Uruguayan Portuguese


Uruguayan Portuguese, also known as fronteiriço and referred to by its speakers as portunhol, is a variety of Portuguese with heavy influence from Rioplatense Spanish. It is spoken in north-eastern Uruguay, near the Brazilian border, mainly in the region of the twin cities of Rivera and Santana do Livramento. This section of the frontier is called Frontera de la Paz, because there is no legal obstacle to crossing the border between the two countries.
The varieties of Uruguayan Portuguese share many similarities with the countryside dialects of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, such as the denasalization of final unstressed nasal vowels, replacement of lateral palatal with semivowel, no raising of final unstressed, alveolar trill instead of the guttural R, and lateral realization of coda instead of L-vocalization.
Recent changes in Uruguayan Portuguese include the urbanization of this variety, acquiring characteristics from urban Brazilian Portuguese such as distinction between and, affrication of and before and, and other features of Brazilian broadcast media.

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 was not very well defined, passing back and forth from the hands of one crown to the other. Before its independence after the Cisplatine War in 1828, Uruguay was one of the provinces of the Empire of Brazil.
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 lusophone communities through educational policies and language planning, and the bilingualism became widespread and diglossic.
The varieties of Uruguayan Portuguese vary 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. Not all Portuñol-speaking persons use the same pronunciation for the same words. 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, 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 :
letterIPAPortuñolPronunciation Spanish PortugueseEnglish
apapapapabatatapotato
acataratacataratacatarata / queda d'águawaterfall
epeshepezpeixefish
edetergentedetergentedetergentedetergent
iciscobasuralixogarbage
iniñonidoninhonest
iciácenarjantar/cearto have dinner
oontonteanteayeranteontemday before yesterday
ooioojoolhoeye
oposopozopoçowell
uyururútriste, melancólicotriste, melancólico/jururusad, melancholic
unuen elno / emin the
uacuáladrarlatir/ladrarto bark

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.
letterIPAPortuñolPronunciation SpanishPortugueseEnglish
ététéchátea
épélpielpeleskin
évéiaviejavelhaold
ófófócachismefofocagossip
ópósopuedoposso can

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

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 do not exist in Spanish and therefore are generally derived from Portuguese words.
IPAlettersPortuñolPronunciation SpanishPortugueseEnglish
ãmasãmanzanamaçãapple
ãlãlanalãwool
ãsãsana sãhealthy
an canshacanchacampo desportivosports ground
en pênsaũpiensanpensam think
in intonceentoncesentãothen
õgarsõmozo garçom/empregado de mesawaiter
õtõtonotomtone
on intonceentoncesentãothen
ũũunoumone
ũcũtigocontigocontigowith you
ũniñũaningunanenhumano one
ũmaũmanomãohand

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:

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.
letterIPAnamedescriptionexamples and counter-examples
b, beIt represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese. It is always a bilabial.brabo .
c, ceIt 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 when it is followed by the vowels a, o, u, ã, õ, ũ, ó, another consonant than h; and it represents the phoneme when it is located before the vowels e, i, é.cacimba .
chce hache, cheIt is always used as in Spanish and is equivalent to tch in Portuguese.che , bombacha , bombasha .
d, deUsed the same as in Spanish. It never represents, as in some regions of Brazil, the affricate.diploide .
fefeThe same phoneme as in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
g,, geIt 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 when located before the vowels e, i, é.gagueyá , geología .
hhacheSilent, 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 , oso
jjotaIt represents the same phoneme as in Spanish.jirafa sounds like Spanish and yirafa sounds like Portuguese
kkaRepresents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese.
leleRepresents the same phoneme as in Spanish or European Portuguese. In Brazilian Portuguese, an l at the end of a word sounds like an or ; in Fronterizo this never happens.Brazil
memeIt represents the same phoneme as in Spanish. In Portuguese, an m denotes many different sounds, depending on the preceding vowels.
n, eneIt represents the same phoneme as in Spanish, except the cases exposed in the nasal vowels section.amên , amêñ , inté , sanga
ñeñeIs the same phoneme as in Spanish.niño , carpiñ , muñto , ruñ
ppeRepresents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese.
qcuRepresents the same phoneme as in Spanish and Portuguese. It is always followed by a u.
r, erre, ereIt represents the same pair of phonemes as in Spanish.
s, eseIt 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.asesino , read like in Portuguese it would be azezino, a non-existent word in Portuñol; más flaco , más gordo
shese hache, sheIt represents the same phoneme that is represented by the digraph ch in Portuguese shuva ; aflósha
tteIt represents the same phoneme as in Spanish and is never affricate.tímidamente .
vveIt represents the same phoneme as in Portuguese and English, that is, a voiced labiodental fricative or more rarely a voiced bilabial fricative.vaso . When used as in Spanish, it becomes baso
wdoblevêIt 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, show or shou
xequis, shisIt represents the consonant cluster.exelente
y, ye, í griegaAs in Rioplatense Spanish, it is postalveolar ; except when at the end of a word ending in a diphthong or a triphthong, in which case the sound is the same of Spanish or Portuguese i.yurá ; Uruguay ; yacaré
zcetaIt represents the same phoneme as in Portuguese and English.caza ; casa
zy,, ceta yeIt is used in some words that have a phoneme which varies continuously between z and y.cuazye ; ezyemplo .