Language Ideologies and Dialect Shift in Helvécian Portuguese

1 Introduction

One of the main pursuits in sociolinguistics has been to explore how and why language change occurs, with several scholars demonstrating how language ideologies are powerful multi-scalar phenomena that can be the main propellers of such change (García et al. 2017; Rosa and Burdick 2017). This article corroborates the idea that language ideologies directly affect linguistic phenomena, reinforcing past findings in sociolinguistics that language change takes place alongside massive social and political transformations (Dubois and Horvath 1999; Gal 1989; Trudgill 2020). The evidence comes from a study of how language ideologies have contributed to an ongoing dialect shift amongst the population of Helvécia, Bahia, Brazil.

The cultural revival of the 2000s caused by the recognition of Helvécia as a remanescente quilombola (‘maroon society remnant’) has had several positive consequences for the community. Remnants of quilombolas or maroon societies are defined as ethnic and racial communities with distinct historical paths, tied to particular territories, and characterized by a presumption of black lineage linked to resistance against historical oppression (CONAQ 2024). Their identification should ideally be based on criteria of self-attribution attested by the communities themselves, as advocated by the International Labor Organization Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (CONAQ 2024). The process of officially recognizing maroon societies happens when the Brazilian federal government provides certification for the self-definition of communities as quilombo remnants, granting them access to public policies and technical and legal assistance from the Palmares Cultural Foundation (Brasileiro 2020). However, this identity^[1] revival did not result in a revival of the traditional Helvécian Afro-Brazilian Portuguese dialect.

Following an overview of the main features of Helvécian Portuguese, the article examines recent sociopolitical changes in the community. Drawing on the literature on language ideologies (Woolard 1998; Milroy 2001; Rosa and Burdick 2017), language variation and change (Auer and Hinskens 1996; Kerswill 2003; Trudgill 2020), language and political economy (Bourdieu 1977; Gal 1989; Irvine and Gal 2000), and raciolinguistics (Alim 2016; Rosa and Flores 2020), it then presents the results of a qualitative analysis of the recurring discourse patterns that were identified in metalinguistic commentaries from sociolinguistic interviews collected during fieldwork in 2019. Understanding language as a form of symbolic power (Bourdieu 1977) and linguistic structures “as practiced in social contexts whose meanings are mediated by culturally situated perspectives” (Rosa and Burdick 2017: 104), I propose that the progressive accommodation of the Helvécian dialect to standard Brazilian Portuguese is intrinsically associated with industrialization, deterritorialization, and educational changes that began in the community in the 1960s.

2 Helvécian Afro-Brazilian Portuguese

Helvécian Afro-Brazilian Portuguese is a dialect^[2] spoken by Afro-descendant elders in Helvécia, a small community located in the town of Nova Viçosa in Southern Bahia (see Figure 1). The documentation of this and other Afro-Brazilian Portuguese varieties contributes to efforts to resolve what Byrd (2012) calls the “Brazilian Linguistic Puzzle”, according to which the full picture regarding the contribution of African languages to Brazilian Portuguese remains incomplete (see Lamberti 2022).

Figure 1:

Location of Helvécia in the State of Bahia. Source: Abreu (2024)

Carlota Ferreira documented Helvécian Portuguese in 1961, noting its considerable distinctiveness from even the most non-standard rural Portuguese varieties. The author interviewed two elders from the community, and in the only publication using the data, certain examples were identified as remnants of a creole once spoken in Helvécia (Ferreira 1969). Descriptions by Ferreira (1969) and subsequent authors (Baxter 1997; Lipski 2008; Lucchesi et al. 2009) often use standard Brazilian Portuguese for comparison. Examples 1–6 are summarized below according to the original classifications used by the author.

1. Variable use of definite articles

2. Lack of gender agreement

3. Use of a generalized 3^rd-person singular verb conjugation^[3]

4. Generalized infinitive forms used for the present tense

Several verbal patterns, such as “tensed verbs based on the Portuguese infinitive” and “non-finite verbs based on finite forms”, have also been documented by Baxter (1997). These verb forms are derived from three forms of the standard Brazilian Portuguese verbal system: 1) the 3^rd-person singular form of the present indicative of regular verbs, e. g., conhece ‘(he/she) knows’; 2) the 3^rd-person singular form of pragmatically salient irregular verbs in the present tense, e. g., vai ‘it will go’; and 3) an infinitive or other verb stressed on the thematic vowel, e. g., falar ‘to speak’ (Baxter 1997: 282).

