Hi David I was born in Sao Miguel and still speak Portuguese with the Sao Miguel accent. It sounds absolutely nothing like Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation. Its like night and day David. In fact many Azoreans have great difficulty understanding a Brazilian speaker. I delved a bit into all of this when I took some linguistic courses while pursuing my undergarduate degree. I have always been fascinated by languages. Two facts are in evidence. One concerns the pronunciation of the Portuguese language as spoken in Sao Miguel where several peculiarities remind the listener of French. The two most striking of these characteristics are the pronunciation depicted by the letter u ( escudo, Furnas) as u in the French tu and the sound depicted in the French dipthongs ou and oi ( ouro, noite as the eu or French peu (foot), roughly the ur of New England, "Burt". The French sounds in the Michalense ( Sao Miguel) pronunciation could be due to French influnce on parts of the island. The village known as Bretanha may have been settled by Bretons from Brittanny France, possibly ship wrecked sailors. At the western end of Sao Miguel there is a place called Ginetes, probably so called from a famous breed of jennets for which the island was noted. The name reminds of the French word jenet " heather" as in the English Royal House of Plantagenet ( ruled 1154-1399). The so called French u also exists in Corvo and parts of Madeira. The French u and eu are heard in Continental Portugal specifically in the region known as the Upper Alentejo where the families of many Azoreans originated. Some scholars say that if it had been washed up Breton sailors or fishermen or sailors or pirates at the end of the 16th century they would have Celtic speaking and not French speaking. So maybe in order to confirm or deny the theory of Breton influence we must examine the Celtic phonological system. Having said all that David, there is no concrete evidence that Frenchmen did so settle, much less influence the pronunciation of Michaelense. The matter of pronumnciation impinges on that of provenience. Lingustic evidence however, strongly suggests that the early setllers of Sao Miguel came from southern Portugal from the Algarve region and from Upper Alentejo and it is the pronunciation from those regions that influenced Michaelense. Still others hold to the French theory. I hope this helps at least partially explain the Portuguese language pronumciation as spoken in Sao Miguel. Herb
On Friday, July 12, 2013 4:10:06 PM UTC-4, David Perry wrote: > I'm starting to learn Portuguese and everything I see and hear doesn't > sound at all like what I remember as a child while listening to my born in > Sao Miguel father talking to his relatives and neighbors, all of whom spoke > only Portuguese. For instance, I specifically remember very well two > words: "legs" which my father pronounced pad-nish (doesn't sound at all > like what I see in a dictionary - pernas) and chourico which my father > pronounced shoo-dees. How different is the Sao Miguel Portuguese from > Lisbon Portuguese? Are there a few general rules I can follow such as "r's > sound like d's" or "drop the ending vowel" as in the two examples above? > David > -- For options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to azores@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores.
