Talk:Name of Brazil

Etymology

Maybe, it looks odd but some people say: "The name Brazil came from Arabic Birzali dynasty of Carmona, Spain (1029-1067)" You can find Birzali here: http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofthemoha032395mbp/historyofthemoha032395mbp_djvu.txt other names: Birzâlî, Benû-Birzâl, Beni Birzal, Birzala

• and Brazilwood = Pau-Brasil, where did this name come from? Böri (talk) 11:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably shouldn't be placed in a redirect. =) — LlywelynII 11:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Etymology of Brazil Redirect

to simplify hatnote linking. Kindly do not shift to other etymology articles. — LlywelynII 11:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... That's no good. Etymology of Brazil apparently has a broken discussion link. — LlywelynII 11:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Nova Lusitania

An editor (User:Cristiano Tomás), has insisted on inserting the following paragraph repeatedly. I reversed it and made an effort to explain my reasons on his talk page. He ignored me and inserted it again. Since he won't reply to me there, I decided to make my explanation for removing it here. The paragraph he insists on inserting is the following:

In 1535, Duarte Coelho would name his capitancy of Portuguese America as Nova Lusitânia (New Lusitania), paying homage to his homeland of Portugal. Many of the cities in his capitancy would be named after Portuguese originals, such as New Lisbon, Brazil. The term New Lusitania would later also be used to describe all of Brazil. Though used during the early days for Portuguese America, the use of the term New Lusitania would be at its most popular during the period of romanticism.

There are multiple errors in this paragraph.

1. Preliminarily: "Portuguese America"? Where did that neologism come from? Common usage is "Portuguese Brazil". But let's set that aside.
2. Brazil was divided into fifteen captaincies in 1534. Duarte Coelho was assigned one of them - Pernambuco - and it is indeed true he used the term "Nova Lusitania" to refer to his captaincy. But there were fourteen other captaincies which went by different names - Maranhao, Ceara, Rio Grande, Itamaraca, Bahia de Todos Santos, Ilheus, Porto Seguro, Espirito Santo, Sao Tome, Sao Vicente, Santo Amaro, Sant' Ana. This article is not about the names of the various individual states, it is about the name of the whole country. "Nova Lusitania" was never used to refer to Brazil, but only to Pernambuco. What our editor is suggesting is akin to insisting the US used to be called "Massachusetts".
3. Our editor apparently is not aware that "Nova Lisboa" was the old name of Fortaleza (f. 1601). For if he knew it was, then he would know that Fortaleza lies up in Ceara, not in Pernambuco. And the captaincy of Ceara belonged to António Cardoso de Barros, not Duarte Coelho. It has nothing to do with him.
4. Our editor claims that "many of the cities in his captaincy were named after Portugal". I am not sure what cities he is referring to. There were three known settlements in Coelho's captaincy, of which we only are certain of two - Olinda and Vila de Cosme e Damiao (or Igarassu). "Olinda" was from an expression he used when viewing the site, Igarassu is the Tupi name of an old Portuguese brazilwood station, erected by Cristovao Jacques c.1517-9, which Coelho renamed "Vila do Cosme e Damiao" after a chapel he erected there in honor of the two Greek martyrs, Saints Cosmas and Damian. The third settlement was either Paratibe (the Tupi name for a local river) or "Sitio do Marcos", referring to the marker Coelho himself erected designating the border between Nova Lusitania and the neighboring captaincy of Itamaraca (which belonged to another captain, Pedro Lopes de Sousa). None of those "are named after Portuguese originals".
5. I asked our editor to bring up references to substantiate his claims. His references are reproduced below with my notes. I don't see any of these reference substantiating the claim that it was used for Brazil as a whole. The ones I could verify confirm that "Nova Lusitania" refers to Pernambuco only. Notice that the ones I could not verify have no internal page number, and so presumed spurious.
6. Our editor insisted on inserting that paragraph in the section on "First Names". That section is intended to summarize the names by which Brazil was referred to in the documentary record before "Brazil" became extant. That is, in the early 1500s (before 1515 or thereabouts). By the time the captaincies were erected, it was already firmly called "Brazil" (or, as best alternative, "Santa Cruz"). As far as I am aware, there is no reference, letter, document or chronicle of that time which refers to Brazil as "Nova Lusitania". If such is found, I will be glad to change it. But until then, this is simply misplaced. He is welcome to place such a note on the history of Pernambuco page.
7. If later Brazilian romantic writers want to call their country by other nicknames, that is their prerogative. But it is not pertinent to this article, which is about the origins of the term "Brazil". Walrasiad (talk) 04:44, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The "references" by Christano Tomas (with my "NOTES*.)