Lipski (2008) compared variable gender agreement in Afro-Bolivian Spanish with Helvécian Portuguese, finding that this linguistic feature was influenced by various sociolinguistic factors. The dialect showed adaptability to standard Brazilian Portuguese patterns. Additionally, Lucchesi (2006) found generational differences in the verbal system of Helvécian Portuguese (see Table 1), whereby younger speakers almost categorically used 1^st-person singular verb agreement, compared with a frequency of 65 % among the older generations. Similarly, Lucchesi et al. (2009) observed a shift towards increased gender agreement among younger generations in the 1990s (see Figure 2).

There is a statistically significant difference in the use of definite articles before noun phrases by Helvécian Portuguese speakers in the 1990s between Groups 2 and 5 studied by Lucchesi et al. (2009) (see Table 2).^[4] This study demonstrated that speakers who were between 35 and 45 years old at the time used definite articles before noun phrases significantly more (95 % of the time) than speakers who were more than 80 and 100 years old (63.5 % and 55.1 % of the time, respectively).

Overall, these studies indicate a dialectal shift unfolding in Helvécia during the 1990s. They reveal a notable trend in Helvécian Afro-Brazilian Portuguese, whereby verbal, gender, and number agreement is increasingly aligning with that of standard Brazilian Portuguese. Furthermore, the findings suggest that this shift is propelled by the younger generations within the community.

3 Helvécia’s recent socioeconomic history

Formerly part of the ‘Colônia Leopoldina’ coffee plantation (1818–1888) (see Figure 3), Helvécia has a history shaped by illegal slave labor.^[5] This practice was deemed illegal due to the colony regimes enforced by the Brazilian government at the time, which strictly prohibited the use of slave labor. The foundational condition of land concessions stipulated that new European colonists must engage in hands-on labor on the land they were granted. Following the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 and the subsequent disbandment of the colony, most slave owners departed from the region. Now free, Afro-Brazilians mostly remained on the lands where they engaged in family agriculture throughout the 20^th century (Gomes 2017). Ownership of these lands allowed the descendants of enslaved people to distance themselves from the stigma of confinement, providing them with the opportunity for freedom (Pasti 2015: 4).

The century following the abolition of slavery reinforced the community’s sense of collective identity and led to the emergence of a resilient character that is still present in the community today (Gomes 2017). Examples of this collective identity include communal approaches to cultivating the land, building houses (a process called embarreiro ‘to build houses with clay’ (Pasti 2015)), and celebrating the seasons’ harvest. A tradition of music and dance, known as bate-barriga ‘belly-hit,’ samba de viola ‘guitar samba’, and festas ‘festivals,’ is also central to the community’s collective identity (Santana 2013). For instance, Dona Mercedes, one of the community’s dance traditions leaders, commented on the collective character of Helvécia in her narratives about her dad’s hunting events (see Examples 5 and 6). She stated that “aí tirava pra cada um, e era tudo assim em família e amigagem” (‘none of it was sold, everything was like that among friends and family’), underscoring that hunted animals were generally shared within the community.

Figure 2:

Rates of gender agreement in Helvécia (1990s). Adapted from Lucchesi et al. (2009: 310).

