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The dominant ancestry among Brazilians is Portuguese through the descendants of the early Portuguese colonists (from the 16th century onwards) and later Portuguese immigrants (19th and 20th centuries). The settlement of Portuguese started in Brazil after 1532, when the active process of colonization began since the founding of São Vicente. Until independence in 1822, the Portuguese were the only European nation that successfully settled in Brazil, and most of Brazil's culture is based on that of Portugal. Other European countries had some presence during the Colonial period. The Dutch and the French tried to colonize Brazil during the 17th century, but their presence lasted only a few decades. The original Amerindian population of Brazil (between 3-5 million) has in large part been exterminated or assimilated into the Portuguese population. Since the beginning of Brazil's colonization, intermarriage between the Portuguese and Native Brazilians has been common. Nowadays, there are 700,000 natives in Brazil, composing less than 1% of the national population. Brazil has a large black population, descended from African slaves brought to the country from the 16th century until the 19th century. More than 3 million Africans were brought to Brazil until the end of slave trafficking in 1850. They were mainly from Angola, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast and São Tomé e Príncipe. The African population in Brazil has mixed substantially with the Portuguese, resulting in a large mixed-race population. Beginning in the 19th century, the Brazilian government stimulated European immigration to substitute for the manpower of the former slaves. The first non-Portuguese immigrants to settle in Brazil were German, in 1824. In 1869 the first Polish immigrants settled in Brazil. However, strong European immigration to Brazil began only after 1875, when immigration from Italy, Portugal and Spain increased. According to the Memorial do Imigrante, between 1870 and 1953, Brazil attracted nearly 5.5 million immigrants -- approximately 1,550,000 Italians, 1,470,000 Portuguese, 650,000 Spaniards, 210,000 Germans, French, 190,000 Japanese, 120,000 Poles and Russians, and 650,000 of many other nationalities. These figures may be a serious undercounting of the actual numbers of immigrants, since the spouses were often not counted; there were large numbers of illegal's never counted; the family names were changed to hide national origins; and Brazilian record-keeping was slipshod. Brazil is home to the largest Italian population outside of Italy, with 25 million Italians and Italian-descended Brazilians. Brazil is also home to the largest Lebanese community outside of Lebanon, roughly 8 million. Starting in the early 20th century, Brazil also received a large number of Asians: Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese immigrants. The Japanese are the largest Asian minority in Brazil, and Japanese-Brazilians are the largest Japanese population outside of Japan (1.5 million). Brazil's population is mostly concentrated along the coast, with a lower population density in the interior. The population of the southern states is mainly of European descent, while the majority of the inhabitants of the north and northeast are of mixed ancestry (Amerindians, Africans and Europeans). |
The ancestry of Brazil's modern-day population is relatively diverse, and includes Amerindian (mainly Tupi and Guarani, among others), European (mainly Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish) and African (mainly Bantu and Yoruba) ancestry, with minorities of Asian (mainly Japanese), Lebanese, and Arab Syrians (see also mitochondrial DNA studies that indicate a high degree of admixture). Southern Brazil has a large majority of people of European descent and in Southeast and Central-West Brazil the number of whites is somewhat equal to the number of Afro-Brazilian and multiracial Brazilians. Northeastern Brazil has a majority of people of African descent, while in Northern Brazil the Amerindian ancestry is predominant. According to Brazil's 1988 Constitution, racism is an unbearable crime and must be met with imprisonment.This is taken very seriously. The 2000 IBGE census found Brazil to be made up of: * white 53.7%
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Portuguese is the only official language of Brazil. It is spoken by the entire population and is virtually the only language used in schools, newspapers, radio, TV and for all business and administrative purposes. Moreover, Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language part of Brazilian national identity. Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, with great influence by Amerindian and African languages. Due to these influences, the language is somewhat different from that spoken in Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries, mainly for phonological and orthographic differences-- like the difference between American English and British English. Many indigenous languages are spoken daily in indigenous communities, primarily in Northern Brazil. Although many of these communities have significant contact with Portuguese, today there are incentives for teaching native languages. Some languages are spoken by descendants of immigrants, who are usually bilingual, in small rural communities in Southern Brazil. The most important are the Brazilian German dialects, such as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch and the Pomeranian language, and the Talian, based on the Italian Venetian language. In the city of São Paulo, Japanese can be heard in the immigrant neighborhoods, like Liberdade. English is part of the official high school curriculum, but few Brazilians are truly fluent in the language. Spanish is understood to varying degrees by most Portuguese speakers due to the great similarity between the two languages. |
Brazil Information: Inside
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