Portuguese as She is Not (and is) Spoken

This summer for a few weeks in late July/early August I went to Portugal on holidays. We spent 2 weeks near Sintra, north of Lisbon and a week in the Algarve, glamping. It was an interesting experience as a language learner.

Sintra is full of tourists and these are mostly southern European and Latin American, with a smaller proportion of English speakers than elsewhere in Portugal. Drawn by the attractive monuments, castles and temperate climate the city was teeming with tourists. Notwithstanding any of the nearby seaside towns were mostly filled with locals or Portuguese tourists. There was a sense that Sintra attracts people who stay for a day or two, see the sights and then move on. Therefore it caters for and is dependent on tourism but appears to know that what it offers is a chance to sample the cultural history of Portugal.

In addition, while you can get by without Portuguese, you also can speak in Portuguese at many opportunities. Some of which are the repetitive and basic requests for beverages and food, whilst others are more demanding. One memorable conversation involved an attempt to have olive oil on our bread rather than butter, the man in question refused, we tried to insist and he won. Another was a young man at a deli counter delighted in the fact that I could speak (some) Portuguese and lamented the fact that no one seemed to be interested in learning the language. The various attempts at conversation were varied in terms of success and understanding. Comprehension remains the big struggle - mine not the other half of the dialogue. The experience was largely positive with most in Sintra, its environs and in Lisbon proving patient with my attempts at (mis)using their language.

The experience in the Algarve was a dramatic contrast. As a destination for sun and sea package holidays, what was originally a coastline of fishing villages has become a sprawling skyline catering to a foreign (mostly northern European) tourist who appears to care little for local culture except by way of a veneer of the exotic to remind them of where they are. We stayed in a Tipi run by two very pleasant English people surrounded by other English people. Nothing wrong with that, other than as a language experience it wasn't immersive. To be more precise it was a little (friendly, eco) bubble of Englishness on the Algarve. We traveled up and down the Algarve sampling different towns, mostly focusing our energies on the Western end. For the most part we came across tourists from England, Germany, a few Irish, and many Spaniards. There was a mixture of independent travelers and package holidaymakers.

While in Sintra, I had read with some trepidation the chapter on the Algarve in José Saramago's Journey to Portugal: A Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture (London: The Harvill Press, 2002). Based on a journey he undertook in 1979, much of the book involves going into small villages, waiting around for the key holder of the local church and describing under-explored corners of Portugal. His brief sojourn in the Algarve at the end of this trip is treated in a perfunctory and bad humoured manner. To cite him, the traveller (as he refers to himself throughout),

"goes into a hotel to ask if there is a room free, and almost before he has opened his mouth they smile at him and reply in English or French. When he continues in his own native language of Portuguese, they respond to him sourly, even if it is to say that yes they do have one free. The traveller reflects how pleasant it would be on his journeys to see the Portuguese language displayed in restaurants and hotels, in petrol stations and airports, to hear it spoken fluently by air hostesses and policemen, by the maid bringing breakfast and the wine waiter. But this is a mirage produced by the baking sun: Portuguese is not spoken outside these parts, my friend, it's only spoken by a few people, and they are too poor to count" (434).

Implicit in this is a curious sort of envy of the way that both English and French has become ubiquitous. Not an unproblematic one, but one, in this situation, that appears to be born of his upset at the absence of Portuguese on the Algarve. He imagines that the tourists who frequent the Algarve would be happy "if there were short and direct underground passageways between the hotels, rooms and rented apartments, restaurants, beaches and boîtes, we would see the incredible dream of being everywhere and nowhere really come true" (436). The 'everywhere and nowhere' feeling can be achieved in some towns without the need for underground passageways, unfortunately.

His derision for the destruction that has taken effect on this coastline by package tourism is expressed in his disgust at how the Portuguese language is sidelined in favour of a "servile" deference to other languages, "Portuguese is held in such low esteem here that it could be said of the Algarve, where civilisation comes to enjoy its barbarism, that it is a place for Portuguese as she is not spoken" (434). Unfortunately, this was my experience too. Restaurant staff who ignore your desire to practice the language and reply in English or hand you over the English menu with rude disdain, shop assistants who look at you askance, and a general air of not wanting to interact beyond a purely commercial and very tired exchanges. There is some consolation to be sought in the fact that a Nobel prize winning author of that language experienced some of the disdain I a language learner did. In the Algarve, Portuguese is still being broken there.