Example 5: Dona Mercedes’s narrative about bate-barriga and samba de viola

Example 6: Dona Mercedes’s narrative about community life

In 1882, the Brazilian government constructed the Bahia-Minas railroad, linking the Serra dos Aimorés in Minas Gerais to Caravelas in Bahia (Batista 1996). A station was built in Helvécia in 1897 sparking economic growth by facilitating the transportation of wood and coffee. However, in 1966, the railroad ceased operations due to the expansion of the Brazilian federal highway (Gomes 2009). Today, the former station serves as a local museum, displaying artifacts from the slavery era. Post-railroad closure, a new eucalyptus monoculture industry emerged in Southern Bahia for cellulose production. In the 1970s, as the cellulose industry thrived, plantation owners turned their attention to Helvécia’s lands. Exploiting this situation, they acquired substantial portions of land, resorting to physical force to evict some community members (Gomes 2009; Pasti 2015). The cellulose industry’s expansion in Helvécia led to deterritorialization, which “realigned social relations, dismantled economic organizations, and consequently, provoked the reworking of the local population’s relationship with their own memory in/of the space” (Pasti 2015: 2). This resulted in territorial, populational, and cultural losses. The population plummeted from approximately 15,000 in the late 1970s to 3,500 by 2010, according to the Brazilian census (Mota and Dias 2012). This displacement has caused the disappearance of the bate-barriga, embarreiros, and samba de viola traditional community practices (Pasti 2015; Gomes 2017; Santana 2013). Furthermore, the cellulose industry has also had a negative environmental impact. In my fieldwork interviews, a group of teachers and all elders mentioned the reduction of the Peruípe River, resulting in the reduction of fish stocks and the disappearance of several creeks. This has happened because the eucalyptus trees needed for the cellulose industry require large quantities of water to grow.

Figure 3:

Fazenda Pombal, Colônia Leopoldina, Bahia. Source: De Luze (1820, as cited in Smaz and Neves 2023: 205)

Due to persistent resistance to negative developments like these, Helvécia gained official recognition as a remanescente quilombola (quilombola remnant) in April 2005, granted by the Fundação Cultural Palmares, a government organization responsible for evaluating and recognizing quilombolas in Brazil. This recognition resulted from extensive political activism, primarily led by women, particularly teachers in the community. The term quilombo, with Bantu origins meaning ‘administrative division’, has evolved over centuries in Brazil (Lopes and Siqueira Nascimento 1987, as cited in Leite 2000). In light of ongoing displacements by the cellulose industry, the local political act was strategically crafted to secure Helvécia as a legitimate black territory. This recognition not only granted legal rights to the community but also facilitated access to federal social programs as outlined in the 1988 Brazilian constitution (Brasil 1988). Helvécia now enjoys protected lands, and cultural initiatives like the project Ponto de Cultura Art Bahia, which has been established to promote the local Afro-Brazilian Helvécian culture and history. Based on my fieldwork observations and narratives, quilombola recognition has been a transformative event for the community. In interviews, teachers highlighted the pride of the younger generation in their black heritage, attributing it in part to the quilombola recognition process.

In summary, the socioeconomic events described have had a significant impact on the community. The cellulose industry prompted widespread land sales and displacement, leading to a sharp decline in population, environmental degradation, and the shift of cultural and linguistic resources. Despite these challenges, the official recognition of Helvécia as a remanescente quilombola marked an important historical moment that had several positive consequences according to Helvécia’s inhabitants. In the next section, I lay out the main framework used in this work to analyze the sociolinguistic situation of the Helvécian community.

4 Language ideologies, dialect accommodation, and sociopolitical economy

According to previous accounts, Helvécian Portuguese is undergoing a rapid dialect accommodation process. However, the primary forces driving this change are yet to be explored. Thomason and Kaufman (1988), Winford (2013), and Trudgill (2020) emphasize the centrality of the sociolinguistic dimension to explain language change. Hence, the central question I explore is the impact of social and political factors on the language change process evident in Helvécia.

Scholars advocate for the centrality of language ideologies in language and culture research (Rosa and Burdick 2017). Here I adopt Kroskrity’s (2010) definition of language ideologies, encompassing four key dimensions. The first dimension emphasizes language ideologies as the “perception of language and discourse that is constructed in the interest of a specific social or cultural group” (Kroskrity 2010: 195). This concept is crucial for the proposed analysis, as metalinguistic commentaries reveal speakers’ perceptions of language serving their interests and those of power-neutralizing language regimes that facilitate economic growth via social capital (Liu 2015). The second attribute of the term emphasises the multiple social divisions (class, gender, generation) in which sociocultural groups ground their language ideologies. In this study, I focus mostly on the generational divide among the groups researched and how their metalinguistic commentaries index different language ideologies. The third aspect of language ideologies assumes that speakers display varying “degrees of awareness of local language ideologies” (Kroskrity 2010: 198). I discuss the extent to which Helvécian Portuguese speakers’ awareness of the non-standard features of the traditional dialect is one of the factors contributing to the dialect accommodation phenomenon observed in the community. Kroskrity’s (2010) final dimension is related to how language ideologies mediate social and linguistic structures. In constructing language ideologies, speakers reflect their consciousness by selecting features from both linguistic and social systems, distinguishing and establishing links between these dimensions. This study primarily explores how speakers reference their social structures in metalinguistic commentaries.

