THE two dozen old men playing cards in the parish hall in Serafina Corrêa, a small town in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, seem unremarkable until you eavesdrop. They banter not in Portuguese but in Talian, a dialect that mixes words from Venetian and other Italian dialects as well as Portuguese. It is spoken by perhaps 2m descendants of immigrants who came to Brazil 150 years ago. A sign at a zebra crossing in the town asks, “Parché Corer Cossi? Va Pianpian” (“Why are you racing? Slow down”).

在巴西里奥格兰德州南部的一个小镇SerafinaCorrêa的教区大厅里有二十几个老人打牌。如果不你仔细听他们说话的话，这一切看起来平淡无奇。 他们说笑时用的不是葡萄牙语，而是Talian——一种混合了威尼斯语和其它几种意大利方言以及葡萄牙语的方言来。这是由150年前来到巴西的大约两百万移民后裔说的语言。镇上斑马线上的一个标语这样问道：“Parché Corer Cossi？ Va Pianpian“（”你为什么在赛跑？减速“）。

Serafina Corrêa calls itself the “capital” of Talian, one of about 30 non-indigenous tongues used in Brazil, especially in the south. They include Polish, Russian and Dutch, but also rare dialects such as Trentino, another import from northern Italy, and Riograndenser Hunsrückisch and East Pomeranian, both forms of German. Their speakers fret that the advance of Portuguese will drive them to extinction. Marli Zanella, who works in a boutique in Serafina Corrêa, complains that when she addresses her 23-year-old daughter in Talian, “she only replies in Portuguese.”

Serafina Corrêa自称是Talian语的“首都”。Talian语是在巴西使用的大约30种非本土的语言之一，主要是在南部地区。这些非本土语言不仅有波兰语、俄语和荷兰语，还有罕见的欧洲方言，如来自意大利北部的特伦蒂诺方言，以及德国的两种方言，Riograndenser Hunsrückisch和 East Pomeranian。操这些语言的人担心葡萄牙语的扩大将导致推动他们的语言灭绝。在Serafina Corrêa的一家精品店工作的Marli Zanella抱怨稀烂，当她用Talian语与23岁的女儿聊天时，“她只用葡萄牙语回答”。

The dialects have survived other threats. Getúlio Vargas, Brazil’s president when it entered the second world war on the allies’ side, banned all foreign languages, the most common of which were German and Italian. “Many people went to jail,” says Paulo Massolini, a doctor who heads the Federation of Italian-Brazilian Associations of Rio Grande do Sul. These days, Talian speakers are pilloried rather than prosecuted. Some have trouble pronouncing nasal diphthongal sounds in Portuguese words such as pão (bread).

这些方言在其它威胁中幸存下来。 巴西总统热图利奥·瓦加斯（Getúlio Vargas）在第二次世界大战时加入盟军时禁止使用所有外语，而当时最常用的是德语和意大利语。 “很多人都进了监狱，”南里奥格兰德的意大利语和巴西语协会联合会的负责人保罗·马索里尼说道。在那些日子里，说Talian语的人只是受到嘲笑，并没有遭起诉。有些人很难道发好葡萄牙语的鼻音双元音，例如pão（面包）。

Although Talian and the other dialects are hybrids, their defenders fear that the Portuguese influence is becoming dominant. In the 1950s a fatigued Talian speaker would have called himself stanco; today, he is likely to say he is cansado—tired in Portuguese—says Dr Massolini. In Hunsrückisch, schuhloja—shoe shop—is reassuringly a hybrid of the German for shoe with the Portuguese for shop. But an aeroplane is simply an aviong, from the Portuguese avião rather than the German Flugzeug.

