Talian dialect

Not to be confused with talion law (lex talionis).

Talian is a dialect spoken mainly in the wine-producing area of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Talian is sometimes called Vêneto (brasileiro). Talian is also spoken in other parts of Rio Grande do Sul as well as in parts of the neighboring state of Santa Catarina to the north.

Despite the similar names, Talian is not derived from standard Italian (actually called grammatical Italian in Brazil), but is mainly a mix of Venetian dialects influenced by other dialects of North Italy as well as local Portuguese: indeed it is also called Veneto (brasileiro).

History

Italian settlers first began arriving into this region in the middle 19th century. These settlers were mainly from Veneto, a region at the north of Italy, where Venetian was spoken, but also from Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

Although these immigrants came from Italy, as time went by a uniquely southern Brazilian dialect emerged. Veneto became the basis for this Italian-Brazilian regionalism. However, it was also very much influenced not only by other Italian dialects but by Portuguese, the national language of Brazil.

Because its grammar and lexicon remain predominantly Venetian, Talian is not considered a creole language, the preponderance of non-Venetian loanwords notwithstanding.

Like Riograndenser Hunsrückisch (hunsriqueano riograndense), the main German dialect spoken by southern Brazilians of German origin, Talian has suffered great depreciation since the 1940s. At that time, then-President Getúlio Vargas started a campaign of nationalization (similar to the Nacionalismo of neighboring Argentina) to try to force non-Portuguese speakers of Brazil to "better integrate" into the national mainstream culture. Speaking Talian or German in public, especially in education and press, was forbidden.

As a result of the traumas of Vargas' policies, there is, even to this day, a stigma attached to speaking these languages.

Speakers

Talian is mainly spoken in the southern Brasilian states of Rio Grande do Sul (where the language was declared part of the cultural and historical heritage), Santa Catarina and Paraná.

Some estimate goes up to one million speakers today.

External links

• La Rena Brasil
• Portuguese essay, written by Bernardette Soldatelli Oliboni A estigmatização como fator determinante dos bloqueios de fala de descendentes de italianos no nordeste do Rio Grande do Sul ("Stigmatization as a determining impeding factor to the language of descendants of Italians in the northeast of Rio Grande do Sul")
• Main Dialects of Rio Grande do Sul
• Il "talian"
• Musibrasil
• Talian, heritage of Rio Grande do Sul