometers parallel to the border, including territory of both nations.

Phonology and orthography

The Riverense language does not possess a formally defined orthography, but in this article an orthography of Portuñol will be presented in order to enable its phonemes to be represented in the most accurate and consistent possible way, highlighting the phonologic features of this language variety. It should be noted that not all Portuñol-speaking persons use the same pronunciation for the same words (as is the case with most languages). Nevertheless, the script that is chosen is very representative of the most frequent and distinctive features.

The chosen representation is the closest to the one that would be used if we tried to transcribe the phonemes to the Spanish language (because this is the language taught to Uruguayans, which is the nationality of the majority of speakers of this dialect), except for the phonemes that can't be represented through the Spanish alphabet, like, for example the nasal vowels.

Spanish vowels

The Spanish vowels are the ones which are pronounced like the five vowels of the Spanish language (they also exist in Portuguese):

Portuguese vowels

These vowels are found in Portuguese, but not in Spanish.

Semiopen vowels

They are like the vowels e and o, but pronounced in a more open way, closer to an a.

Distinguishing the open-mid vowels (é, ó) is very important because they can completely change the meaning of a word, like in the following examples:

avó [aˈvɔ] (grandmother) and avô [aˈvo] (grandfather) véio [ˈvɛjo] (old (m.)) and veio [ˈvejo] (he came - from the verb ví [to come]) véia [ˈvɛja] (old (f.)) and veia [ˈveja] (vein) póso [ˈpɔso] ((I) can) and poso [ˈposo] (well)

Nasal vowels

The nasal vowels are the vowels which are produced by expiring the air partly through the nose and partly through the mouth. They don't exist in Spanish and therefore are generally derived from Portuguese words.

(*) before s, sh, y, z, ce, ci.

(**) before s, sh, y, z, ce, ci, or when it is the first syllable and is not followed by ga, gue, gui, go, gu, ca, que, qui, co, cu or k.

Distinguishing nasal vowels is very important, because they can completely change the meaning of the word, like in the following examples:

paũ [ˈpaw̃] (bread) and pau [ˈpaw] (stick) nũ [nũ] (in a (m.)) and nu [nu] (in the (m.)) nũa [ˈnũ.a] (in a (f.)) and núa [ˈnu.a] (naked (f.)) ũ [ũ] (one, a (m.)) and u [u] (the (m.)) cũ [kũ] (with) and cu [ˈku] (anus - vulgar term) ũs [ũs] (some (m.)) and us [us] (the (m.pl.))

Consonants

In the next table, when there is a reference to Spanish, it refers to the Rioplatense Spanish dialect, and where there is a reference to Portuguese, it refers to Brazilian Portuguese and more specifically the Gaúcho dialect (from the Brazilian Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul).