Riverense Portuñol language - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Riverense Portuñol/Portunhol, also known as Fronterizo/Fronteiriço or just Portuñol/Portunhol, is a mixed language

Mixed language

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...

(linguasphere language code 51-AAA-am) formed from Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. It is spoken on the border between Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, and more specifically in the region of the twin cities of Rivera

Rivera

Rivera is the capital of Rivera Department of Uruguay. It is located at the north end of Route 5, on the border with Brazil. The Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento is right across the border, only a street away of it...

(Uruguay) and Santana do Livramento

Santana do Livramento

Santana do Livramento is a city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It is located along the border with the city of Rivera, Uruguay, which helps form an international city of 200,000 inhabitants.- Overview :...

(Brazil). This section of the frontier is called Frontera de la Paz (Border of Peace), because there isn't any legal obstacle which can stop you from crossing the border

Border

Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...

from/to Uruguay

Uruguay

or Brazil

Brazil

Characteristics

As any other language, the Uruguayan-Brazilian Portuñol is very dynamic and heterogeneous, and there is a continuum of dialects

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...

which range from Rioplatense Spanish

Rioplatense Spanish

Rioplatense Spanish or River Plate Spanish is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin of Argentina and Uruguay, and also in Rio Grande do Sul, although features of the dialect are shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken...

(castiiano, in Portuñol) to the standard Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....

(brazilero, in Portuñol). 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 Sant'Ana do Livramento as its center, and expanding over a strip of several kilometers parallel to the border, including territory of both nations. This article refers to this variant, but from now on it will be simply called Portuñol or Riverense, names by which it is identified by the people who speak the language.

The majority of linguists classify portuñol as a variety

Variety (linguistics)

In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...

of Portuguese (Alberto Elizaincín http://www.fhuce.edu.uy/academica/linguistica/sicosocio/CVElizaincin.htm, uses the term "DPU" - Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay to refer not to just one, but to between two and six different variations of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay, being Riverense Portuñol one of these varieties), but there is no consensus. On the other hand, it can be safely said that Portuñol is a very rich language, in the sense that it has a great amount of synonyms and more precise words to express specific meanings, besides of having a larger phonetic richness. However, it's wrong to say that Riverense is merely a mix between two languages which doesn't follow strict grammatical rules.

Origins

The origins of Portuñol can be traced back to the time of the dominion of the kingdoms of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

and Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

. In those times, the ownerships of those lands were not very well defined, passing back and forth from the hands of one crown to the other. Portuñol was not only influenced by Portuguese and Spanish, but also, in a few cases, the native languages as well; e.g.: gurí (boy), mamboretá (praying mantis), caracú (bovine bone).

Phonology and orthography

The Riverense language doesn't possess a formally defined orthography, but in this article an orthography of Portuñol will be presented in order to enable its phoneme

Phoneme

In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....

s to be represented in the most accurate and consistent possible way, highlighting the phonologic

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

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

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 vowel

Nasal vowel

A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...

Spanish vowels

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

letter	IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...	Portuñol	Pronunciation (IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... )	Spanish (Rioplatense dialect)	Portuguese	English
a	a	papa	[ˈpapa]	papa	batata	potato
a	a	catarata	[kataˈɾata]	catarata	catarata / queda d'água	waterfall
e	e	peshe	[ˈpeʃe]	pez	peixe	fish
e	e	detergente	[deterˈχente]	detergente	detergente	detergent
i	i, j	cisco	[ˈsisko]	basura	lixo	garbage
		niño	[ˈniɲo]	nido	ninho	nest
		ciá	[sja]	cenar	jantar/cear	to have dinner
o	o	*ontonte*	[onˈtonte]	anteayer	anteontem	day before yesterday
		oio	[ˈojo]	ojo	olho	eye
		poso	[ˈposo]	pozo	poço	well
u	u, w	yururú	[ʒuɾuˈɾu]	triste, melancólico	triste, melancólico/jururu	sad, melancholic
		nu	[nu]	en el	no / em	in the (m.)
		acuá	[aˈkwa]	ladrar	latir/ladrar	to bark

Semiopen vowels

They are like the vowels e and o, but pronounced in a more open

Open vowel

An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...

way, closer to an a.

letter	IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...	Portuñol	Pronunciation (IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... )	Spanish	Portuguese	English
é	ɛ	té	[tɛ]	té	chá	tea
		pél	[pɛl]	piel	pele	skin
		véia	[ˈvɛja]	vieja	velha	old (f.)
ó	ɔ	fófóca	[fɔˈfɔka]	chisme	fofoca	gossip
ó	ɔ	póso	[ˈpɔso]	puedo	posso	(I) can

Distinguishing the open-mid vowels (é, ó) is very important because they can change completely 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 vowel

Nasal vowel

s 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.

IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...	letters	Portuñol	Pronunciation (IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... )	Spanish	Portuguese	English
ã	ã	masã	[maˈsã]	manzana	maçã	apple
		lã	[lã]	lana	lã	wool
		sã	[sã]	sana (adj.)	sã	healthy (f.)
	an (*)	cansha	[ˈkãʃa]	cancha	campo desportivo	sports ground
ẽ	en (*)	pênsaũ	[ˈpẽsaw̃]	piensan	pensam	(they) think
ĩ	in (**)	*intonce*	[ĩˈtõse]	entonces	então	then
õ	õ	garsõ	[ɡarˈsõ]	mozo (de bar o restaurante)	garçon/empregado de mesa	waiter (bar, restaurant)
	õ	tõ	[tõ]	tono	tom	tone
	on (*)	intonce	[ĩˈtõse]	entonces	então	then
ũ, w̃	ũ	ũ	[ũ]	uno	um	one (m.)
		cũtigo	[kũˈtiɣo]	contigo	contigo	with you
		niñũa	[niˈɲũa]	ninguna	nenhuma	no one (f.)
		maũ	[maw̃]	mano	mão	hand

(*) 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

Rioplatense Spanish

, and where there is a reference to Portuguese, it refers to Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese

and more specifically the Gaúcho dialect (from the Brazilian Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...

