# Pronunciation in Lusophone nations



## Beobachter

Does the Portuguese spoken in Lusophone nations apart from Brazil closely resemble that spoken in Portugal with regard to basic pronunciation rules? Are there significant differences among the nations? I am particularly interested in the sovereign nations: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor Leste.


----------



## Outsider

I must confess that I do not know much about this issue. I have met or heard some Africans here in Portugal, but not terribly many, and of course their accents are likely to change a bit after they move here.

My unstructured impressions are:

- I would not say that Africans in general sound the same as Portuguese
- the accents of Africans vary a lot
- in some ways, their pronunciation may be closer to that of Brazilians -- though, again, there is a lot of variation, and some Africans or second-generation African immigrants can sound 100% native Portuguese.
- nevertheless, an African accent is definitely not the same as a Brazilian accent. I would broadly describe African accents as somewhere in the middle, between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese.
- they're rather nice sounding, actually. 

As far as the Timorese are concerned, I know even less. I've only ever heard a few of their politicians speaking Portuguese. Xanana Gusmão has a strange, funny intonation, with the vowels lengthened where you expect them to be shorter, and shortened where you don't expect them to be.

Perhaps you'll get lucky, and someone who actually knows those countries will reply.


----------



## MarcB

Aqui pode escutar alguns exemplos.


----------



## Macunaíma

Try searching the web for this song: *É Doce Morrer no Mar*, sung by *Marisa Monte* & *Cesárea Évora*. It's a duetto between a Brazilian and an African singer. Besides being a very nice song, it will give you an insight into the difference of pronunciation between Brazilian and African Portuguese ( Cesárea is from Cabo-Verde )


----------



## Vanda

Menino, dez a zero para você. Gente aqui vão Cesaria e Marisa. A primeira voz é da Cesaria, a mais suave/aguda é da Marisa. Realmente já ouvi alguns africanos com este sotaque por estas plagas.

In the link above, the song cited by Macunaíma. The first voice belongs to Cesaria, the second one to Marisa Monte. I've also listened to some African people in here with an accent similar to Cesaria's.


----------



## Outsider

I think Cesária barely speaks Portuguese in real life, though. She usually sings in Creole.


----------



## Lusitania

In East Timor you'll find very few people speaking Portugues, unless they've studied in Portugal or have studied in Portuguese schools. They basically speak tetum.
In Guinea-Bissau people speak the language spoken in their tribe in the cities they speak portuguese and their accent is more like the Angolan accent.
I think that the in Cape Verde, in spite of the several creole dialects they manage to speak portuguese more close to the one spoken in Portugal. I've also felt that in Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe it's quite similar. But there are so many dialects and other languages. 
Probably because I've always been in close contact with African communities here I felt that the diference in pronunciation was more with the brazilian portuguese as it seems to have been added more sugar


----------



## Beobachter

I was particularly interested in pronunciation of the sibilants. In Cabo Verde, for instance, would one use /s/ and /z/ as in Brazil, or /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ as in Portugal? To my ear (untrained, unfortunately, in Portuguese), Cesárea Évora does not seem to use the same pronunciation as the speaker in the audio sample linked by MarkB.


----------



## JGreco

To me some of the most beautiful Portuguese spoken is that of Cape Verde. When hearing Cesaria Evora sing in Portuguese she has very smooth intonation. The way she speaks is kind of a intermediary between the extremes of Brasilian versus Eu.Portuguese. It has been said that the portuguese spoken in Cape Verde is even easier for a native castellano speaker to understand.


----------



## Outsider

Beobachter said:


> I was particularly interested in pronunciation of the sibilants.


Na canção para que a Vanda ligou acima, a Cesária usa /s/ e /z/ -- a Marisa Monte usa /sh/ e /zh/.


