Stories of emigration and languages ​​that now represent an important cultural identity. The “Talian” comes from the deep south of Brazil, the language that unites second, third, fourth generation Italians who have lived there for over a century. Especially those who come from northern Italy. Its origins can be dated between 1874 and 1914, when at least one and a half million migrants from Veneto (80 percent), Friuli, Lombardy, Trentino, Piedmont and Emilia embark on ships and reach those distant lands in search of the "cucagna". Well-being, wealth as it is still said among the current ones 30 million Brazilians who have Italian blood. Many of these know or otherwise understand the "Talian". That Venetian-Brazilian fruit of the mixture of Italian and Portuguese, the mother tongue of the lands that would become their new homeland.

Talian is the second most spoken language in Brazil

It is interesting and in some ways touching to hear the story of Argel Rigo who lives in Brazil in Faguntes Varela and is president of Efasce, the Friulian Institute for Social Cultural Assistance for Emigrants. His family is originally from the town of Caneva, in the province of Pordenone, emigrated to Rio Grande do Sul like many other Italian families who have also populated the areas of Santa Catarina and Espirito Santo. Argel Rigo tells us that, in those parts, where at the time there were only very isolated forests, about 100 migrants arrived in the years of the great emigration. A common language was needed to understand and communicate.

talian - book cover

Thus was born the “Talian”, the cultural identity of a people who put together many dialects and contaminated them with the Portuguese that the children learned at school. A real language came out of it, the second most spoken language in Brazil. The history of Italian migratory flows in Brazil tells that between 1920 and 1970 the Italians who had settled in the deep south of the South American country also migrated in part to the forests of the north-east, crossing Paranà, Paraguay, Mato Grosso up to the Amazon. And the new language also arrives in those parts and is passed on from generation to generation. The "Talian" formed the populations of towns, cities and colonies. In some cases extremely isolated but also in areas such as the State of Santa Catarina, on the Atlantic coast.

The new language spreads from south to north. In the XNUMXs, a magazine told the stories of emigrants in Talian

He is a friar, Aquiles Bernardi, born in 1891 in the Veneto and then emigrated to Brazil, who is passionate about and who is the first to "study" the new language. In church he preaches using this idiom and begins to compile the first registers in "Talian", which in the XNUMXs becomes the language of a magazine, La Staffetta Riogranda. On these pages, the curiosities of the new life in Brazil are told, with irony, where Christmas is celebrated with heat and not with cold, where salami plants, which would later become banana trees, grow.

Talian, the first book that collects the stories of Italian emigrants

In 1937 these stories are collected in a book now in its sixth edition and translated into six languages. In the years of the Second World War the new language was forbidden because the Brazilian authorities of the time considered it a language of the ignorant and colonists. But the "Talian" survives and the family continues to talk about it. This is also the secret of its widespread transmission.

In 2014 the recognition as cultural heritage of Brazil

In 1978 the first dictionary is published, dedicated to the Venetian language on the Riograndan-Portuguese, thanks to the interest of the Polish friar Alberto Victor Stawinski. How to call the new language? Venetoriograndense, Venetobrasileiro… It cannot be called Italian because it is now a different language. The new definition “Talian” renders the origins and context well. And that's what will remain. Since then it has become the language of many books: stories of family, emigration, proverbs, religious sermons, dictionaries to teach it. In 2014 the "Talian" was recognized as a heritage and cultural reference of Brazil, official language in various municipalities and municipalities of the country, in particular in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina.

Talian poster with logos
The Talian today in Brazil. Bottom right, the president of Efasce Brazil Argel Rigo

Today three hundred Brazilian radio stations also broadcast programs in “Talian". There are over 500 speakers of this language in Brazil. For Argel Rigo, who cares so much about the origins and future of the new language, and who in 2019 spoke about it at the Efasce convention organized ad hoc in Italy in his town of Caneva, the "Talian" achieved the second unification of Italy, this time on Brazilian soil. Maintaining the identity of a people at 360 degrees: its culture, roots, traditions, cuisine, songs, parties, games, tourism, commercial activities… A very precious heritage.

Talian, the language of Italian emigrants in Brazil last edit: 2020-11-29T12:00:26+01:00 da Cristina Campolonghi

Post comments