letter	IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...	name	description	examples and counter-examples (eng=English, esp=Spanish, port=Portuguese)
b	b, β	be	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese. It is always a bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... .	brabo [ˈbɾaβo] (eng. angry, esp. enojado/bravo, port. zangado).
c	k, s	ce	It is used the same as in Spanish and Portuguese when before a vowel or a consonant different from h,. That is, it represents the phoneme [k] when it is followed by the vowels a, o, u, ã, õ, ũ, ó, another consonant than h; and it represents the phoneme [s] when it is located before the vowels e, i, é.	cacimba [kaˈsimba] (eng. hole with drinkable water, esp. cachimba, port. cacimba).
ch	tʃ	ce hache, che	It is always used as in Spanish and is equivalent to tch in Portuguese.	che [tʃe] (esp. che, port. tchê), bombacha [bomˈbatʃa] (underpants), bombasha [bomˈbaʃa] (gaucho's trousers).
d	d, ð	de	Used the same as in Spanish. It never represents, as in some regions of Brazil, the affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... [dʒ].	diploide [diˈplojðe] (eng. diploid, esp. diploide, port. diplóide [dʒiˈplɔjdʒi]).
f	f	efe	The same phoneme as in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
g	g, ɣ, χ	ge	It represents the same sound as in Spanish and Portuguese when located before a consonant or the vowels a, o, u, ã, õ, ũ, ó. It represents the same sound as the Spanish j (similar to English h) when located before the vowels e, i, é.	gagueyá [ɡaɣeˈʒa] (eng. to stammer, esp. tartamudear, port. gaguejar), geología [χeoloˈχia] (eng, geology, esp. geología, port. geologia).
h		hache	Silent, except when it follows a c or an s. In Portuñol, it is preferred not to use h when it is not present in the original word in Spanish or Portuguese.	hoye [ˈoʒe] (eng. today, esp. hoy, port. hoje), oso [ˈoso] (eng. bone, esp. hueso, port. osso)
j	χ	jota	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish (similar to English h).	jirafa [χiˈɾɑfɑ] sounds like Spanish and yirafa [ʒiˈɾafa] sounds like Portuguese (eng. giraffe, esp. jirafa, port. girafa)
k	k	ka	Represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese (and English).
l	l	ele	Represents the same phoneme as in Spanish or European Portuguese. In Brazilian Portuguese, an l at the end of a word sounds like an [u] or [w]; in Fronterizo this never happens.	Brazil [bɾaˈzil] (eng. Brazil, esp. and port. Brasil)
m	m	eme	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish (voiced bilabial nasal Bilabial nasal The bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m... ). In Portuguese, an m denotes many different sounds, depending on the preceding vowels.
n	n, ŋ	ene	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish, except the cases exposed in the nasal vowels section.	amên aˈmen] (eng. amen, esp. amén), amêñ [aˈmeɲ] (eng. amen, port. amém), inté [ĩˈtɛ] (eng. see you later, esp. hasta luego, port. até mais), sanga [ˈsaŋɡa] (eng. ditch, esp. zanja, port. valeta)
ñ	ɲ	eñe	Is the same phoneme as in Spanish (and which in Portuguese is represented by the digraph nh).	niño [ˈniɲo] (eng. nest, esp. nido, port. ninho), carpiñ [kaɾˈpiɲ] (eng. sock, esp. calcetín, port. meia), muñto [ˈmuɲto] (eng. a lot of, esp. mucho, port. muito), ruñ [ruɲ] (eng. wicked, bad or rotten, esp. malo, port. ruim)
p	p	pe	Represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese (and English).
q	k	cu	Represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese (and English). It is always followed by a u.
r	r, ɾ	erre, ere	It represents the same pair of phonemes as in Spanish.
s	s, z	ese	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish; except when at the end of a word and the following word begins with a vowel, or when located before a voiced consonant. In these cases it is phonetically equivalent to the Portuguese z [z].	asesino [aseˈsino] (eng. murderer, esp. asesino, port. assassino), read like in Portuguese it would be azezino [azeˈzino], a non-existent word in Portuñol; más flaco [masˈflako] (eng. skinnier, esp. más flaco, port. mais magro), más gordo [mazˈɣordo] (eng. fatter, esp. más gordo, port. mais gordo)
sh	ʃ	ese hache, she	It represents the same phoneme that is represented by the digraph ch in Portuguese (that is, the English sh)	shuva [ˈʃuva] (eng. rain, esp. lluvia, port. chuva); aflósha [aˈflɔʃa] (eng. don't disturb, esp. no molestes, port. não perturbe)
t	t	te	It represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and is never affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... .	tímidamente [ˈtimiðaˈmente] (eng. shyly, esp, tímidamente, port. timidamente [ˈtʃimidaˈmentʃi]).
v	v	ve	It represents the same phoneme as in Portuguese and English, that is, a voiced labiodental fricative Voiced labiodental fricative The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.... or more rarely a voiced bilabial fricative Voiced bilabial fricative -See also:* List of phonetics topics... .	vaso [ˈvaso] (eng. glass, esp. vaso, port. copo). When used as in Spanish, it becomes baso [ˈbaso] (eng. spleen, esp. bazo)
w	w	doblevê	It is used in the words derived from English, but it is convenient to follow the orthographic rules of Portuñol, for the words that are already part of this language.	whisky or uísqui [ˈwiski], show or shou [ʃow]
x	ks	equis, shis	It represents the consonant cluster [ks].	exelente [ekseˈlente] (eng. excellent, esp. and port. excelente)
y	ʒ, j	ye, í griega	As in Rioplatense Spanish, it is postalveolar (as the s in measure); except when at the end of a world which finishes with a diphthong Diphthong A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel... or a triphthong Triphthong In phonetics, a triphthong is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third... , in which case the sound is the same of Spanish or Portuguese i.	yurá [ʒuˈɾa] (eng. to swear, esp. jurar; port. jurar); Uruguay [uɾuˈɣwaj] (port. Uruguai); yacaré [ʒakaˈɾɛ] (eng. South American alligator, esp. yacaré, port. jacaré)
z	z	ceta	It represents the same phoneme as in Portuguese and English.	caza [ˈkaza] (eng. house, esp. casa, port. casa); casa [ˈkasa] (eng. hunting, esp. caza, port. caça)
zy	z, zʒ, ʒ	ceta ye	It is used in some words that have a phoneme which varies continuously between z and y (depending on the speaker).	cuazye [ˈkwazʒe] (eng. almost, esp. casi, port. quase); ezyemplo [ezˈʒemplo] (eng. example, esp. ejemplo, port. exemplo).

External links

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