Monthly Archives: September 2011

A stone into the citizens’ pride…

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Hello folks,

Good and bad news this week.

The city hall – Prefeitura municipal

The good one is that after having such a great time editing this blog, especially on the topic of the local dialect, I have decided to register the domain “lanofrai.com.br” which is now the official address of the blog.

On the other hand, the bad news is about my sincere disappointment to some of the leaders of the city. Well, I try to avoid as much as possible to talk about politics, but this topic would sooner or later come up to the fore. On the 26th of September 2011, the majority of the city councilman (Gabriel Fantin, João Avaldi de Oliveira, João Albino de Barros, Gerson de Matia, e Juliano Cesar Costa) has decided, against the population will, to unnecessarily increased number of seats in the city hall. Hence, increasing the city’s administrative costs and increasing the overall tax burden which is already extraordinary in Brazil.

 This act is like a stone into the pride of Fraiburgo’s citizens that work so hard to get things done despite all difficulties. What makes me really sad about is the their public demonstration of egoism in a country which has so much to do and to develop. We don’t need more people in there, we need those in charge to work properly and that’s it. What hurts the most is not to see honest, intelligent and dreamer altruists like for instance Edir Prestes Valin who was an example of good, sober and hands on city administration as  the books portray. Fraiburgo is place to be discovered, bad things happen be we will keep fighting for the best and keep it visible and international. Politics is not a nice topic but it shapes culture. I am looking forward to write something good about it in the future.

World Tourism Day 27th September

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The world tourism day was created to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects positively social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide. In this context I hope that Fraiburgo, as an internally built city, can give a bit its of contribution with its tourism to this international movement that enriches peoples minds in several ways.

Fraiburguese verbs

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In the last hundred years the Indo-European languages have been continuously systematized to reduce the learning curve, to evolve, and,  of course,  to survive amongst other languages. The verbs exist in a language to indicate an action or a state of being and they were also systematized. Below there are some examples of this:

  • In Portuguese and Spanish the infinitive verbs end with “AR” “ER” “IR” “OR”. E.g. To love – Amar,  To speak – Hablar or Falar, To compose – compor the list goes on.
  • In Italian you can take the same rule of Portuguese and add the letter “E” at the end. E.g. To love – Amare. Many verbs are similar to Spanish and Portuguese, but not all.
  • In English the infinitive is “TO”- To love, to speak, to break and so forth.
  • Germanic languages have “EN” at the end. In Dutch for instance “to walk” is “lopen”, to eat “eten”, to sleep “slapen”.

So how would that be infinitive verb in Fraiburgo? As far as I know, I have the feeling that we tend to take the final “R” out and transform it into an accent in the last syllable stressing it, which we pronounce in a very open way. E.g.

  • To walk – Caminhar = Caminhá
  • To speak – Falar = Falá
  • To exchange – Trocar = Trocá

Furthermore, other strange things usually happen in the sentences created in Fraiburgo. Herein I will stick to the verbs only. In the next posts you will start noticing the emergence of these dialect patterns. Little by little you will get acquainted with the Fraiburguese dialect. I hope you enjoy and most importantly I hope you understand what I am saying… it’s been a challenge to do so but fun at the same time.

English Bandeira do Brasil
Brazilian Portuguese		 Fraiburguese – Fraiburguês
I measure Eu meço Eu mido!sugerida por – Iole Dahmer(ainda estou chocado)
I go on foot Eu vou a pé! Eu vou de a pé.Ex. “Dexe que eu vo de a pé”*Já pegaram muito no meu pé por essa. Hoje isso seria pratica de bulling 🙂
Something that is bizarre Algo que é bizarro Medonho!
To lose badly or be prevailed over another to a great degree, usually ina some form of competition or verbal disagreement – Perder por umagrande diferença de modo a passarvergonha. – Levá um vareio- Tomá um vareio
To win over another to a great degree – Vencer com folga- Ganhar com folga “Matá pau!”*Literaly meansto kill with a stick, which is

more macho than killing with

a gun or a bazuca.

* Demonstração de valentia no linguajar Fraiburguense é item obrigatório, se não vai pro laço.
Lazy person Preguiçoso Canela grossa.*Pessoa do tipo tchô ou tchoaindisposta ao trabalho.Ex. Mazé um canela grossa mesmo.*Literaly means “thick calf of the leg”
Suspicious Desconfiado Resabiado
Imagine! Imagine! Mas pense!
To throw away Jogar fora Pinxá fora.(Clássica – Sugerida por Jaqueline Cunha e Naiara Longhi)*In the top ten funny expressions!

*Fonte/Source “lanofrai.wordpress.com” and colaborators

The Fraiburguese Dialect 01

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In the last 100 years, the region where Fraiburgo is located has witnessed people communicating in at least six languages (Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish, French and Tupi-Guarani).  Nowadays what we have is a consolidation of the Portuguese with an increasing English influence. Portuguese is similar to Spanish, which is a kind of Portuguese with a funny Maradona accent and a different grammar hehe.

In Fraiburgo the official language is Portuguese however, every time I visit the city I have some reverse cultural shocks regarding to the language when I hear my own dialect, which is funny. In fact, there is a huge gap between the official Brazilian Portuguese and what they speak there (Fraiburguese). This post is an attempt to show a bit some characteristics of our dialect. If you know some Spanish you might be able to read some of our words. If you don’t, it is still interesting to see that many Portuguese words are virtually the same as English because of their Latin base (See around the blog).

