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Dialogo Em Defensam Da Lingua Portuguesa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edwin E. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania

Extract

The first Portuguese grammar was that of Fernāo de Oliveira, which appeared in 1536, and the first linguistic discussion in dialogue form in Portuguese was the Dialogo em louvor da nossa linguagem of Joāo de Barros, which was published with his grammar in 1540. Though Fernāo de Oliveira mentioned Nebrija, there is no evidence that Joāo de Barros knew anything about Juan de Valdés or his Dialogo de las linguas. The Dialogo of Joāo de Barros is a dialogue between a father and son, in which the son merely asks questions; it is, therefore, more expository than argumentative.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1936 , pp. 636 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

1 A second edition of this Dialogo appeared in Lisbon in 1785; a copy of it is in the Boston Public Library. A modern edition was published at Coimbra in 1917 by Professor Luciano Pereira da Silva, but is already out of print.

2 Read: favoreceo.

3 Read: porque.

4 Read: avem.

5 These eight lines are found in the Dialogo em louvor da nossa linguagem of Joāo de Barros, who introduces them with the following remark: “Que se póde desejar na lingua portuguesa que ella tenha? conformidade com a latina? nestes versos feitos em louvor da nossa pátria, se póde ver quanta tem, porque assy sam portugueses que os entende o portugues, a tā latinos que os nā estranhará quē souber a lingua latina.” But he does not tell the story of the contest of “homens de diversas nações” in Paris. The only differences between the two versions are “perpetuo” for “tu semper,” “que” for “quae,” and “monstrando” for “manstrando.”

6 Read: monstrando.