{"id":532,"date":"2024-06-08T07:23:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T07:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/claru\/?page_id=532"},"modified":"2025-10-23T07:15:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T07:15:47","slug":"political-border","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/claru\/en\/political-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Political border"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=\u00bb\u00bb]The notion of border shares many similarities with what Anderson (1983\/2020) understands by \u201cimagined communities\u201d. Nation, like border, is a social construct that emerges from decisions that are taken largely at the political level. In the case of the border dividing the northern departments of Uruguay (Artigas, Rivera and Cerro Largo) with the Brazilian state of Rio Grande del Sur, the border can be considered \u201can imaginary line\u201d. In fact, what is currently known as northern Uruguay is, as Elizainc\u00edn (1987: 33) describes it, \u201cthe product of a constant diplomatic and military struggle between Spain and Portugal\u201d. The reasons for this situation, as well as the historical events that led to it, are numerous and can be consulted in the bibliographical references indicated below (cf. Carvalho 2003: 126 for historical references). However, it is worth mentioning two of the main measures taken by Uruguay to stop Portuguese expansion and to counteract the Portuguese-speaking presence here: the founding of cities on the border between 1853 and 1862, including those currently known as Artigas and Rivera; compulsory schooling and predominantly Spanish-based education (Coll 2009: 242-243; Elizainc\u00edn 1987: 39). This latter issue is crucial, because on the basis of the Ley de la Educaci\u00f3n Com\u00fan (Reglamento de Instrucci\u00f3n P\u00fablica) (Law of Common Education, Regulation of Public Instruction), promoted by Professor Jos\u00e9 Pedro Varela in 1877, education in the \u201cnational language\u201d was imposed in all educational centres across the country. While Portuguese was not eliminated entirely, it is true that it began to be seen as less prestigious. On the social level, this led to a situation of diglossia (Ferguson 1959; Fishman 1967; 1972) in which Spanish came to be the language of the educational system, among other functions, while the northern varieties of Portuguese in Uruguay were relegated to situations of communicative immediacy (cf. Koch\/Oesterreicher 2007), that is, mainly to family environments. It is, therefore, a young frontier if one compares it to the situation in the Iberian Peninsula, where the kingdoms were already delimited when linguistic development began (cf. Ossenkop 2012).<\/span><\/p>\n

The seminal work of Rona (1965) reported the presence of varieties of Portuguese in the north and paved the way for numerous subsequent studies (cf. Hensey 1972; Elizainc\u00edn \/ Behares 1981; Elizainc\u00edn \/ Behares \/ Barrios 1987; Elizainc\u00edn 1992; 2008; Carvalho 1998; 2003; 2007; among others) that in general have limited themselves to discussing (a) possible terms (fronterizo \u2013 border, Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay \u2013 Portuguese dialects of Uruguay (DPU), Uruguayan Portuguese; cf. Brovetto 2014) and (b) different typological classifications (bilingual or mixed dialect, dialect within a pre-pidgin continuum, a dialectal diffusion continuum between rural Uruguayan Portuguese and urban Brazilian Portuguese; cf. Carvalho 2003: 127-129). Most authors agree with what Steffen and Steffen (2022: 199) point out: \u201c[\u2026], the Portuguese of the area lacks an established norm and shows a high degree of instability and variability\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information see: Garrido S\u00e1nchez-Andrade, B\u00e1rbara (2023): \u201cLa frontera de Artigas (Uruguay): hacia una propuesta de c\u00f3mo abordar el estudio de perfiles socioling\u00fc\u00edsticos fronterizos\u201d, en:\u00a0Revista Internacional de Ling\u00fc\u00edstica Iberoamericana XXI<\/em>, 2 (42), pp. 115-130, in addition to the following references:<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_tta_accordion color=\u00bbmulled-wine\u00bb active_section=\u00bb1″ collapsible_all=\u00bbtrue\u00bb][vc_tta_section title=\u00bbBibliography\u00bb tab_id=\u00bb1719650439228-06f81ba1-6858″][vc_column_text css=\u00bb\u00bb]\n