Have you ever heard someone from Minas Gerais speak Portuguese?

The Portuguese spoken in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais is quite distinct from that spoken in other parts of the country. Full of idiosyncrasies, the Mineiran ‘dialect,’ or Mineirês can be hard to understand and even painful to listen to for some Brazilians. Indeed many Brazilians think of this way of speaking as very provincial; Mineiros are stereotypically thought of as caipiras (hayseeds).

The journalist and writer Felipe Peixoto Braga Netto has written a fantastic piece about Mineirês, that is well worth a look. A well-detailed summary (and perhaps apology) for the peculiar speech of the Mineiros, Felipe discusses some of its prominent characteristics. Here are some highlights:

• Mineiros hate to use complete words. ‘Pode parar’ turns into ‘pó parar.’ ‘Onde eu estou?’ becomes ‘ôndôtô?’ Mineiros also don’t say ‘você,’ instead they shorten it to just ‘cê.’
• Mineiros don’t say ‘tudo bem?’ instead they say ‘cê tá boa?’ Felipe thinks this is unnecessary since asking a Mineiran if they are happy is like asking a fish if he knows how to swim… ha!
• Mineiros use the verb ‘mexer‘ to mean a lot of things, one of the most common being ‘to work’ instead of ‘trabalhar.’ ‘Cê mexe com isso?‘ means ‘do you do that for work?’
• Also, Mineiros use some grammatically incorrect constructions; this is perhaps one element that sounds hrash to non-Mineiro native speakers. One example is the insertion of ‘de‘ into phrases like ‘preciso sair.’ A Mineiro would say ‘preciso de sair.’ Also instead of ‘apaixonado por,’ a Mineiran would likely say ‘apaixonado com.’

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