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Meaning of the term Pardo

There seems to be the beginnings of an edit war over how to describe the meaning of pardo as that word is -- whether intelligently, ignorantly, pointlessly or stupidly -- used to describe people.

As I understand it, as far as recent censuses are concerned, the meaning of pardo is "somebody who checks the option pardo rather than any of the alternatives". That meaning aside, I sense that at least three meanings have been or might be argued for:

  • a mixture of SP "black" and "white" ancestry (perhaps with more besides)
  • a mixture of SP "white" and "non-white" ancestry (perhaps with more besides)
  • a mixture of any two or more among SP "black", indigenous, "white" and other ancestries

"SP" is my nonce abbreviation for "societally perceived", which means "as generally understood in society" and does not depend on genetic facts as inferred from studies of DNA and so forth.

This is of course complicated by the perceived imbalances among the numbers: somebody may reasonably claim that the term means X, but that since Y make up a huge majority of X, it effectively means Y.

There's a fair amount of argument above over the meaning of pardo. A lot of it is recourse to arguments such as "everyone in Brazil knows that XYZ", which (however true it may be) we have to dismiss.

A lucid and apparently authoritative explanation is the one attributed above to Marcos Amorim Coelho's Geografia do Brasil, 4th ed. (São Paulo: Moderna, 1996):

The Brazilian population formed itself from three basic ethnic groups: the Indian, the White and the Black. The intense miscegenation (crossings) that occurred between those groups gave origin to numerous Mestizos or Pardos (as they are officially called), whose basic types are the following ones: the Mulatto (White + Black), the most numerous; Caboclo or Mamluk (White + Indian); e Cafuzo (Black + Indian), the least numerous. Observe figure 15.3. (p.268)

It's backed up by the quotations above from Aroldo Azevedo, O Brasil e suas regiões (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1971) and José William Vesentini, Brasil, sociedade e espaço – Geografia do Brasil, 7th ed. (São Paulo: Ática, 1988).

NB I have not seen these books, and even if I were to see them I wouldn't understand them as I unfortunately cannot read Portuguese.

Does any authoritative source argue for an alternative definition of pardo as it applies to people? -- Hoary (talk) 03:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should just don't translate it, just set the word "pardo" alone, for avoid these different interpretation and opinion. But as I've told my opinion before, I personally am one of who dislike to translate it into "multiracial", since the own IBGE which is administrated by the own Brazilian Federation, on its pages in English, uses the term "brown", as it is possible to see on its official website http://www.ibge.gov.br/english/presidencia/noticias/noticia_impressao.php?id_noticia=737 , and the cabocloes are free to consider themselves as White, Indigenous or even Pardo, but the Caboclo who chose White or Indigenous still fit in the Multiracial class, and the same to the Asian descendants who chose White or Asian, we cant say that Pardo is the Multiracial class and the others aren't. And several others Wikipedia articles also use this term for translate pardo, these articles are easily found by using the search mechanism like on this search http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=pardo+brown&go=Go Luizdl (talk) 04:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I personally am one of who dislike to translate it into "multiracial"
That's the problem: it's not a matter of personal taste, but how are the multiethnic Brazilians called by an "authoritative source". You may not like it, I might not like it, but it doesn't matter our opinion about it.
since the own IBGE which is administrated by the own Brazilian Federation
Only because it's a Government's agency it doesn't mean that anything it says should be taken for granted. Because if we take your thought in account, would that mean that we couldn't use books written by renowned Brazilian historians as sources in a history article about Brazil only because the official website of the Brazilian presidency has a page devoted to the country's history, for example?
uses the term "brown", as it is possible to see on its official website
Yes, it does. However, a brown person in the English language means someone who is a descendant of a white and a black. In Brazil, the Pardo could be someone who is a descendant of a white and Japanese only. Or of a white and Indian only.
Another example: in Spanish the word "mestizo" is used to describe the descendant of a white and an Indian. In Brazil, the "mestiço" is the Pardo, and could be the descendant of a black and a white also. We can not simply translate a word into English and expect that that's it, it's all good. We can't, as it clearly has different meanings.
That's exactly why Brazilian scholars avoid the word Pardo and prefer to use the word "mestiço" that comes from "mistura", or in English, someone of "mixed-race" or "multiethnic". It's a much better term than "Pardo" ("brown") to represent all Brazilian multiethnic people.
and the cabocloes are free to consider themselves as White, Indigenous or even Pardo, but the Caboclo who chose White or Indigenous still fit in the Multiracial class
That's your personal opinion. If we take in account that, it would mean that a black could also call himself white and vice-versa. From the moment a Caboclo is considered by Brazilian scholars and the IBGE as part of the white category, this category stops representing an ethnic group and starts to represent several groups.
the same to the Asian descendants who chose White or Asian
No, they are called "Ainocô" and are grouped in Pardo (or mixed-race). They are not considered whites or Asians.
we cant say that Pardo is the Multiracial class and the others aren't.
The other aren't. That's the greatest problem about the way that Pardo category as treated by the IBGE. As the Geographer José William Vesentini, noticed, IBGE's "data are very questionable, as they do not take in account the ethnic origin of the people (black or Indian ancestry, etc.), but only the color of skin. Moreover, the notion of “Pardo” is not very rigorous, as it includes from very dark Mulattoes to Caboclos and Cafuzos." (Vesentini, José William. Brasil, sociedade e espaço – Geografia do Brasil. 7ª. Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1988, pp.117-118) Again, this is why Brazilian scholars prefer to use the term "mixed-race" instead of "Pardo".
And several others Wikipedia articles also use this term for translate pardo, these articles are easily found by using the search mechanism like on this search
Only because other articles says that, it doesn't mean that we should accept it. And more: every single article about Brazil that mentions ethnicity, from Brazilian people, to Afro-Brazilian, and even articles about cities, was monopolized by editor Opinoso. Trying to make of the pardo population a black descendant category only was his main goal.
Perhaps we should just don't translate it, just set the word "pardo" alone, for avoid these different interpretation and opinion.
I do agree. It should stay as it is, that is: mixed-race for overall, and Pardo when talking about IBGE studies. --Lecen (talk) 06:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Two notes. First, Lecen has I think twice written a brown person in the English language means someone who is a descendant of a white and a black or similar. This may perhaps be its primary meaning (I really don't know), and I'm sure Lecen is well-intentioned; but I've often heard the term used to refer to people from south Asia. (Here's an example.) I do realize that south Asians aren't an issue here, but I suspect that "brown" is also used in English by or for other people who wouldn't be considered of African ancestry. (Even though (i) we're all of African ancestry, as far as scientists have yet determined, and (ii) personally I find all this classification by skin color dreary and depressing.)

