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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 975

Part of Session 160: Languages in contact in Brazil (Other abstracts in this session)

Brasildeutsch: a dialect variation of German ?

Authors: Savedra, Mônica Maria Guimarães
Submitted by: Savedra, Mônica Maria Guimarães (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil)

The latest version of the Ethnologue published 2009 provide a listing of the  6.909 known living languages of the world, wich are known to have  5,959,511,717 living  speakers who learned them by transmission from parent to child as the primary language of the day-to-day communication. According to the distribution of languages by number of first-language speakers Germans is at tenth place with 90.3 million living speakers distributed in 43 countries /regions.  German is a pluricentric language with three main areas of usage: Austria, Germany and Switzerland. But the variation of standard German can be also discussed as  the only official language (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein);  as co-official language (Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy - Alto Adige) and  c) as a minority language (Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Croatia, Denmark , Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, USA, France, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Namibia, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Tajikistan, Togo, Ukraine)I

In this paper we discuss not only the variation of standard German but the dialect variation of German as a minority language in Brazil which touches on the use of ethno-cultural diversity  in  particular historical, social, political and geographical context and that is called in several cases as Brasildeutsch. Brasildeutsch  is a generic name for German dialect  spoken in the southern States of Brazil (mainly Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul). German dialects are in use in Brazil as a result of German settlements, made by Germans, Swiss and Austrians. These dialects evolved through foreign borrowings. They were influenced by other German dialects, other immigrant languages — especially Talian, and Brazil's national language, Portuguese.

The most commonly spoken Brazilian German dialects are Riograndenser Hunsrückisch,  a Brazilian variation of the Hunsrückisch , Donauschwäbisch, Pomeranian or Pommersch and Plautdietsch

We also discuss the place of Brasildeutsch as a special dialect variation to the standard German considered both as a regional identity that perpetuates the language, culture and the origins of the German immigrants of the nineteenth century and  also as the product of language contact between different dialect variations of German in contact with the Portuguese of Brazil. The discussion is based on  the dialect  varitions of  German in Brazil and some aspects of the identity conflict such as loss of identity, loss of memory, identity conflict;   identities in motion; migrant identity.