The Portuguese Language Museum
Join us for a virtual walkthrough the exhibitions at the Museu da Língua Portuguesa as we reflect on the history, development and curiosities of the Portuguese language.
Every year, the 5th of May marks World Portuguese Language day, and in light of this, we at Global Translations.BR thought that there was no better time than now to visit the Portuguese Language Museum, here in São Paulo, Brazil.
If you aren’t a native Portuguese speaker yourself, you may be wondering, where else is Portuguese even spoken outside of Portugal and Brazil? Is Portuguese still an important language to learn today? How similar is it to Spanish?
Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language worldwide, with over 220 million native speakers. It is also spoken in 9 different countries across 4 continents, those countries being: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and East Timor.
If you do decide to learn Portuguese, you will unlock the rich culture that each of these countries offers, as well as give yourself the opportunity to visit these places and really connect with locals for a truly authentic experience. We wanted to find out a bit more about the diversity that exists within Portuguese, as well as its origins and past and present influences starting with Latin, all the way until the present day, and the Portuguese Language Museum aims to educate viewers on just that, and more.
The Museum itself is located within the Luz station in São Paulo, a decision made on purpose to emphasize the fact that this station used to receive hundreds of immigrants from the likes of Asia and Europe, and it is there that they would have their first exposure and interactions with the Portuguese language. It was first opened in 2006, but was closed due to a large scale fire that destroyed the majority of the museum. After a 5-year restoration project, it was then reopened in 2021 to the public, and is still open to this day.
FIRST FLOOR
Fala, Falar e Falares: The first floor hosts temporary exhibitions, and is currently hosting the “Fala, Falar e Falares” exhibition as well as the Paulo Freire Educational Space. The “Fala, Falar e Falares” exhibition aims to show visitors how speaking a language is actually a human superpower, and how we can manipulate sounds from our bodies. One of the more profound aspects of this exhibition was a space showing various screens where the listener must use headphones in order to listen to 5 speakers from different parts of Brazil. The listener must try to guess which region each speaker is from, and although I got some right, I found some others really hard to distinguish between! In the next room, there are 12 large screens facing each other in a circle formation, presenting a discussion between 12 people of different backgrounds. The discussion covers the speaker’s thoughts and relationship with language, speech and accents, as well as any issues or prejudices they have faced throughout their life. What I found fascinating here was that the discussion was actually conducted in individual groups of four, but the way the dialogue is edited makes it appear to be a large group discussion that took place altogether. The exhibition was created by Daniela Thomas along with Caetano W. Galindo, who explained that the thought behind the exhibition was to provoke a new sense of self-awareness within the public and to introduce the idea that speaking a language is actually a form of human superpower.
SECOND FLOOR
Línguas do Mundo: On the second floor, you walk into the Languages of the World exhibition, and you walk onto 23 lit up pillars, playing audios in 23 different languages out of the approximately 7000 different languages that exist around the world. Each pillar is speaking a mix of text, poetry, prose or dialogue in a different language. Every single language is different and has its own unique way of organizing words and vocabulary, which makes each one beautiful in a different way.
Laços da família: The family ties exhibition is set out in a spider web/mind map format, to display how languages are linked and are similar to various other languages, and which ones are less closely related than others. Much like a family tree, it also shows how languages developed into others or came to be like others across time and throughout history. It also shows the development of languages that also came from Indo-European origins, just like Portuguese itself. The ‘*’ sign next to certain languages means it is a reconstructed language, and doesn´t have any written record. The ‘†’ sign means it is a ‘dead’ language, meaning it is no longer spoken today.
Rua da Língua: Much like a road, the Language Street exhibition is a 106-meter-long strip that runs across the entire back wall of the second floor. Onto the wall are projected images, texts, poetry and more that change as time passes.
Palavras Cruzadas: The Crossword exhibition presented various screens which explore the fact that as a result of interacting with other foreign languages and the influence they have had, Portuguese ended up with a lot of the words it has today. The screens show viewers an interactive comparison between the words in Portuguese, and their equivalents in other languages.
O Português do Brasil: This exhibition, my personal favourite, was a complete timeline of the evolution and progression of Brazilian Portuguese, right from its origins in Latin, to its modern day influences, such as those from social media. It shows how it moved across continents, from Europe, to Africa, to South America, and how it continues to be influenced by external factors and change constantly even today.
THIRD FLOOR
Falares: The third floor hosts the Speakers exhibition, consisting of nine screens which demonstrate how the different ways in which we all speak say something different about each and every one of us. It aims to further display the diversity that exists within the Portuguese language and exhibits different people speaking on their relationship with their language. There is also an auditorium on this floor, which shows the film O que pode a língua? (What can language do?) at multiple different times throughout the day.
FINAL REFLECTIONS:
As someone who is learning Portuguese as a third language and is by no means native, I really found this museum fascinating, and I had no idea until after visiting the depth of history and heritage that exists within the Portuguese language. The museum doesn’t just fixate on Portuguese, but also on how it interacts with and has developed from other languages, something I found profoundly interesting. I would say that this museum is definitely worth a visit for both native and non-native speakers alike, and is not one to miss if you live in or are visiting São Paulo!
Author: Grace Keeling
Photos by: Grace Keeling