Language ideologies are capable of transforming the material reality they comment on. Irvine and Gal (2000) analyze how people map their language ideologies onto language. Ideologies recognize linguistic differences; they locate, interpret, and rationalize sociolinguistic complexity, identifying linguistic varieties with “typical” persons and activities and accounting for the differentiations among them (Irvine and Gal 2000: 36). The authors propose three semiotic processes involved in linguistic differentiation: iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure. As the most important concept for the present study, iconization emphasizes the transformation of the relationship between linguistic features, language varieties, or whole languages and their associated social images (Irvine and Gal 2000: 37). Language varieties serve as iconic representations of social groups or activities. My understanding of this concept shifts the focus away from specific linguistic characteristics to the broader notion of how language varieties symbolically represent social identities. In essence, iconization highlights the role of language ideologies in signifying and indexing social identities that could be perceived as the inherent nature or essence of social groups.

This perspective resonates with Bourdieu’s seminal exploration of the interplay between political economy and language, wherein he delves into the multifaceted ways in which language operates as symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1977). Similarly, Liu (2015) proposes that language regimes concentrate linguistic power in the politically dominant group. The author illustrates the argument with an example from Indonesia, where a language regime based on a ‘neutral’ lingua franca provides a common form of communication in a linguistically heterogenous country. Further research suggests that the link between social stratification and linguistic variables is “mediated by cultural conceptions” (Gal 1989: 350). In advanced capitalism, linguistic practices become a form of economic and social capital. Together, these ideas are central to my argument that the most recent sociopolitical economy of Helvécia has directly affected the dialect accommodation phenomenon we observe in the community. Similar observations have been made in other speech communities. In Europe, Auer and Hinskens (1996) and Kerswill (2003) document widespread cross-dialectal convergence across speech communities. This convergence is prompted by a diversity of factors, including infrastructural, economic, political, and cultural factors associated with national unification, as well as by the significant rise in geographical mobility during the processes of industrialization and concurrent urbanization.

The literature on minority language varieties undergoing rapid socioeconomic change informs us about similar situations that could be compared to Helvécia’s. In Louisiana, Dubois and Horvath (1999) analyze the bilingual Cajun community, which is undergoing a shift from French to English, alongside contemporary socioeconomic changes within the community. The authors attribute the linguistic shift to language ideologies shaped by external political and economic influences, including the stigmatization of Cajun identity and the practical disappearance of French by the 1960s. Despite a later revival of Cajun identity, the community had already experienced language loss and dialect shift. Contemporary Cajun culture uses standard English to transmit Cajun identity, indicating that the recent cultural revival did not extend to language revitalization.

Smalls (2012) examines the impact of two South Carolina schools on the language ideologies and identities of Gullah speakers. Before the 1980s, these schools suppressed the Gullah language and identity, resulting in a rapid shift towards standardized English. Nevertheless, a revised curriculum after the 1980s sought to preserve Gullah language and culture, similar to the Cajun cultural revival. Smalls’s (2012) results indicate that the community strategically used a widespread rhetoric of cultural preservation, historic conservationism, and nationalism to promote a cultural Gullah revival, however this strategy created a disconnect between language preservation and cultural identity.

