摘要：In the second half of the twentieth century, Rosa Virgínia Mattos e Silva represented acute and provocative thinking concerning the linguistic social history of Brazil. In this paper, I pay homage to this eminent linguist, discussing five of her key proposals on the subject, namely: 1) The linguistic history of Brazil is not restricted to the history of the Portuguese language in Brazil, or the history of Brazilian Portuguese. 2) Brazilian Portuguese emerged in a multilingual context: language contact is therefore a constitutive element in its development. 3) On the linguistic stage of colonial Brazil, three principal actors stand out: European Portuguese, the indigenous linguas francas ( línguas gerais ) and general Brazilian Portuguese. 4) Africans and Afro-descendants were the major disseminators of the Portuguese language in Brazil and the key «formatters» ( formatadores ) of Brazilian Portuguese in its main social variety - popular Brazilian Portuguese. 5) The socio-historical and linguistic past of Brazil must be interpreted in order to understand the «variable, heterogeneous, plural and polarized» Brazilian Portuguese of today. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/elg.7.2314
关键词：Linguistic history of Brazil;linguistic diversity;Brazilian Portuguese;História linguística do Brasil;diversidade linguística;português brasileiro
