More on MERCOSUR
Aug. 19th, 2003 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom the Mercury News
Brazil's pivotal adoption of Spanish
MOVE COULD BE HISTORIC FOR LATIN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
By Andres Oppenheimer
When historians in the future are asked what was the most important development of the early 21st century in Latin America, they may cite something that is not making headlines anywhere nowadays: the gradual steps by Portuguese-speaking Brazil to adopt Spanish as a second language.
It sounds trivial, but Brazil -- which accounts for more than 50 percent of South America's economy, territory and population -- has always lived in relative isolation from its Spanish-speaking neighbors.
In part because of language, Brazilians have always read different books, watched different movies and seen different TV shows than most of their fellow Latin Americans. Even today, after more than a decade of unprecedented South American integration, Brazil remains an inward-looking giant.
Legislation in Brazil
But things are beginning to change. Last week, while the region's attention focused on the Brazilian Congress' preliminary approval of a crucial pension reform bill, Brazilian legislators were debating another measure that could prove even more important in the long term: the adoption of Spanish as a required language for Brazil's 43.5 million students in elementary and high schools.
Two similar bills are making their way through various commissions in Congress. A separate bill proposes that street signs be written in both Portuguese and Spanish.
``It's very likely that the Spanish language courses bill will pass,'' said Brazil's secretary of mid-level and technology education, Antonio Ibanez Ruiz. ``Unlike similar bills in the past, this one has the full support of the education ministry.''
The main bill could be approved by the Senate's Education Committee and go to a full Senate vote in coming weeks. As of now, Spanish is only taught extensively in southern states such as Rio Grande do Sul, Parana and Santa Catarina.
The proposal to make Spanish courses mandatory nationwide ``is key to the formation of a real Latin American community,'' the main bill says. It notes that Brazil is the only member of Mercosur -- the South American common market made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- where Spanish is not spoken.
Weighing the odds
Will a large number of Brazil's 175 million people be speaking Spanish in a few years?
The skeptic in me tells me to take this whole thing with a grain of salt. In 1998, the Brazilian Senate approved a bill aimed at making Spanish mandatory within five years. The lower house of Congress was expected to approve it in a matter of weeks.
What happened? The law passed, but was watered down. Its final version merely suggested that Spanish become mandatory, which was the same as saying nothing.
The plan never took off because Brazil's 27 states and their municipalities -- which pretty much run their own education programs -- did not have the funds to train or pay for an estimated 75,000 new Spanish teachers that were necessary to implement it.
New priorities this time
Sen. Lucia Vania, a sponsor of the latest bill, says this time the project is more realistic. Rather than setting targets impossible to achieve, it will simply make Spanish teaching mandatory and leave it to the federal government to set the chronology and pace of the program.
Now that Brazil and its neighbors have decided to make the revamping of Mercosur their top foreign policy priority, and that they once again have compatible exchange rates to make that happen, the language integration efforts are worth close monitoring. If they work, South America may become a stronger economic and political bloc than many may think.
ANDRES OPPENHEIMER is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald.
Brazil's pivotal adoption of Spanish
MOVE COULD BE HISTORIC FOR LATIN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
By Andres Oppenheimer
When historians in the future are asked what was the most important development of the early 21st century in Latin America, they may cite something that is not making headlines anywhere nowadays: the gradual steps by Portuguese-speaking Brazil to adopt Spanish as a second language.
It sounds trivial, but Brazil -- which accounts for more than 50 percent of South America's economy, territory and population -- has always lived in relative isolation from its Spanish-speaking neighbors.
In part because of language, Brazilians have always read different books, watched different movies and seen different TV shows than most of their fellow Latin Americans. Even today, after more than a decade of unprecedented South American integration, Brazil remains an inward-looking giant.
Legislation in Brazil
But things are beginning to change. Last week, while the region's attention focused on the Brazilian Congress' preliminary approval of a crucial pension reform bill, Brazilian legislators were debating another measure that could prove even more important in the long term: the adoption of Spanish as a required language for Brazil's 43.5 million students in elementary and high schools.
Two similar bills are making their way through various commissions in Congress. A separate bill proposes that street signs be written in both Portuguese and Spanish.
``It's very likely that the Spanish language courses bill will pass,'' said Brazil's secretary of mid-level and technology education, Antonio Ibanez Ruiz. ``Unlike similar bills in the past, this one has the full support of the education ministry.''
The main bill could be approved by the Senate's Education Committee and go to a full Senate vote in coming weeks. As of now, Spanish is only taught extensively in southern states such as Rio Grande do Sul, Parana and Santa Catarina.
The proposal to make Spanish courses mandatory nationwide ``is key to the formation of a real Latin American community,'' the main bill says. It notes that Brazil is the only member of Mercosur -- the South American common market made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- where Spanish is not spoken.
Weighing the odds
Will a large number of Brazil's 175 million people be speaking Spanish in a few years?
The skeptic in me tells me to take this whole thing with a grain of salt. In 1998, the Brazilian Senate approved a bill aimed at making Spanish mandatory within five years. The lower house of Congress was expected to approve it in a matter of weeks.
What happened? The law passed, but was watered down. Its final version merely suggested that Spanish become mandatory, which was the same as saying nothing.
The plan never took off because Brazil's 27 states and their municipalities -- which pretty much run their own education programs -- did not have the funds to train or pay for an estimated 75,000 new Spanish teachers that were necessary to implement it.
New priorities this time
Sen. Lucia Vania, a sponsor of the latest bill, says this time the project is more realistic. Rather than setting targets impossible to achieve, it will simply make Spanish teaching mandatory and leave it to the federal government to set the chronology and pace of the program.
Now that Brazil and its neighbors have decided to make the revamping of Mercosur their top foreign policy priority, and that they once again have compatible exchange rates to make that happen, the language integration efforts are worth close monitoring. If they work, South America may become a stronger economic and political bloc than many may think.
ANDRES OPPENHEIMER is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald.
