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Not a Brazilian soap - Letter From The Algarve by Frances Ruddick
• 21 Jun 2007 •
 PORTUGUESE is the seventh most widely spoken language in the world. Not that I can include myself as a fluent speaker. I sound more like an enthusiastic but language-impaired toddler. After six years of living here, I still find it diabolically difficult to pronounce, and almost impossible to follow a programme on the television or radio. In its written form, the language has similarities to Spanish, but some anthropologists argue that the Portuguese made their pronunciation as different as possible, to emphasise their own identity. Surprisingly perhaps, when the Portuguese reached and colonised Brazil, their complex language began to replace traditional tongues. It took several generations for it to become embedded, and even today – in some of the remoter communities of the Amazon Basin – it is still regarded as foreign.
Meanwhile, Brazilian Portuguese has evolved a new dialect, and some expressions and words have altered. These changes have been popularised through television and particularly Brazilian soap operas.
The populations of most Portuguese ex-colonies and Portugal itself are addicted to these melodramas. It is hardly any wonder therefore that they have impacted on everyday speech.
This has resulted in an interesting evolution of a European language that was modified in South America and is now used in many Portuguese-speaking nations. Brazilian soap opera scriptwriters are considered to be giants of the genre, achieving ratings equivalent to Neighbours and other English language soaps.I wonder do they realise that their country also has the most extraordinary opportunities for producing reality TV? Firstly, they have an expansive jungle, and if they take for instance this suggestion: ‘Ordeal by Wasp,’ they could produce a show with international viewing potential.
The audience wouldn’t require Portuguese language skills, since the dialogue would be entirely made up of screaming! Read on…The so-called ‘ordeal by wasp’ is an actual initiation rite endured by Amerindians. It happens every year, taking pubescent males on a passage to adulthood. Firstly, the boy’s ears are plugged with grass, since a sting down the ear canal could be fatal. Then, watched by elders of the Xicrin tribe, each boy climbs a tree and plunges both hands into a wasp nest. After the initial pain, the boy – now regarded as a man – must climb down the tree, surrounded by the buzzing swarm of angry wasps. Initiates that suffer an allergic reaction to antigen five – the poisonous constituent contained in wasp venom – sometimes die.
At best, each of them is covered in several hundred stings, a few of which inevitably enlarge into blisters. Such a sight would make Paul Burrell’s fear of Australian snakes look utterly pathetic! A wasp sting in the eye can result in blindness, and most of the initiates, even if they’re not allergic, develop a high fever and many become delirious or unconscious for several days. Due to high levels of toxins coursing through their veins, the initiates suffer from muscle fatigue that can last for several weeks. Imagine the suspense contained in every episode, and the colossal audience figures if there was live streaming.
The show would include further authentic traditions, as mothers bathe their sons’ wounds with medicinal herbs and go on to beat the tops of their own heads with machetes.This may seem unlikely, but I can assure you it’s for real, as it enables the mothers to share in the suffering of their sons. Perhaps such a programme would be considered too barbaric for television, but like the participants in Big Brother, the cast willingly accept their fate. The only difference for them would be to have the cameras rolling. If, of course, this happened to be mentioned in a Brazilian soap, people would refuse to believe it’s true. |  Return to Top
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