Língua e raça no Brasil colonial

In this article, we explore and analyze the process of racialization of Portuguese language and African subjects in the Brazilian colonial context. For doing so, we explore the nature of the relationship between economic and political dimensions of colonialism and the language practices of enslaved African people in Brazil. In light of Portuguese colonial apparatus – that combined religious, political and economic interests – this paper analyzes the role played by languages and racialized language ideologies in both fostering exploitation and enabling resistance against colonial domination. From a historical and critical perspective, we analyze the economic and social apparatus that underpinned enslaved African people in Brazil, who were deeply affected by a system based on the sugar mill apparatus (modelo do engenho). We explore four examples: the use of the terms boçal, ladino, creole and língua; Portuguese learning by ensalved Africans and the role of Portuguese proficiency; the politics of naming and ethnicization; and missionary language ideologies. We point out to the relationship between four interrelated elements: the ideological dimensions of language, racializing processes, economic domination and practices of resistance. We conclude by advocating in favour of a decolonizing concept of language in colonial contexts that take into account the plurality of voices and the critical epistemology inscribed in the notion of colonial diasporic multilingualisms of the Global South.