English bandeira-do-brasilBrazilian Portuguese Fraiburguese – Fraiburguês
How are you? – Como vai? Bão?*Para qualquer gênero ou idade.
*The pronunciation of “ão” is
the similar to letters “ou”
in the word “sound”.
-A Guy
-A little guy
– A group of guys		 – Um Rapaz
-Um Rapazinho
– Rapaziada		 -Um tchô.
-Um tchozinho.
-Tchozedo
 A girl  Uma moça. Uma tchoa.
 Where is it?  Onde está? Cadele?
 Lock the door  Trancar a porta  Chaviá porta.
 To put Colocar
Ex. – Onde eu coloco?		 Ponhar
Ex. -Onde eu ponho?
 Fast  Rápido
Ex. Vai lá rápido!		  Ligero
Ex. Vai lá ligero!
 The Boy(s) O(s) Menino(s) O(s) Piá -*A palavra piá não aceita plural.
O conjunto de piá é “piazada”.
To be looking at Estar olhando – Estar de butuca
– Estar negaciando
 To jump the queue  Furar a fila  Atorar a fila.
*Essa é até meio agressiva.
* Pronuncia-se “atorá fila”
 Dry the dishes Secar a louça  Enxugá loça.
 To look for  Procurar – Percurá
– Campiá

Observations 

  • The Fraiburguese dictionary that is being developed is composed of words and expressions that take place randomly without any sort of classification just as it happens in the reality of an average person from Fraiburgo.
  • The Fraiburguese dialect is shared amogst other cities in the southern region, however, there might exist expressions that are well understood nation-wide. Only with evolution of this project we will be able to spot what is exclusively from Fraiburgo.
  • In Fraiburgo we drink the traditional mate “Chimarrão”, which is predominantly from the Gaucho culture, nonetheless the accent is not similar to gaucho accent.
  • Fraiburgo, likewise the rest of the country, has several social classes and races which generates a great degree of vocabulary variation.
  • This blog will always be a subject of changes and grammar improvements.

Crossing pictures!

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Before leaving to Europe most of the pictures I had taken were mainly focused on the touristic attractions. Thus, some people commented that it looked like an amusing park, which is somehow true, but in this case real people live on it 🙂

With the following pictures I seek to give an idea of how it looks in a more broad and bidirectional way. Picture 1 was taken from the intercity Bus Station, whereas picture 2 was at the Renar Hotel, which is right next the Araucárias’ lake. It’s not amazing to see how different things can be by just changing the perspectives?

Click to enlarge

The ultimate Brazilian map!

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Here it goes, the ultimate Brazilian map, it is everything that you need to get to Fraiburgo. So forget google maps, GPS and stuff…

Kidding, that’s the metro line map they are building now for the world cup lol. Ok, seriuosly now. it says “All the paths bring you to Fraiburgo, the National Capital of apples” it was wrtten by Willy Frey in 1987 in his book during a national campaign to promote the fruit. Well, I did work I loved the creativity.

The first blog visitors

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Hallo everybody,

After more or less a week of the existence of this blog, I was really glad to feel that some people abroad are getting curious about it. Some said that the name Fraiburgo sounds really funny specially for those who know the ancient German Freiburg in the state of Baden-Württemberg, which is 50km away from the village of Witternheim where the founders of Fraiburgo came from. This is a subject for another post.

Now I am digesting all the comments, ideas, pictures and books I have received, I hope to able to make something interesting out of it bulk of information.

Here is another picture of the Auraucárias’ Lake which was missing in the last post. 

The explosion of green after the heavy rain – A explosão do verde depois do temporal…

The city lake, our favorite place

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Ludic map – by GuiaSul – Click to enlarge 

Today, I am going to bring you to the famous lake of the city. Here is a ludic map of the city (click on the pic) to give some sense of direction. In there you can see the city gate and the lake.

Here is a picture taken pointing to the center of the town. This is by far one of our favorite places in the city.

Click to enlarge

When I was showing the pictures of the lake to my friends, they usually asked me “but it isn’t really a lake isn’t it? It looks like a pond” I say, “No, of course it’s not a pond, it is a lake”. Ok, let clarify this. In fact, it isn’t a real lake. So why do we “Fraiburguenses” call it as a lake?  The answer is simple, it is because we feel like doing so and because everybody agrees on this, then it is a lake, at least for us. I’m not joking. If you think about it, that is the same process that happens in science, languages, religion, economics and so forth “what it is and what isn’t is always and only a question of consensus”. Therefore, in our local agreement this is a lake. Yet, to strengthen and extend the overall consensus over this topic, the names of streets and buildings are named after to “lake” related names :). Looking from an outside perspective it’s funny :). Furthermore, I feel that this is already so rooted in our minds that if you come to the city and look for the pond of the city we might think you are looking for something else rather than our adorable little lake.

So why the lake is so special for us? That’s is tough question actually. Perhaps it’s similar to ask why are your siblings so special for you? It’s difficult to explain, we basically grew up next it, it is part of our family, it was silently present in most of the important city events and in our life happenings. Generation after generation it is there watching us. It is the symbol and the pride of city and what makes it unique in the country e perhaps in the world.

These trees below are a gift of a very specially woman called Lídia Frey who planted the seeds of theses magnificent pine trees thinking ahead, about the next generations. I dream about seeing actions like this becoming normal thing and not an exception to the rule. Fortunately, here we have a real and lovely example that altruistic actions like this work out in the long term, generating value to everyone, not only for the citizens of Fraiburgo, but also for humanity. Many thanks to Mrs. Lídia Frey (in memoriam) for this wonderful gift and life example.

Click to enlarge / Click para aumentar

So now you know a little bit more about the famous lake. I hope you enjoyed. I see you one the next posts.