Take Two

Editor (User:Cristiano Tomás) tried once again to insert Nova Lusitania in the article. This time his passage reads:

During its centuries of Portuguese colonization, Brazil was informally reffered to as New Portugal (Portuguese: Novo Portugal) and occassionally as New Lusitania (Nova Lusitânia).

The term New Lusitania had already been officially been used for Duarte Coelho's Portuguese American capitancy, which would later change its name to Pernambuco. New Lusitania was first used for the whole of Brazil, in an official context, in a 17th-century Portuguese map. While it was not the Portuguese colony's official name, the term, New Lusitania, grew in popularity, amongst Portuguese and colonial society, as a sign of the increasing importance of Brazil in the Portuguese empire and Portugal itself.

That growth in importance to Portugal is what would also create the term New Portugal. Unlike New Lusitania, which was only used by the Portuguese, the term New Portugal was used by other nations to describe Brazil during its colonial Period. In fact, the term New Portugal was used more by foreignors than by the Portuguese themselves.

Once again, most of this is made up. The claims made above are not backed up by his references. Let's go through this again.

The Editor writes: "During its centuries of Portuguese colonization, Brazil was informally reffered to as New Portugal (Portuguese: Novo Portugal) and occassionally as New Lusitania (Nova Lusitânia)."

• This is false. There is no evidence that it was used informally to refer to Brazil. We happen to have a lot of books, papers, letters and documents about Brazil from the colonial period - reams and reams of records. If it was used informally, there should be plenty of evidence. But I've gone through plenty of such documents and never found such usage, nor have I seen such a statement ever made or even suggested in the secondary literature. This may be something the editor [i]wishes[/i] was true. But it is not true. It is 100% original research or rather original speculation. He has brought no evidence to back it up.

The Editor writes: "The term New Lusitania had already been officially been used for Duarte Coelho's Portuguese American capitancy, which would later change its name to Pernambuco."

• First off, may I ask again that you avoid neologisms? Nobody calls it "Portuguese America", the common term is "Portuguese Brazil". Please don't try to invent new terms, when common ones are available.

• This statement is true, but it should be in an article about Pernambuco, not Brazil. As you know Pernambuco was not the only colony in Brazil. There were fourteen other captaincies - Maranhao I, Maranhao II, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Itamaraca, Bahia, Ilheus, Porto Seguro, Espirito Santo, Sao Tome, Sao Vicente I, Santo Amaro, Sao Vicente II and Santana. Many had settlements in them - e.g. Porto dos Patos, Cananeia, Sao Vicente, Santos, Sao Paulo de Piratininga, Sant Andre da Borda do Campo, etc. which existed well before Coelho arrived, to say nothing of the myriad of brazilwood stations (Itamaraca, Igarassu, Porto Seguro, Carioca, etc.). And then there are the colonies that were set up simultaneously by other captains at the same time as Coelho (Vila do Porto Seguro, Vila do Espirito Santo, Vila da Rainha, Vila do Pereira, Sao Jorge dos Ilheus, Vila da Conceicao, etc.) None of these were ever referred to as Nova Lusitania. To suggest or insinuate that Nova Lusitania referred to Brazil is not only a gross error, it is also insulting to non-Pernambucan Brazilians, making it seem like Pernambuco has some sort of priority over the others.

• If you're going to put etymology of a captaincy in this article, you need to put the etymology of all captaincies. Which would make this article unwieldy and awkward. It is better for place these etymologies to be within their respective state articles. There is no reason to give Pernambuco a place of priority over the others here. If anything, the only logical addition here would be Grao-Para and Maranhao, the name used for the northern half of Brazil for a substantial portion of the colonial period, when Brazil proper was reserved only for the south.

• Nova Lusitania was peculiar term used only by Duarte Coelho - and Duarte Coelho alone - to refer to Pernambuco alone. It is on his official reports and records. But nobody else used it. Despite his efforts, the term never took root.

• The term "Pernambuco" is actually much older and it dominates the references even during Coelho's time. It was the name of the river between the Igarassu and Itamaraca brazilwood stations, and that particular stretch of coast was called "Pernambuco" by the Portuguese long before Coelho, and it is how it continued to be called.

