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Javier Navarro
Anthropology 353
February 17, 2010
Dr. Wills

Language Policy and Planning in Brazil

There several languages spoken throughout Brazil, however of these languages,
Portuguese is recognized as the official language of the country. Other languages
however are not fully recognized by researchers since researchers tend to avoid
studying these languages due to the difficulty of finding native speakers in the Brazilian
Amazon (Everett, 2004). However, the languages that are known belong to a few
branches of speech such as the Tupi-Guarani language family. The Tupi-Guarani
language family is mostly spoken in southern Brazil. Many language branches have
merged since there are a few native speakers remaining who still speak the language
(Everett, 2004). Other Tupi-Guarani branch languages have merged due to the
migration from their native lands such as the Oro-Win language group of speakers with
the Wari language speakers in central Brazil (Everett, 2004). In northern Brazil, the
best-known language family is the Andean-Equatorial language family. Of the AndeanEquatorial language family, the most widely spoken language branch by indigenous
people of northern Brazil is the Quechua language (Quechua, 2010). Outside of the
indigenous languages of Brazil, Brazilian Portuguese, the official language, is known to
have six dialects, which are referred by the regions of Brazil such as the south, east,
southeast, center-west, northeast, and Brasilia dialect (Bortoni, 1991).
Even though the official language in Brazil is Portuguese, the Brazilian
government takes what is considered a passive approach when it comes to the spread

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of the Portuguese language. The only real language policy that Brazil has involves
foreign students. As of 1992 any foreign student wants to attend a university in Brazil
must learn Portuguese prior to admission to a Brazilian university (Da Silva &
Gunnewiek, 1992). With internal language policy however, even though Brazil wants
every to learn Portuguese, Brazil is sensitive to the indigenous people native language.
In the late nineteen nineties, Brazil introduced special bilingual classes aimed at
preserving the native languages of the Amazonian tribes (Gamini, 1998). Rather than
making the indigenous people learn only Portuguese, the Brazilian government decided
to embrace the surviving indigenous languages in order to preserve language diversity
within Brazils borders. This internal policy has had some backlash within indigenous
tribes. Although they do desire pass their language to future generations, many fear that
emphasizing on their native tongue is going to put them at a disadvantage economically
because the national is still Portuguese (Murphy, & Vencio, 2009).
Outside of governmental language policy is a slightly different view from the
policy that the Brazilian government holds. This is shown when a majority of people
were asked to participate in a study that did an analysis of what people thought was the
official language and the official dialect. Many of the participants claimed that the official
language was not just Portuguese but Brazilian Portuguese while disregarding local
dialects and tribal languages. Based on the study of Brazilian dialects, the majority of
the Brazilian participants said that there is no difference in dialect from different regions
of Brazil (Bortoni, 1991). This was even though researchers noticed that the participants
were able to notice speech differences when only allowing the participants to hear the
speaker. From these finding however, many Brazilians agreed that the correct of

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Brazilian speech pattern was the one that is spoken on television, which normally
composed of a southern Brazilian dialect (Bortoni, 1991).
Brazil takes two different approaches in teaching language to its population. This
is because Brazil currently has an eleven point eight percent illiteracy rate within Brazil
(Fochtman, 2007). However, according to the United Nations, Brazils true illiteracy rate
is closer twenty percent of the population (Fochtman, 2007). Brazils large population of
non-readers has prompted the Brazilian government to take two different approaches to
combat the high illiteracy rate. The first approach is that Brazil is increasing spending on
education in order to increase the literacy rate from its current level of eighty-nine
percent (Fochtman, 2007). Brazils second approach to increasing the literacy rate is to
allow the indigenous tribes to continue to learn their own language alongside with
Portuguese. By allowing the indigenous to continue using their own language, brazil
increases the literacy rate within the indigenous tribes since it is encouraging the tribe to
not only learn and promote their language but as well as the national language (Gamini,
1998; Murphy, & Vencio, 2009).
Since the early 1600s Brazil has had a long history of migration. Brazils
immigration first started with migrants arriving from Portugal. This was followed by the
influx of from several African nations. It is estimated that some 3.8 million Africans
slaves arrived in brazil since 1538 up until the end of slavery in Brazil in 1888 (Geipel,
1997). Concurrently while the slave influx was taking place, Brazil also experienced an
influx of immigrants that came mostly from Europe but as well as from Asia since 1875;
some of those countries are Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan and Poland (MSU, 2004).

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Brazils internal conflicts are with land conflicts, which have to do with the issue
of rental land prosperities within Brazil. Currently, several land-holding owners have
underutilized land. Since brazil has a large poor population that do not currently own
land, Brazilian law states that land that is underutilized can be seized and sold to the
poor (Alston & Mueller 2010). Other conflict that Brazil currently is experiencing is
deforestation. Deforestation is a major issue with the indigenous population since the
indigenous rely on the forest for their daily needs. Deforestation has prompted many of
the indigenous population to start to abandon their culture and language since they
cannot rely on the forest for their food, which has caused many indigenous people to
leave the forest and adapt to the mainstream culture (Alston & Mueller 2010).
Currently, there are more than five hundred and thirty publishing houses in
Brazil, of which these publishing houses published an average over thirty five thousand
titles a year. Eighty-nine percent of the books were published in Portuguese, with the
remaining being translated books in other languages (Mota, 2005).
Based on my language planning and policy analysis of Brazil, I have concluded
that Brazil currently has a good language policy in the country. Brazil is setting goals in
language acquisition that are directed towards lowering the illiteracy rate since currently
twelve percent of the Brazilian population cannot read or write in the official language of
Brazil. Based on my research, Brazil has already made strides in lowering the illiteracy
rate from twenty-five percent to the current twelve percent. Brazil has even gone to the
point of preserving the native languages of brazil by encouraging its native population
to not only learn the official language in Brazil, but as well as helping the
indigenousness people maintain their language. Based on my findings however, I found

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it to be a bit disturbing to know that although hundreds of books are published in

Portuguese as well as other languages, less than one percent of published books are
written in any of the native language in Brazil. This low percentage of native language
publishings should prompt Brazil to find a way to encourage the publishing companies
to publish more material in the indigenous language of the indigenous people.

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