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chapotraphouse @hexbear.net Diuretic_Materialism [he/him] @hexbear.net

I'm really embarrassed because I just realized my coworker who I thought was Hispanic is actually Brazilian...

I said something Spanish to him and he started laughing cuz he was like "Lol I speak Portuguese".

Motherfucker how was I supposed to know!

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  • I don't think that a Brazilian or Portuguese speaker is going to be inclined to take much offence tbh.
    (Though there is a degree of pride in Brazilians identifying that their language is Brazilian/Brazilian Portuguese which I respect.)

    I think Portuguese speakers are pretty aware that the language is considered the younger sibling of Spanish. It's probably just a "Not again..." situation for your coworker, who isn't going to give it a second thought, just like a Montenegrin is gonna feel brief, transient exasperation that, yes, they come from that country nextdoor to Serbia.

    Also the next time you say something Spanish to a Portuguese speaker and they tell you this, the best response is "So?? That doesn't mean you can't understand what I just said." and they're probably going to have a good laugh about it because there's so much mutual-intelligibility between Spanish and Portuguese that you will get them on that technicality.

    • I think Portuguese speakers are pretty aware that the language is considered the younger sibling of Spanish

      idk if you meant this as in "its overshadowed by spanish" or literally that portugues is a newer language but i think its more apt to say they're cousins. They both descend from vulgar latin and are contemporary languages. The real thing is just that spanish speakers are more ubiquitous especially in the USA.

      otherwise i agree with all of that,

      "So?? That doesn't mean you can't understand what I just said."

      especially this bit bc i do that to my partner all the time lol

      • Yeah, my phrasing was pretty clunky ngl. I was going to say "the little brother" but I put some effort into not inserting gender into my language where I can but I tripped up on how that made me word that sentence.

        I was trying to say that Portuguese is generally perceived to be the junior partner to Spanish just like how Dutch is to German - people tend to think that it's that language which sounds pretty similar but that it holds less importance or prestige because it isn't as widespread. I don't agree with this perception at all though and I think it's super weird that people give more or less prestige to certain languages. Or even dialects of the same language, for that matter.

        (Literally the other day I got into it with someone about Jamaican patois being its own language and not just "Funny English with a bad accent and some slang terms" but, apparently, this person had themselves convinced that half of the academics in linguistics would agree with their take rather than shrugging their shoulders and responding with "Well how are you going to define a language anyway?"
        I mean I'm sure there's some Eton scholar toffs who would die on that hill, that Jamaican patois isn't a legitimate language in itself, but I have no respect for a chauvinist who wraps up their bullshit in the trappings of academia anyway.)

        • Ah yeah thats fair and I figured you could be coming at it from that direction, people just have a lot of assumptions about language so you never know lol

          Language is such a base part of life but people don’t tend to think about it much deeper outside of what’s necessary to communicate so sometimes stuff like that happens

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