We know that, after the discovery of Brazil in 1500, the Portuguese crown had no immediate interest in colonizing the new land, limiting itself, therefore, to granting the sections of the newly discovered land to adventurers and explorers private individuals. Later, in the 1530s, the colonizing enterprise began, in fact, with the creation of the first General Government of the colony. From then on, Brazil started to receive Portuguese settlers and to have the first villages built. It was also from this period that the expeditions of Jesuit priests with the aim of expanding Christianity to the “New World” and converting the indigenous natives.
As notorious intellectuals that they were, the Jesuits were soon able to assimilate and understand the native languages spoken by the Indians. Over time, the knowledge of these languages, associated with the structure of the Portuguese language, made it possible for the creation of a new language, which came to be widely used in almost all colonial territory. Brazilian. This language became known as “
general language” or “brazilian language”. The starting point of general language it was the tupi, a language spoken by the Tupinambás, indigenous peoples who inhabited the coast of Brazil. The development of this language enabled a greater understanding of the Indians' social organization and, therefore, facilitated the conversion action carried out by the Jesuits.One of the first systematic treatises on the general language was written by the Portuguese priest Luís Figueira and published in 1621, in Lisbon. Its title was: Art of the Brazilian Language. Many treatises like this one were written with the aim of helping the new missionaries who would go to the Colony to enter the hinterlands and convert the indigenous peoples. Another example, from the end of the 18th century, is the Anonymo Dictionary of the General Language of Brazil, also published in Lisbon, in 1795. The subtitle of this dictionary gives the reader the dimension of its main utility: “A necessary work for the ministers of the altar who undertake the conversion of so many thousands of souls who are still scattered across the vast hinterlands of Brazil, without the fire of Faith and Baptism.”
In addition to being used only by Jesuit missionaries, the general language it became, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the main language spoken in the context of Brazil Colony, surpassing Portuguese. You São Paulo scouts, for example, used the general language and they also used it on their expeditions into the hinterland. Many names of rivers, towns and cities in the interior of São Paulo, Goiás, Maranhão, Ceará and Amazonas resulted from the use of general languagel.
In the North and Northeast regions of the colony, the general language received a configuration different from that used by the São Paulo sertanistas. To this day, variation is still said among the caboclos and Indians of the state of Amazonas. nheengatugives general language. One of the great scholars of this variation was Pedro Luiz Sympson, Amazonian military and politician who published the work Grammar of the Brazilian language, Brasília, Tupi or Nheengatu, in 1876.
THE general language, despite still being spoken in small population niches in the interior of Brazil, is considered extinct since the beginning of the 20th century. The process of extinction of this language occurred with the reforms undertaken by the Marquis of Pombal, minister of the Portuguese crown, in the 18th century. One of the points of Pombal's reforms was the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Portuguese colonies in order to have greater institutional control, as the Jesuits had a great weight in the social organization of Brazil Cologne. With the persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits, the use of the general language was compromised and its extinction was inevitable.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/lingua-geral-no-contexto-brasil-colonial.htm