[LINK] "Brazilian-style spelling reform causing headaches in Portugal"

[rfmcdonald]

I, for one, welcome my Brazilian overlords? AFP's Thomas Cabral has more on how the linguistic hegemonism of Brazil is upsetting many Portuguese.

ortugal is finally applying a long-delayed accord to standardise spelling in Portuguese-speaking countries, but in random fashion that has left most residents baffled about how to use their alphabet.

Ironically, Portugal's press has taken the lead in using the new spelling while the government -- via the schools -- continues its hesitation waltz over a reform approved by parliament in 2008 after a 20-year debate.

"It is absurd," said Nuno Pacheco, co-director of one daily, the Publico, which has so far refused to enact "a reform full of contradictions".

"Our children read newspapers that do not use the same spelling they are taught at school," he said.

The confusion has revived an old sore point over what some saw as a David vs. Goliath battle -- only this time David lost: under the 1990 accord, spelling in the world's eight Portuguese-speaking countries moves to the more phonetic form employed by Brazil.

As opponents point out, the English and Americans co-exist as neighbours ... or neighbors, so why can't Portuguese-speaking countries do likewise.

"It is a bad spelling reform and a political instrument for the expansion of Brazil," said linguist Antonio Emiliano.

He and other critics see the reform, already in place in Brazil, as tantamount to Portugal's "cultural abdication" to the commercial power of its vast former colony -- which claims 190 million of the world's 230 million Portuguese speakers.

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The uniform spelling is aimed at making Internet searches easier, legal documents more standard and promote a bigger market for film and book productions in the Lusophone countries -- a world from the ancient Roman province of Lusitania, today's Portugal.

Outside Portugal and Brazil, these include Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Buissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe. Portuguese is also spoken in some Asian pockets, including the special Chinese administrative region of Macau and India's Goa state.

Under the reform, the consonants P and C -- which can sound very different in Rio, Lisbon or Maputo -- are removed where they are silent, as in Brazilian Portuguese. Words like "optimo" (great) or "direccao" (direction), as they have been spelled in Portugal, will become "otimo" and "direcao".

The reform also expands the Portuguese alphabet to 26 letters by adding K, W and Y, and includes some new rules for accents.