In both Dubois and Horvath (1999) and Smalls (2012), institutions, particularly schools, and economic power were found to be the primary catalysts for the shift away from minority dialects and languages. As institutions of formal education, schools play a central role in perpetuating linguistic hegemony. Prioritizing standardized languages and curricula, schools often marginalize minority dialects, viewing them as deviations from the norm. Economic power further exacerbates the marginalization of minority dialects and languages. Dominant economic forces, typically aligned with mainstream culture, dictate the dominant language of commerce, employment, and social mobility; which is standard American English in the context of the United States. Despite cultural revival movements in both cases, the communities studied by Dubois and Horvath (1999) and Smalls (2012) underwent language and dialect shift and accommodation. The same is seen in Helvécia, where the recent cultural revival has not stopped a shift away from the variety of Afro-Brazilian Portuguese spoken by the elders.

This phenomenon aligns with Lucchesi’s (2006) argument, which contends that Brazil exhibits linguistic polarization, characterized by a distinct division between the norma culta (‘standard variety’) and português vernacular (‘vernacular Portuguese’). The norma culta primarily draws from the written and spoken language of the upper class, while vernacular Portuguese, spoken by rural and urban lower-class individuals, is subject to significant stigma (Bortoni-Ricardo 1985; Lucchesi 2006). Reflecting how standard languages usually carry a high socio-cultural value in comparison to vernacular varieties (Kerswill 2003; Winford 2013), schools in Brazil commonly make use of textbooks and grammars that teach normative Portuguese throughout elementary and high school curricula. Such normative works are often based on an ‘ideal’ language representative of writers and the upper class (Rocha Lima 1973). A lively critic of these unattainable linguistic representations, Marcos Bagno has published extensively on the idea that, still in the 21^st century, literary texts from the 19^th century are used to dictate what the standard norm should be for spoken and written language in Brazil (Deoclécio and Bagno 2021: 140).

These ideologies are intertwined with race and social class. Consequently, when institutions such as schools adopt these normative grammars and textbooks for their curricula, they end up teaching and imposing a language variety idealized by a small segment of society, contributing to linguistic polarization (Lucchesi 2006). For example, characteristics of Helvécian grammar such as variable gender and number, and the lack of verb agreement are highly stigmatized features within the Brazilian school system, so it is very likely that prescriptive institutions have influenced the perception of language in Helvécia. I will explore these ideas in the following sections, in which I describe the study’s methods, and present and discuss the findings.

5 Methodology

In order to answer my main research question, I conducted one month of fieldwork in the community, the first such project to my knowledge since the 1990s. My data comes from 32 (mostly one-to-one) sociolinguistic interviews and notes based on fieldwork observations. I lived in the house of a community leader for one month during the summer of 2019. I participated in several aspects of family and community daily life, such as attending several community events, religious rituals, and family gatherings.

A relatively small community, Helvécia is divided into two main areas: a compact downtown (where I resided) with approximately 500 people who belong predominantly to the same few families, and a rural region known as Rio do Sul, situated about 6 miles away from downtown. Rio do Sul is home to the majority of Helvécia’s population, and my interviews encompass speakers from both areas. Despite the distinction, my field observations and community narratives reveal no clear separation between downtown and Rio do Sul, with most residents regularly commuting between these spaces.

In my interviews, I included questions related to language attitudes towards the participants’ dialect and their grandparents’, such as, ‘What do you think about the Portuguese spoken in Helvécia?’ and ‘What do you think about how your grandparents speak; Is it different from the way you speak?’ I also included questions regarding attitudes towards Helvécia and the way of life there (see Appendix A for all questions). I then analyzed the participants’ metalinguistic commentaries to assess their perceptions of language. I employed this method because the literature in sociolinguistics has demonstrated that metalinguistic commentary can in fact lead to linguistic change (Rosa and Burdick 2017: 108). Furthermore, social-psychological aspects of language variation and speakers’ attitudes towards varieties are fundamental when we analyze cases of dialect accommodation and leveling (Auer and Hinskens 1996). The analysis focused on recognizing and structuring the common discourse patterns found in responses to questions regarding linguistic perception. My objective was to identify prevalent patterns across different age groups rather than analyzing individual attitudes towards language. To achieve this, I categorized responses based on recurring themes present in the participants’ metalinguistic commentaries. By systematically taking notes and organizing these patterns, I aimed to provide insight into broader trends in linguistic attitudes within the sampled population.

