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Mineiro

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Mineiro (feminine, Mineira) is the Portuguese term for the inhabitants of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and also the characteristic dialect spoken in the heart of that state.

History

Main article: Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais was settled during the late 17th and early 18th century by a mix of recent Portuguese immigrants (reinóis,or "emboabas"), and earlier colonists that came from São Paulo (paulistas). There was an intense rivalry between the two groups, fighting over the gold mines (from which the name of the province was taken, Minas Gerais meaning "General Mines"). These conflicts required the intervention of Portuguese Crown after a serious uprisal developed into civil war (Guerra dos Emboabas) with the final defeat of "paulistas" in 1708. See the article "Guerra dos Emboabas" in Portuguese language Misplaced Pages.

The distinctive character of the Mineiro dialect lay on the Portuguese then spoken in the Northern region of Portugal, "Minho", where most migrants came from. Recently, the influence of mineiro has been increasing and spreading, due to local pride and rejection of other dialects.

Dialect Characteristics

  • Reduction (and often loss) of final and initial unstressed vowels, especially e, i and u: parte ("part") becomes part' (with soft affricate T).
  • Assimilation of consecutive vowels: o urubu ("the vulture") becomes u rubu.
  • Weakening (and usual loss) of final /r/ and /s/: cantar ("to sing", with the final /r/ sounding like the "r" in the French name Pierre) becomes cantá and os livros ("the books") becomes us livru.
  • Loss of the plural ending /s/ in adjectives and nouns, retained only in articles and verbs: meus filhos ("my children") becomes meus filho.
  • Intense liaison: abra as asas ("spread your wings") becomes abrazaza. Para onde nós estamos indo? ("Where are we going?") becomes Pronoistamuíno?.
  • Reduction of the inventory of unstressed vowels to only /a/, /i/ and /u/ (/e/ becomes /i/ and /o/ becomes /u/, while /a/ changes height).
  • Realization of most /ʎ/ as : alho ("garlic") becomes homophonous with aio.
  • Replacement of some diphthongs with long vowels: fio (thread) becomes fii, pouco (few) becomes poco.
  • Apocope of final syllables. -lho becomes (filho → fii' ), -inho becomes -inh' (pinho → pinh' ).
  • Soft pronunciation of "r": rato ("mouse") is pronounced .
  • Sonorization of final "s" before a vowel.
  • Diphtongation of stressed vowels in two words: mas ("but") becomes maiz and três ("three") becomes treiz.
  • Occasional affrication of "d" before "e" at the beginning of the word: deserto ("desert") is pronounced instead of .
  • Loss of initial "e" in words beginning with "es": esporte becomes .
  • Another important trait of Mineiro is the absence of remarkable features of other dialects, like the retroflex R (caipira), the palatalization of S (carioca), the strong dental R (gaucho) or the "sing-song" nordestino intonation.

See also

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