10 Lessons about the “Mineirês” that you haven’t been told yet

Who has never heard of the curious and friendly accent from Minas Gerais? The State has a unique identity, marked by delicious cuisine, incredible mountain landscapes and, of course, the friendliness of the miners.

Therefore, the awesome.club discovered some very curious lessons from the ‘Mineirês’. Check it out with us and board this ‘train’.

The large presence of slaves was decisive in the formation of the accent of most of the miners. The slaves’ speech was characterized by exchanging, for example, the vowel ‘o’ for ‘u’ (‘cumer’, ‘sleep’) and cutting certain vowels. That’s why they said ‘oro’ instead of ‘gold’ or ‘cadera’ instead of ‘chair’.

Speakers born in the capital do not use the ‘r’ from the countryside of São Paulo or even from the Triângulo Mineiro, for example. speak little boy in place of boy. Use the present tense rather than the imperative. does this to me instead of ‘Knife’ this for me.

Some say that miners shorten words to save time and breath. But we discovered another theory about speaking from Minas Gerais that says that during the Inconfidência Mineira, they invented a form of communication to speak a secret quickly.

Inconfidência was one of the most important social movements in the history of Brazil. It expressed the struggle of the Brazilian people for freedom, against the oppression of the Portuguese government in the colonial period.

So, to prevent the infiltrators from divulging the information, they began to reduce the words to make it difficult to understand.

The evolution of the Minas Gerais accent is directly linked to the evolution of Brazilian Portuguese. In this sense, the so-called ‘corruption’ (described in dictionaries as “pronunciation or writing of a word, expression, etc., distanced from a language with greater social prestige”) may have contributed to the evolution of the erudite ‘Vossa Mercê’ to ‘Vosmercê’; then to ‘Vasmicê’, ‘Vancê’, arriving at the current ‘Você’. We do not doubt that the next step in this evolution will be the acceptance of “Vc’ instead of “Você”, in this case, not only due to the contribution of the miners, but of everyone who uses the Internet and social networks.

The Inconfidência Mineira became the ultimate symbol of resistance for the miners, like the War of the Farrapos for the gauchos, and the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 for the paulistas. But, during the 18th century, Brazil was still a colony of Portugal and suffered from political abuses and the collection of high fees and taxes. And the Portuguese accent also had its interference in the so-called ‘Mineirês’.

Maria do Carmo Viegas, professor of the Postgraduate Program in Linguistic Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) explains that, in Portuguese from Portugal, it was common for the letter “L”, in certain words, to gain the sound of “R”, as in the case of the word “some” becoming “arrgum”, and of “film”, changing to “firm”.

There are three possible sources for expression:

The first is that the term is a derivation of the term “uá” widely used among the Portuguese; Another possible path is the derivation of the English term “why” (why?) — the use would be related to the arrival of English immigrants; The inconfidentes would use a password to guarantee that the individual who was going to enter their meetings was trustworthy: he should knock three times on the door of the house and say the word “uai”, initials for União, Amor e Independência. But one real miner has a better answer than any of these:

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

For the scholar Jânia Ramos, from UFMG, the word “trem” derives from the Latin “trabere”, a verb that means “to take, or pull something, to drag”. According to his research, summarized in the document Minas, Uai!, in the 17th century, Father Antônio Vieira, during a sermon, used the phrase “prince train” to designate a “group of people (…) on long journeys”.

Over time, the word began to mean “objects taken on trips”, later, “set of garments”. In this way, the word that, for the miners, refers to practically everything, had its origin centuries ago.

‘At the!’ is a shortened form of ‘our!’, which in turn came from a shortening of the expression “Our Lady!” In the beginning it was a Catholic evocation, but today it is the simplest expression of everything related to astonishment.

The time has come to show some words used in everyday life to show a little more of the welcoming culture of Minas Gerais. Fichidioio!!!

Ansdionti (before yesterday)
Doncovim (where did i come from)
oncotô (where am I)
popekasman (you can take it with your hands)
Can you tell me? (whose son are you?)
Cessationbspasnassavas? (Do you know if this bus passes at Savassi? — Savassi is a neighborhood in Belo Horizonte)
Lidileit (liter of milk)
mysubrim (my nephew).

One of the greatest Brazilian writers, Guimarães Rosa, left us his declaration of love for mineiridade “Minas, there are many. However, few are those who know the thousand faces of Gerais.”

And you, do you have anything to do with jeitin minero? Contiprenti 🇧🇷