Published: 2025-10-14

Language minorities from Southern and Northern German-speaking Bohemia in Brazil

Sebastian Kürschner
Germanistische Werkstatt
Section: Linguistics
DOI https://doi.org/10.25167/pg.6027

Abstract

Various linguistic minorities in Brazil with a historical background in Bohemia are introduced and briefly characterized. A comparison shows that the Southern Bohemian language minority in São Bento do Sul (Santa Catarina) has essentially preserved its Bavarian dialect and that Portuguese influences are largely limited to the lexical level. In contrast, language minorities in three places in Rio Grande do Sul, each of which can be traced back to immigration from Northern Bohemia, show the loss of the original dialect: While traditionally attributed to Upper Saxonion-Silesian dialects, the speakers today use varieties with characteristics of West Central German or pronunciations close to the written language. The different developments are analyzed considering the complex relationships between dialect and standard language and interpreted regarding potential historical developments.

Keywords:

German in Brazil, emigration from Bohemia, Bavarian, Upper Saxon, Silesian, standard-dialect- constellations

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Citation rules

Kürschner, S. . (2025). Language minorities from Southern and Northern German-speaking Bohemia in Brazil. Germanistische Werkstatt, (14), 69–85. https://doi.org/10.25167/pg.6027

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