Throughout the analysis, I identified three distinct age groups among the participants and examined the most common discourse patterns within each group. This segmentation allowed for a nuanced understanding of how linguistic perception might vary across different generations (see Appendix B). The classic social categories used in sociolinguistic studies are not useful for the specific case of Helvécia given that members of different age groups have distinct sociolinguistic profiles. Nowadays most young people go to school, travel, have contact with people from other communities, and access technology and media. The sociolinguistic situation of the elders is very different. Up until the 2000s, nearly 63 % of the population was illiterate (Santana 2013). Most individuals aged 60 and above interviewed for this study fall into the illiterate category due to a lifelong commitment to small-scale agriculture, which limited their need to venture outside the community. Consequently, both the older and younger groups exhibit homogeneity in terms of education levels. These educational and generational divisions stand out as the primary social categories in this study. Taking this into account, I grouped speakers into three age groups: 1) speakers who were between 20 and 39 years old at the time of the interviews (in 2019), who were referred to in the community as the mais jovens ‘the younger people’; 2) speakers who were between 40 and 59 years old; and 3) speakers who were more than 60 years old, commonly called os mais antigos ‘the most ancient ones’. This classification was based on speakers’ generational descriptions and my fieldwork observations. Dubois and Horvath (1999) provide a similar classification based on direct ethnographic observations of the community they studied in Louisiana and responses to a sociolinguistic questionnaire. They highlight the importance of using sociolinguistic categories that are based on the specific sociolinguistic situation of each community studied, an approach also taken here.

6 Results

The industrialization of the community, the opening of a school, and the arrival of media and technology in recent years have caused a transformation in the social conditions of Helvécia. My analysis shows that with these major sociological changes came a change regarding the ideologies associated with the traditional dialect. In the subsequent subsections, I will use Irvine and Gal’s (2000) iconization concept (see Section 4) to analyze several perceptions of language patterns in the metalinguistic commentaries I examined in my fieldwork.

7 Final discussion and conclusion

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the social motivations behind the divergent linguistic features between the older and younger populations of Helvécia by examining the language ideologies identified in their metalinguistic commentaries. Speakers in the community are shifting their linguistic repertoires as a result of the socioeconomic and cultural changes they have witnessed over the past years. Similarly, mirroring experiences observed with French among the Cajun community in Louisiana (Dubois and Horvath, 1999) and Gullah in South Carolina (Smalls, 2012), the quilombola recognition process in Helvécia did not prioritize the preservation of the Afro-Brazilian dialect spoken by the older generations amidst the ensuing cultural revival. Despite this shift, the younger generation in Helvécia maintains a robust Afro-Brazilian identity, even as they perceive the traditional dialect as a relic of the past. This occurs because educational, political, and social institutions use language to marginalize racialized and minority groups (Alim 2016). Coupled with the linguistically polarized educational system in Brazil, the shift in the community’s attitudes towards its traditional dialect is likely occurring alongside the panorama of sociopolitical changes that recently took place there. This phenomenon is related to two sociopolitical and economic phenomena observed in Helvécia over the past decades: firstly, a drastic increase in the education levels in the community, and secondly, the exposure to the media, technology, and contact with other communities. The avoidance of the most distinctive linguistic features of the traditional dialect by younger speakers is thus not coincidental; rather, it reflects their response to the prevailing stigma of these features in Brazilian media and educational institutions.

The findings of this research highlight the profound cultural, social, and linguistic repercussions stemming from recent socioeconomic developments within the community. Foremost among these is the phenomenon of deterritorialization, caused by the cellulose industry, which has uprooted traditional connections to land and livelihoods. Additionally, the official recognition of the community as a quilombola remnant was an assertion of political resistance against the encroachments of industrial activities. The results show that a complex interplay between shifts in cultural heritage and external pressures led to a dialectal accommodation process in Helvécia.

