Carioca

For other uses, see Carioca (disambiguation).

Carioca (Portuguese: [kaɾiˈɔkɐ] ( listen)) is a Portuguese adjective or demonym that is used to refer to the native inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro - capital of the homonym state (RJ), in Brazil. The original word, "Kara'i oca," comes from the indigenous Amerindian language of the Tupi people, meaning "White Man's House." The demonym meaning for the state of Rio de Janeiro is Fluminense, taken from the Latin word "flumen", meaning "River". So for instance, someone from Niterói is Fluminense and Niteroiense and someone from Rio is Fluminense and Carioca.

It is said that the first Portuguese dwellings in Rio de Janeiro were placed along a limpid stream, which soon got the Portuguese name "Carioca". The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census numbers for the Rio de Janeiro (state) are: 8,576,000 white people (53.6%), 5,376,000 Pardo people (33.6%), 1,920,000 black people (12%) and 128,000 Asian or Amerindian people (0.8%). The last PNAD census for Rio de Janeiro (city) is: 3,193,588 white people (50.5%), 2,244,997 Pardo people (35.5%), 809,463 black people (12,8%) and 75,887 Asian or Amerindian people (1.2%). Cariocas, like other Brazilians, speak Portuguese.

Cariocas love beach, sun, sea and parties. Carioca women are known for their tanned skin and body shapes. Rio bikinis are the best sellers in the whole world. Cariocas have a privileged view. Some of the turistic points they have are the Sugarloaf Mountain (Brazil), Christ the Redeemer (statue) and Estádio do Maracanã/Ginásio do Maracanãzinho.

Carioca people invented some sports, but the most famous are footvolley and beach tennis.

Cariocas are credited with creating the bossa nova, mpb, samba and funk carioca, famous rhythms in Brazil. Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, João Gilberto, Toquinho, Elis Regina, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia are some of the singers who are inspired by people from Rio to make their songs.

According to a survey published in American Scientist Magazine, the Cariocas of Rio de Janeiro exhibited great friendliness and offered to help in various situations. A quote from the article mentioned pointed to the following :

“

There is an important word in Brazil: simpático (or "carismático"). It refers to a range of desirable social qualities - to be friendly, nice, agreeable, and good-natured. A person who is fun to be with and pleasant to deal with.... Brazilians, especially the Cariocas of Rio (as citizens here are known), want very much to be seen as simpático. And going out of one's way to assist strangers is part of this image.

”

Accent/Dialect

Language: The Brazilian Portuguese variety spoken in the city of Rio de Janeiro (and metropolitan area) is called "Carioca". It is known for a number of distinctive traits, most notably:

1. /s/ and /z/ when not pre-vocalic become the postalveolar [ʃ] and [ʒ].
2. /r/, and /ɾ/ when not pre-vocalic (see guttural R) become a voiceless velar [x], or a similar sound (e.g. uvular [χ], glottal [h] or a pharyngeal [ħ]). Voiced versions of at least some of these can be heard as well.
3. The consonants /t/ and /d/ before /i/ become affricates [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ], respectively.

These traits (particularly the chiado, i.e. pronouncing [ʃ] [ʒ] instead of [s], and the pronunciation [tʃi] [dʒi]) were once specifically characteristic of Rio de Janeiro speech, and distinguished particularly from the pronunciation of São Paulo and areas further south, which formerly had none of these characteristics. The chiado is thought to date from the early 1800's occupation of the city by the Portuguese royal family (as the Portuguese of Portugal has the same characteristic), while the pronunciation [tʃi] [dʒi] is known to have originated in early 20th-century Rio speech. More recently, however, all of these traits have spread throughout much of the country due to the cultural influence of the city. The use of [tʃi] [dʒi] is now nearly universal among younger speakers throughout Brazil. The "guttural R" is also found country-wide, although to a lesser extent in speakers in the far south (Rio Grande do Sul) and certain rural (Caipira) speakers. The chiado has the least national presence, although it too is found in other areas, e.g. in the Northeast.

Another common characteristic of Rio speech is the addition of /j/ before stressed final /s/ (e.g. mas, dez become [majʃ], [dɛjʃ]). This change may have originated in the Northeast, where pronunciations such as Jesús [ʒeˈzujs] have long been heard.

There are some grammatical characteristics in speech, an important one is the mixing of the formal and informal second person pronouns você and tu, even in the same speech. For instance, while normative Portuguese requires lhe as oblique for você, and te as oblique for tu, in Carioca Portuguese the formal você is used for all cases. In informal speech, the pronoun tu is retained, but with the verb forms belonging to the form você: Tu foi na festa? (Did you go to the party?); so the verbal forms are the same for both você and tu.

Many Cariocas, as well as many Paulistas, will shorten "você", using "cê" instead: "Cê vai pra casa agora?" (Are you going home now?), this practice, however, is only on the spoken language, it is usually not written this way.

The slightly different variety of Brazilian Portuguese language spoken in the remainder of the state of Rio de Janeiro is called "Fluminense". The so called chiado (pronouncing /ʃ/ instead of [s]), typical of the city of Rio, is absent in the Southwestern varieties of Fluminense (around Paraty, Barra Mansa and Volta Redonda). In the Northern varieties of Fluminense (from the city of Niterói northwards), usage similar to the Capixaba accent may be observed. For instance, the article is most likely dropped before personal names (using Maria where Cariocas would say a Maria) and with certain words such as papai, mamãe, fulano (de papai instead of do papai; por mamãe instead of pela mamãe; com fulano instead of com o fulano).

Slang words among youngsters from Rio de Janeiro include caraca! (gosh!) [now spread throughout Brazil], e aê? and qualé/quaé/coé? (whuzzup?), and maneiro (cool, fine, interesting, amusing) and sinistro (in Standard Portuguese, "sinister"; in slang, "awesome", "terrific", but also "terrible", "troublesome", "frightening", "weird"). Most of these slang words can be found in practically all of Brazil. Carioca accents are the most famous in Brazil, because Rede Globo, the third largest television network in the world, is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro and a lot of programs, be it news and documentary or entertainment, such as the novelas, have carioca artists.

See also

• Caipira
• Gaucho
• Carcamano
• Funk carioca