• Funny enough, the Pernambuco river changed name in 1534 - it was renamed "River of Santa Cruz" (on the orders of John III's chancellary, before Coelho got there) but the term Pernambuco was so prevalent that it persisted for the area. Even Coelho's settlement, which he officially called "Olinda de Nova Lusitania" usually appears on contemporary maps as "Olinda de Pernambuco". As luck would have it (well, bad luck for Coelho's attempt to impose his name), the Tupi name for the the sandbar of the port of Olinda was also "Pernambuco" (in Tupi, it means "broken river"), the coastal name and the city name were merged. So usage of the term "Pernambuco" was never interrupted. It is the term the colonists used and the term used by the captains and sailors who visited. So the Pernambuco name for the colony was reinforced - not only as a traditional name from the old river and coastal stretch, but the new informal name for the settlement as well. The natural continuity of the Pernambuco name dominated Coelho's artificial "Nova Lusitania" in usage.

• Upon Coelho's death in 1548, the colony was officially renamed "Pernambuco". There is no more usage by anybody to Pernambuco as Nova Lusitania, with the exception of Coelho's widow, Brites de Albuquerque, who insisted on using it in her correspondence, to honor her husband's memory. And after she died, it stopped being used at all.

• The name evaporates completely by the 1560s. It is not seen again. It is Pernambuco, Pernambuco, Pernambuco. It is Pernambuco in official records, in documents, in letters. Colonists called it Pernambuco, officials in Portugal called it Pernambuco, Pombal's company was the "Companhia de Pernambuco", Venetian maps called it Pernambuci, English and Dutch maps Fernambuk/Pernambuk. When Brazil was split into two royal colonies, where the name "Brazil" was reserved for the southern half, nobody even thought about reviving the term for the northern half. They went with Grao-Para and Maranhao instead.

• The one great exception was Brites Freire, who did indeed use the term "Nova Lusitania" in his 1675 history of the Dutch wars of the 17th C. But this is well beyond the time frame of this article. And unique. Nobody else but him used the term again in over 250 years.

the Editor writes: "New Lusitania was first used for the whole of Brazil, in an official context, in a 17th-century Portuguese map. While it was not the Portuguese colony's official name, the term, New Lusitania, grew in popularity as a sign of the increasing importance of Brazil in the Portuguese empire and Portugal itself.

That growth in importance to Portugal is what would also create the term New Portugal. Unlike New Lusitania, which was only used by the Portuguese, the term New Portugal was used by other nations to describe Brazil during its colonial Period. In fact, the term New Portugal was used more by foreignors than by the Portuguese themselves. "

• You misread the reference. It is not 17th. The map is from the late 18th C. - specifically 1798.

• Your assertion that it "grew in popularity" is false. You have one 1798 map. That is all. No other record upon which to make such an assertion, nor a reference to anyone who makes such an assertion.

• I am not sure what your second reference is about. It is a book from 2000 from the Brazilian government which uses "Nova Lusitania" as a title for the book itself. It doesn't say anything about the usage of the term, whether in cartography or anywhere else. But alas, I can only see the preview. If you have the full document, I would appreciate it if you could provide some more details.

• Usage in the 1798 map should immediately ring one bell - it is a post-Tirandetes map. That is, it was created on the heels of the Inconfidencia Mineira rebellion of 1789-92 and in the teeth of the Uprising of the Tailors of that same year. The 1790s were a heady time for Brazil. After the American, French and Haitian revolutions, Brazil was smouldering in rebellion, hankering for independence. We know the term "Nova Lusitania" wasn't used - it doesn't appear on any letters or documents of the time that I have heard of or seen. But its appearance on this map can be explained simply as a propagandist label, a flourish chosen by an imperialist-minded cartographer, to reiterate the link between Brazil and Portugal and impress upon the colonists who were trying to break free into independence. Much as you might not be surprised to find a royalist British cartographer in 1776 adding "New Albion" to a map of the American colonies. But this speculation on my part. The only thing I know for sure is that there are no references attesting to the statement made above about usage.

• "New Portugal" isn't a term used abroad. Again, there are not documents or references attesting to that. It is a term used in an American 1813 copy of the 1798 Portuguese map (as the 79.pdf article notes, there weren't any other maps likes this of Brazil available - it is a direct copy.) "New Portugal" is a direct English translation of the propagandist "Nova Lusitania" label in the 1798 chart. Your theory about foreign usage is cute, but has no basis. And no reference attesting to it.

