Who knew that behind the harmless act of making a selfie there is a linguistic problem, isn't there? You yourself might not even have imagined that your mania for taking photographs of yourself could turn into a controversial subject among linguists (they are always watching the speakers!). But know that the discussion is old, it did not appear now with the popularization of the word selfie.
Here we have one more element for the discussion on the employment of foreignisms: after all, you make a selfie or self-portrait? It is unquestionable that the first option is the most used among Portuguese speakers, even though it is a word of English origin. The word selfie is an abbreviation of the term selfie-portrait, which means — guess what — self portrait. So I mean to make a selfie is it the same as taking a self-portrait? Does it mean then that we have an equivalent expression in the Portuguese language for the foreign language in question? Yes is the answer to both questions. But why do we prefer the word Tupiniquim?
Well, the answer is easy: the term selfie it became popular when internet users started taking self-portraits and posting them on social networks. This is the purpose of a selfie, therefore, another product of the digital age. The craze started when the word, thus, abbreviated, appeared in the caption of an image published in a Australian forum (the photograph in question showed the result of a drunken night between friends). So, as she emerged in Australia, whose official language is English, it's normal for her to travel the world with the spelling and pronunciation of her native language, isn't it?
The word selfie gained adherence of speakers, who prefer foreign words to the equivalent word in Portuguese.
The English language is considered a kind of “wildcard language” in computing, and the terms in English (one of the most spoken languages in the world) facilitate communication and the dissemination of information, that is undeniable. Say you're going to do a selfie instead of saying that you're going to take a self-portrait, it doesn't mean that you're making an apology for foreignism, a language addiction that, according to the more radical linguists and less complacent with linguistic borrowing, it would subjugate the native language and implement a revolution Yankee in the country. It turns out that the word selfie it is, arguably, friendlier than our “self-portrait”, which in addition to being too formal for popular tastes, has recently undergone modifications to suit the new orthographic agreement.
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The truth is, before shouting to the whole world to hear that foreign words are harmful to our cultural identity, remember to consider that language is a living organism, vulnerable to linguistic variations and to all kinds of elements inserted into the language by the speakers, who are the true owners of the Portuguese language. Of course you won't go around distributing foreign words in every sentence you say, even because one of the The main functions of language is communicability, that is, the property of transmitting and understanding a message that is intelligible. To prefer selfie a self-portrait does not necessarily mean that the word will be legitimized as part of the official lexicon. The word circulates, mainly, in the oral modality, and who can control everything that the speakers say? It would be like fighting against windmills, like the language's “Don Quixote”, like Policarpo Quaresma, a character by Lima Barreto who defended a return to Tupi-Guarani. Opt for good linguistic sense. Ever!
Curiosity: The word selfie is already so popular that, in 2013, those responsible for Oxford dictionaries, at the University of Oxford (the oldest university in the English-speaking world), chose selfie the word of the year! The reason for the choice is simple: in 2013, her employment grew 17,000% (!!!), which made her one of the most searched words in internet search engines.
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PEREZ, Luana Castro Alves. "Selfie or self-portrait?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/redacao/selfie-ou-autorretrato.htm. Accessed on July 27, 2021.
Foreign words: “skateboard” or “skirt”?
One of the relevant factors of linguistic variety is the vocabulary borrowing as a result of cultural, political and economic exchange between nations. In general, the more powerful countries end up “exporting” to the less powerful countries words that define new objects and needs in new areas of knowledge. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this vocabulary exchange, the importation of vocabulary is at the heart of the growth of modern languages. For example, practically 50% of the words in the English language are of Latin origin, due to the domination of the Roman Empire and, later, of the domination of the Normans, although English is not a language. Latin.
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Nowadays, we have a very strong example in Brazil: the growth of information technology among us has ended importing a lot of English source words to designate objects and functions before non-existent. In this historical process, some imported words “catch” and are incorporated into the language, adapting phonetically, that is, to the sounds of Portuguese [...], and others are substituted. For a while, the foreign word transits “in quotation marks”, until it adapts or is replaced by another. Examples: football adapted to football, but corners, which used to be widely used in the past, ended up being replaced by corners. In the case of computers, save is already used instead of English save (when it could be used simply to record), but software is still on the loose, looking for a solution... The word mouse (= mouse), to designate the popular tool of very wide use in computers, is still written in English, but it is not impossible that in a short time it is in dictionaries as mause, definitely incorporated into our lexicon (as Aurélio, for example, has already made official the word máuser, designating a type of weapon of origin German).
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It is good to remember that the vocabulary loan is not a sign of “language decay”, but precisely of the vitality of its culture, in confluence with other cultures and other languages. And this is, in fact, a terrain in which little can be done officially – the daily use of the language, multiplied in the diversification of activities of its millions of users, through speech and writing, ends up separating the wheat from the chaff, establishing new forms and making disappear others. The fact is: we don't need to be afraid, because the language is not in danger! In fact, those in danger are often its speakers, but for other reasons!
FARACO, Carlos Alberto; TEZZA, Christopher. Text workshop. Petrópolis: Voices, 2003. for. 37-38. [Adapted]
All that remains is for the Senate to approve the bill [on the use of foreign terms in Brazil] so that words like mallcenter, delivery and drive-through prohibited in names of establishments and brands. Engaged in this brave fight against the Yankee enemy, who wants to create a free trade area with our uncultured and beautiful language, I come to suggest some other measures that will be extremely important for the preservation of national sovereignty, the know:
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No citizen from Rio de Janeiro or Rio Grande do Sul will be able to say "Tu vai" in public spaces throughout the country;
No citizen of São Paulo will be able to say "I love you" and remove or add the plural in sentences such as "See me a chopps and two pastels";
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No tire shop owner will be allowed to write a sign with the word "rubber shop" and no newsstand owner will advertise "Cigarettes for sale";
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No grammar book will oblige students to use pronominal placements such as "marr-me-ei" or "they'll see you".
PIZZA, Daniel. An immodest proposal. The State of S. Paulo, São Paulo, 8/04/2001.