The findings make an important contribution to the study of Helvécian Portuguese and other Afro-Brazilian language varieties. Resulting from one of the first qualitative analyses of metalinguistic commentaries, they shed light on the language change phenomena observed within the community. Speakers are highly aware of the linguistic differentiation that exists among the speech of the younger and the older generations in particular. Linguistic differentiation, achieved through a process such as iconization, goes beyond the role of individual linguistic features, encompassing language varieties as a whole. This means that, by selecting common characteristics of the social image and the linguistic image, the ideological representation binds them together in a seemingly inherent link (Irvine and Gal 2000: 38). In Helvécia, this phenomenon is evident as the younger and middle-aged generations linguistically differentiate themselves from the traditional dialect, considering it as a separate language variety.

Concerning significant socioeconomic changes within the community, the arrival of the cellulose industry resulted in numerous environmental and cultural losses. However, it also facilitated the establishment of a new school in the 1960s, presenting positive political and economic prospects for both middle-aged and younger members of the community. Nevertheless, the introduction of the broader industrialized and educational systems to the community brought to light the stigmatization of their dialect, since language regimes use language to marginalize minority groups, especially in highly stratified societies such as the one in Brazil. This stigmatization cannot be disassociated from systematic racism given that it has been shown that “racialized subjects are perpetually perceived as linguistically deficient” (Rosa and Flores 2020: 94). Starting with the previous generation, speakers use language as a tool to gain access to various socioeconomic and political resources in Brazilian mainstream society.

In conclusion, the findings of the study have significant implications for understanding how socioeconomic events directly cause language change, particularly among speakers of minority language varieties. The Helvécia case illustrates that socioeconomic issues accelerate language change processes, emphasizing the importance of studying the social aspect in linguistic studies by means of qualitative methods. The sociolinguistic panorama observed in Helvécia exemplifies the notion that “a definition of language is always, implicitly or explicitly, a definition of human beings in the world” (Williams 1977: 21). In other words, the dialect accommodation evidenced in Helvécian Portuguese underscores the inseparable link between language and the lived experiences of individuals within a sociohistorical context. This study emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to linguistic research that considers the intricate interplay between social factors and language dynamics. By delving into the metalinguistic commentaries of Helvécian Portuguese speakers, we were able to gain valuable insight into how language evolves in response to broader societal changes.

Appendix A: Sociolinguistic questionnaire

1. O que você faz em seu tempo livre? ‘What do you do in your free time?’

2. Você é casado(a)? ‘Are you married?’

3. O que você mais gosta sobre o lugar que vive? ‘What do you like the most about the place you live in?’

4. Você pode me contar uma história da sua infância? ‘Could you tell me a story from your childhood?”

5. De que forma era diferente sua vida quando você era criança? ‘In what ways was your life different when you were a kid?’

6. Você já viajou para fora da comunidade? Conhece alguém que vive fora? ‘Have you traveled outside the community? Do you know someone who lives outside?’

7. Você visita as comunidades próximas? ‘Do you visit the nearby communities?’

8. Como é a vida na lavoura? Tem mudado muito? (as melhores lavouras, as chuvas e a seca, as técnicas de cultivo de produção artesanal da farinha de mandioca, do melaço da cana-de-açúcar e de outros produtos) ‘How is life in the village? Has it changed much? (the best crops, rain and droughts, the cultivation techniques of cassava production, sugar cane, and other products)’

9. Helvécia tem mudado ultimamente? Por quê? ‘Has Helvécia changed lately?’

10. Helvécia tem alguma lenda? ‘Does Helvécia have legends?’

11. Quais são as festas mais tradicionais daqui e como são celebradas? ‘What are the most traditional festivals from here and how are they celebrated?’

12. Quais são alguns dos pratos ou tipos de comida que são típicos desta região? ‘What is some of the typical food from here?’

13. Quais são algumas das principais diferenças entre a vida na cidade e nesta região? ‘What are some of the main differences between life in the city and the country?’

14. As pessoas mais antigas (os idosos da comunidade e seus avós) falam ou falavam diferente de você? Se sim, poderia me dar alguns exemplos? ‘Do (or did) the elders (the community elders and your grandparents) speak differently from you? If yes, can you give me examples?’

15. Como você acha que os mais antigos falam? ‘How do you perceive the way the elders speak?’

16. Como você acha que você fala? ‘How do you perceive the way you speak yourself?’

Appendix B: Speakers’ sociolinguistic background