The “funny” língua de preto :

racialization of the language of enslaved people in the province of Rio de Janeiro (1822/1889)

Abstract

Throughout the 19th century, the racialization of the language of enslaved people, stereotyped as “língua de preto,” was a discursive practice of the landlord class and/or the literate elites of Rio de Janeiro to demean black people, relegating them to the order of a civilizing impossibility. Based on a historiographical approach that conceives the enslaved person as a social agent, on the sociopolitical history of linguistic contacts, and on dialogic discourse analysis, this article problematizes the racialization of language as a discursive practice of the landlord class to dehumanize the enslaved black person and to assert the plan of linguistic unity that fed the ideology of a white national identity. Finally, we conclude that,diferente from the predictions of the literate elites, the “língua de preto” enriched the dynamics of Brazilian cultural identities.