Barranquenho


Barranquenho is a Romance linguistic variety spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos, near the Spanish border. It is a mixed language, and can be considered either a variety of Portuguese heavily influenced by the Spanish dialects of neighbouring areas in Spain in Extremadura and Andalusia, or a Spanish dialect heavily influenced by Portuguese.
Barranquian speakers maintain that they speak neither Spanish nor Portuguese but a third language altogether different. Although contrary to certain claims, Barranquenho is intelligible to speakers of both languages, and especially similar to the Andalusian dialect. Ethnologue lists Barranquian as a dialect of Extremaduran, perhaps because Barrancos was populated by settlers from Badajoz, a city in Extremadura, though not in an Extremaduran language speaking area.
The development of Barranquenho seems to be relatively recent, unlike other minority linguistic varieties in the Iberian Peninsula which have medieval roots.

Characteristics

The Portuguese base of this dialect is extremely hidden behind the Spanish dialects that mold it. The most characteristic aspect of this dialect is the aspiration of the and in the end of the words, like in the Extremaduran and Andalusian dialects: cruh, buhcá.
Sometimes these letters can be completely muted: uma bê.
The Portuguese, and, usually pronounced as are pronounced as.
The and in the end of the words are not pronounced: Manué, olivá. But they appear again in the plural form: olivareh. If the is at the end of a syllable it turns into : argo. Like in Spanish, there is no differentiation between and, both are pronounced either as or. Just like in Extremaduran and some southern dialects of Portuguese, the -e suffix at the end of a word is pronounced, as opposed to in standard European Portuguese or in Spanish.
The Portuguese form of the first person of the plural nós is replaced by nusotrus - a variation of the Spanish nosotros. The placing of the pronouns is closer to the Spanish norm than to the Portuguese: se lavô.
It also contains many verbal forms of clearly Spanish conjugation: andubi ; supimos.

Recognition

The Portuguese government does not recognize nor protect the use of Barranquenho.