A little Africa in my Words

Africanisms in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Africanisms are an important part of Brazilian culture without them the Portuguese linguistic system would not be complete. When we talk about Africanisms we discover all the terms that originate from across the ocean. The terms of African origin are manifold and to trace this cultural heritage it is necessary to trace literary works, corpora and dictionaries.  
The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of native speakers and Portuguese scholars so that they can enhance the African identity present in Brazil. This goal will be possible thanks to the cultural and literary world, especially through the vision of Cascudo. Furthermore, it is possible to note that African influence not only identifies the history of the Portuguese language in Brazil but also in its dialects and through a small list of terms we try to show that there are several semantic fields to which the terms belong. Moreover, it is possible to know a historical part of these words.