虽然Talian语和其他方言都是混合语言，但它们的拥护者担心葡萄牙的影响力变得越来越强势。马索里尼博士表示， 在20世纪50年代，一位疲禾惫不堪的说Talian语的人会称自己为stanco; 如今，他可能会说他cansado——葡萄牙语“厌倦”的意思。 在Hunsrückisch，schuhloja——鞋店——显然是德国鞋和葡萄牙商店的混合词。 但是，一架飞机只用“aviong”表示——这个词取自葡萄牙语avião而非德语的Flugzeug。

Talian has an energetic lobbying campaign behind it, which may improve its chances of survival. Known formerly as “Venetian-Brazilian”, Dr Massolini and other campaigners coined the new name in 1995. It comes from Venetians’ habit of dropping the first and last vowel sounds of some words. Talian champions published a grammar. Dictionaries and teach-yourself books followed. In 2009 Serafina Corrêa’s municipal council ordered that official documents be printed in Talian as well as Portuguese, and in 2014 Brazil’s ministry of culture recognised it as part of the country’s cultural heritage. Mr Massolini is pressing UNESCO to recognise it.

Talian语背后是一场积极的游说运动，这可能会提高其生存的机会。这个语言之前称为“威尼斯巴西语”，马索里尼博士等活动人士在1995年创造了这个新名字。它来自威尼斯人习惯于放弃某些词的第一个和最后一个元音。Talian语的拥护者公布了语法规则，之后推出了字典和自学用书。2009年，Serafina Corrêa市议会制定法令，用Talian和葡萄牙语印制正式文件；在2014年，巴西文化部承认Talian语是巴西文化遗产的组成部分。马索里尼正在要求联合国教科文组织承认Talian语。

Speakers of less favoured dialects are resentful and envious. Talian speakers in Serafina Corrêa “act as if their variant is the correct one”, complains Giorgia Miazzo, a linguist who has recorded speakers of Italian dialects across Brazil. (They have 15 different ways of saying “yellow”, she found. In Talian, it’s gialdo.) Cléo Altenhofen, a linguist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, laments that Hunsrückisch, spoken by some 1.2m descendants of immigrants from Rhineland-Palatinate, lacks Talian’s celebrity. “They have dictionaries, and we have a research project,” he says wistfully.

受欢迎度更少的方言的说话者对此很愤恨和嫉妒。 在巴西记录意大利语方言语者的语言学家Giorgia Miazzo抱怨，在Serafina Corrêa说Talian的人“表现得好像他们的语言变体是正确的”。她发现， （意大利方言有15种说“黄色”的不同的方式，而Talian语则只有gialdo一个词。）南里奥格兰德州联邦大学语言学家CléoAltenhofen哀叹道，从莱茵兰 - 普法尔茨来的120万移民的后裔说的Hunsrückisch不如Talian语，是因为缺少名人。“他们有字典，我们有一个研究项目，”他沉思道。

He and his colleagues are mapping the regions in which Hunsrückisch is spoken and have amassed 800 hours of audio recordings. “It’s the first step in getting it formally recognised,” he says. He dreams of opening a museum of linguistic diversity.

他和他的同事正在绘制说Hunsrückisch语地区地图，并积累了800小时的录音记录。“这是获得正式认可的第一步，”他说。 他梦想设立一家多样化语言的博物馆。

But museums and dictionaries are feeble defence against globalisation and urbanisation. The best way of keeping the dialects alive would be to use them as a medium of instruction in public schools. But the national government sets the curriculum, so that is unlikely to happen. Parents are a poor substitute for teachers. “The more you make kids speak a language the more they rebel,” says Mr Altenhofen. His 16-year-old daughter is learning Japanese. She wants to study Korean next.

不过，对于全球化和城市化情况，博物馆和字典的抵御力微不足道。让方言存活下来的最好方法是将它们用作公立学校的教学的媒介。不过，由于国家政府制定课程，这不太可能发生。家长无法替代教师。Altenhofen表示，“越让孩子讲一种语言，他们越反对。”他16岁的女儿正在学日语。 她接下来想学习韩语。

编译：菲菲

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人（2018.03.01）