Since the ancient creationist myth 'The Tower of Babel' was first voiced, humanity is set to divide and mankind is determined to make no move towards reconciliation.
Over a million Portuguese citizens live in Brazil. They are very fairly treated. For instance, after just one year legally living in the country and they are entitled to apply for the Brazilian citizenship, a right that no other EU citizens have.
A much smaller number of Brazilians, less than a tenth of a million, live in Portugal. In their case, Brazilians need six years living in Portugal to be able to apply for Portuguese citizenship.
In addition to these, there are individuals with double nationality living in either country that can be counted to the millions, and this number is far greater if this estimate includes those entitled to it that did not apply for it.
Yet some people, particularly from Sao Paulo in Brazil – immigrants with a non traditionally Brazilian surname – claim that they do not immediately understand what a Portuguese person says, while some xenophobic Portuguese claim that they do not understand Brazilians – those from Sao Paulo, it must be said.
It is obvious that centuries of restricted communication, with the Atlantic separating the two countries, gave origin to some marked linguistic differences. But nonetheless, such differences have not amounted to a significant variance so as to transform the Brazilian variant (version) into a new language, certainly to the disgust of the xenophobes.
In the Twenty First century, Brazil emerged as a postmodern power overshadowing its former colonizer. In such position, it was much easier for Brazil to speak louder and therefore from January 1st 2008 the orthographic unification of the Portuguese language has been in force, once again to the disapproval of the xenophobes.
Ever since, Portuguese has found its place as a strong language in postmodern times. With the legacy of the Latin alphabet as well as the Latin roots, Portuguese was granted a perfect combination for success.
As a native speaker of the so-called Brazilian Portuguese, proudly not from Sao Paulo, and with Portuguese grandparents, I can categorically say that the European Portuguese is a version (variant strongly influenced by arabic) contained in the much broader Brazilian Portuguese. Most of the European lexicon can also be found in some parts of Brazil away from Sao Paulo.
I must admit, however, that as the most important centre of cultural diffusion in the Portuguese-speaking world, Sao Paulo currently dictates the norms of the language, and this to my own discontent.
English and Portuguese bilingual specialist educated at the University of Sao Paulo, Latin America's most reputed university.
