“I know what you want,
By far we win the vacilão.
Always only from migue, respect!
Did the air freeze? it's no pressure!
Doing for nothing will never be ours,
The monkey's gut that drops its log!
Who thinks? There is no real frog to serve,
And not even transcend for the moment you called!
Like a tick, he says he wants to learn...
Why didn't you think?(...)"
(Didn't figure out why? - Creole)
Got confused? You read the excerpt from the song above and didn't understand anything – or almost nothing? Don't worry, although some terms seem unfamiliar to some people, we're still talking about Portuguese. The language is like that, full of peculiarities, linguistic variations and idiosyncrasies.
We are talking about slang. A controversial element in different languages, loved by some and hated by others, slang proves the constant movement of our language. It is useless to deny that language is not a living and changeable element, since, depending on the time and fashion, it takes on some characteristics that can change in a short time. Languages are embedded in a cultural context and, as the landscape changes, it also changes. read the song
"Alligator sprout", Roberto Carlos' success in the 60s:Been sliding on my board alone
And I said when I saw a sprout pass me
how cute she is
Sliding on an alligator
She smiled at me and something then
I had to do to get attention
I opened my arms, screamed loudly
Sliding on an alligator
But a stronger wave arrived
And off the board threw me
I almost died, I almost drowned
And when I came back the bud I didn't find
My board took the wind away
I drank salt water because I couldn't stand
I took the board but I couldn't find it
Alligator sprout.
(The alligator sprout – Roberto Carlos)
You probably didn't understand much and you don't even know the meaning given to the words “sprout” and “alligator”, as well as probably our parents and grandparents are “floating” with the slang we use to talk to our friends. Now, what you should know is that, although many scholars and scholars “turn up their noses” at slang, classifying them as “language vices”, they are important for language maintenance and serve as a time stamp. Observing Criolo's music slang, it is possible to deduce that this is a current linguistic behavior, although it is not standard, as well as when analyzing Roberto Carlos' music, there are elements that refer to the context of the 60s and the movement called Jovem Guard.
Master of literature, Guimarães Rosa was a skillful inventor of words, slang and neologisms. Who dares to belittle his work because of this? *
Slangs are born from the need to use expressive resources in speech, and it is time that will determine the permanence or discard of a idiomatic expression. Some slangs that were widely used in the 60s today have become obsolete, because they certainly no longer fulfill their function, being thus replaced by new words and expressions. Unfortunately, some people associate slang to a lack of culture and ignorance of the cultured norm, preaching a true “witch hunt” to this spontaneous movement of the language. Trying to restrain the youth (who are the ones who best appropriate this different way of speaking) from using slang is futile, but it is worth knowing that the principle of linguistic adequacy must always be remembered. You, in a job interview, are not going to express yourself the way you express yourself when talking to your friends, are you?
For Ferdinand de Saussure, who was an important Swiss linguist and philosopher, “everything is synchronic how much is related to the static aspect of our science, diachronic everything that concerns the evolutions. Likewise, synchrony and diachrony will designate respectively a language state and a phase of evolution”. In other words, Linguistics itself, a science that studies language, considers that slang is an evolution that contribute to the transformation of the language, and who do this are the speakers, inserted in different groups social.
*The image of writer Guimarães Rosa is on the cover of the journal “Cadernos de Literatura Brasileira”, by Instituto Moreira Salles.
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