In short: There is no basis for any statement made in this passage about usage, popularity or usage abroad. It is completely made up, none of the references make the claims contained there. The only thing you can say is that there is a single Portuguese map from 1798 that inserted the propagandist label "Nova Lusitania" under the term "Brazil" - a term that Duarte Coelho originally invented for his colony of Pernambuco back in 1534-45, but had never taken root and had not been used since. And that an American copy of this map translated that label as "New Portugal". That is all. That is the sum total of what you can say here.

This shouldn't be in this article which pertains to the etymology of "Brazil", as it emerged in the early 16th C. A single isolated 1798map is well outside the parameters of this article. And the surrounding statements around it are unreferenced and, as far as I can tell, quite false. You are welcome to wax poetic over Nova Lusitania in the Pernambuco article, or write an article about the 1798 map. But it should not be here. Walrasiad (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Brazil → Brasil

This article does not explains when Brazil changed its name from Brazil to Brasil. There are books in Portuguese language when the Brazilian Empire (19th century), and the spelling was 'Brazil' but now it is 'Brasil'.

This is about changes from the orthography. At least until 1943, the correct spelling was "Brazil".Erick Soares3 (talk) 00:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

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The Brazils

In both Robinson Crusoe and in Wilkie Collins "Armadale," mention is made of "the Brazils." These are the two books in which I've come across the term, but I suspect there are others. I can't find an explanation here or elsewhere on the Web. Can someone explain what is being referenced? Abenr (talk) 20:31, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

no artigo sobre java le grande australia os cartografos euro batavos como termo indias ja tinham o termo brasil pra denominar terras austrais que pareciam ilhas com o mesmo padrao quentes etc a wiki br é a mais invejosa e sofisma tudo com vandalismo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.211.79.58 (talk) 10:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Native names

I don't think the removal of necessary change, in fact, i think it is quite a bad change. Should it be changed back? Rvtar34 (talk) 12:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Disputed

As pointed out in the edit summary, but reverted by @Cristiano Tomás, "disservice; old and or unreliable sources. “Pindorama” can (and should) be approached only if it is explained it is a modern name, not a 16th-century, Tupi-peoples one". RodRabelo7 (talk) 12:23, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

@Rvtar34. RodRabelo7 (talk) 12:23, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

"This name is old and not used anymore" isn't a very good argument when talking about the history of Brazil's name, specially considering the article mentions early european names for Brazil

As for sources, i could, at the moment only find one paper that mentions the topic a bit more in depth:

https://www.ufrpe.br/sites/www.ufrpe.br/files/EBOOK_Conexa%CC%83o%20Pindorama.pdf#page=96(In Portuguese) Rvtar34 (talk) 22:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

A questão aqui é que cegamente meter umas fontes secundárias no artigo não faz o menor sentido, e não é muito diferente de tentar reescrever a história. Por favor, diga-me em que fonte primária, especialmente dos séculos XVI e XVII, faz-se uso do termo "Pindorama". Se caçar direito, vai descobrir que "Pindorama" é um termo nheengatu, que o Couto de Magalhães afirmava, sem nenhuma sustentação em fontes coloniais, tratar-se do nome nativo para o Brasil. Deve ter pegado por causa de 1922... Aliás, se souber um pouquinho de tupi antigo, vai perceber que essa composição sequer faz sentido. "Palmeira" é "pindoba", "terra" é "tetama". Isso não passa de um Frankestein sem qualquer sustentação. Pinging DarwIn in case he has anything to add. RodRabelo7 (talk) 20:10, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Só para registro, encontrei esta notícia que faz referência à opinião do tupinólogo Frederico Edelweiss sobre o assunto. Embora a notícia em si não pareça fiável, é um começo para (tentar) encontrar em que obra, exatamente, Edelweiss escreve sobre o termo "Pindorama" (Teodoro Sampaio não costuma ser muito fiável nesses assuntos, por ter escrito em uma época em que os estudos de línguas tupi-guaranis ainda eram discretos). Volto a repetir que não há qualquer sustentação em fontes primárias coloniais para dar respaldo a essa invencionice que acabou pegando, e manter uma seção parcamente referenciada, cujas fontes atuais são das menos fiáveis possíveis, só serve para espalhar desinformação a respeito dos povos tupis. RodRabelo7 (talk) 20:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)