----------



## SofiaB

I listened to 2 speakers from the link in post #3 Caboverdiano and Guineense they say /sh/ e /zh


----------



## Macunaíma

As Outsider said, Marisa Monte pronounces the /S/ sounds as /sh/, as the Portuguese in general do. That's because she is from Rio de Janeiro, where /S/ sounds are pronounced in the same way as in Portugal. There are other parts of Brazil where the /S/ is pronounced /sh/ ( Pará, in the North of Brazil, is another example ), but it is a marked pronunciation, i.e., that's not the standard of Brazilian Portuguese. In most of Brazil (like Minas Gerais, where I live, for example),  people pronounce /S/ sounds as /S/, as Cesárea Évora did.


----------



## Lusitania

We get to this part of the xixi or xéxé, I always get confused.  
They all basically sound different, from country to country and inside the country from region to region.


----------



## MarX

Lusitania said:


> In East Timor you'll find very few people speaking Portugues, unless they've studied in Portugal or have studied in Portuguese schools. They basically speak Tetum.


That's true. At least today, most East Timorese generally understand and speak Indonesian better than Portuguese, although that may change in the future.
The only East Timorese I knew who spoke Portuguese had an accent closer to Portugal than to Brazil.

Salam,


MarX


----------



## Frajola

Outsider said:


> I think Cesária barely speaks Portuguese in real life, though. She usually sings in Creole.


 



To the point of always having an interpreter along with her in her trips to Brazil. In her concerts, she'll barely address the Brazilian fans. 

Truth be told, she's a a tad bit averse to the spotlight. What's mroe, I have seen her excitingly participaing in an interview with Marisa Monte. She seemed to understand a lot better than put her thoughts together in Portuguese. Still, she didn't back away.

But who cares, right? She's awesome.



Brazilian music is an obvious influence on Cape Verdean music. Cesária has also recorded a version of Brazilian classic, "Negue" (Adelino Moreira & Enzo de Almeida), made HUGELY popular by Brazilian singer, Maria Bethania, back in the 70's(?). It's an exquisitely simple song.

Here (youtube), Cesária is beautifully accompanied by the incredible Cuban pianist, Chucho Valdez (a.k.a. "The Duke Ellington of Cuba").

I like the way Cesária pronounces a 'b' for the 'v' in the word 'covardia'. So cute! 

Also her open pronunciation of the word 'eu' stands out. She blends the words in the phrase 'que o' into a 'coo'. She seems to have trouble producing the open vowels and the nasal 'não'.

I wonder how much of all that has to do with the fact that she barely speaks a word of Portuguese.

Other than that, her pronunciation is pretty spot on, I think.

Vanda, sorry about the 'off-topicness' of this post.



EDIT: the song is on youtube, guys!


----------



## Outsider

Frajola said:


> I like the way Cesária pronounces a 'b' for the 'v' in the word 'covardia'. So cute!)


That part is not so unusual. In Portugal, the word exists in two variants, "covardia" and "cobardia".



Frajola said:


> Cesária has also recorded a version of Brazilian classic, "Negue" (Adelino Moreira & Enzo de Almeida), made HUGELY popular by Brazilian singer Maria Bethania back in the 70's(?).


It was popular in Portugal, too.


----------



## arbilab

Portuguese strongly influences Hawaiian pidgin English.  Portuguese migrants to Hawaii mostly did so over 100 years ago, and have adopted English almost exclusively.  But the lyrical pattern of Portuguese speech has influenced the local adaptation of English phrasing and pronunciation, disproportionally to their numbers which are greatly exceeded by Asian--Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino.


----------



## Denis555

I've had the opportunity of talking to Angolans a few times and their pronunciation seems to be somewhere in the middle between Br-Pt and Eu-Pt. They do have a clearly distinctive Angolan intonation, though.


----------



## Dona Chicória

What called _my_ attention regarding this beauuuutiful version of this Brazilian song, was the diference between Cesaria and Marisa in the pronunciation of "r", as in "verdes".

Cesária more like a strong "r", Marisa more like a light "r" (almost an "h" , as she is from Rio).

But when Cesária sings other songs ( Cabo Verdian ?), it's more difficult to understand the lyrics.


----------