Secondly, pardo probably somewhere merits an explanation that goes beyond its use by IBGE. The obvious place for this is pardo; but still, some agreement is needed on it. -- Hoary (talk) 07:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

If indeed brown in English can be used to refer also to other multiethnic categories other than someone who is an offspring of a white and black, then I remove my objection to use it as a translation of "pardo".
According to this dictionary a brown person is "b. Often Offensive Of or being a person of nonwhite origin." The Webster dictionary (p.80) says that brown is "2. tanned; dark-skinned". For what I've seen around the internet, a brown person is someone from Middle-East or from Asian countries such as Philipines, but not Japan or China. There is also an article about it in Brown people.
P.S.: The issue is not being of african descent, but to avoid confusion among readers who are not experts on the subject. --Lecen (talk) 11:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Since most readers here are American, we should think about what we are doing. Trying to translate Portuguese words for race in use in Brazil into common English words for race in use in the United States would have the effect of leading the non-specialist reader into understanding Brazilian racial categories as equivalent or at less very similar to American racial categories. Do we want that? Or, on the contrary, do we want to stress the differences between each categorial system, and the peculiarity of the Brazilian system, when compared to the American one? Which of these options does, a) most aptly capture what actually happens in the real world; and b) leads the reader into thinking about racial categories (in general) and whether they make or make not sence, instead of reassuring the reader that his cultural bias is in fact universal and as such a neutral, natural view?
In my opinion, the best thing to do would probably be to not translate any of the Brazilian racial category terms. Better refer to brancos and explain what that means, instead of talking about "Brazilian Whites" and leading people into forming mental images of Brazilian equivalents of American WASPs. Ninguém (talk) 14:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Certainly a lot of readers are from the US, where "White" is often used in contradistinction to (inter alia) "Hispanic", which I suppose would include virtually all Brazilian brancos. -- Hoary (talk) 15:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There are some (not as many as you would imagine by reading Wikipedia, but yes, some) of German, or Northern Italian, or Polish, ancestry, who don't look "Hispanic" - but then they don't make a separate category here (though I have read some talk about "real Whites" in the White Brazilian Talk Page). Ninguém (talk) 15:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really, Hoary. The equivalent to Hispanic in Brazil is the Caboclo. What the Americans usually perceive as a typical Latino is someone of Spanish (Iberian) and Amerindian descent. These people are caboclos (except the girl who is obviously mulatto or perhaps a Juçara). --Lecen (talk) 15:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, yes, you're right. Clearly it's past my bedtime. Good night! -- Hoary (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Lecen has clearly sliced the text that I wrote on answering That's the problem: it's not a matter of personal taste, but how are the multiethnic Brazilians called by an authoritative source, when I said my opinion it was followed by a authoritative source as one because: since the own IBGE which is administrated by the own Brazilian Federation, on its pages in English, uses the term brown

The affirmation of lecen opinion on saying that descendants of Asian calls themselves as Pardo does not follow the sources, so, original research, to find a sourced saying that them calls themselves as mestizos you will be using another term, and as we know, Pardo is a colour choice.

Lecen said . And more: every single article about Brazil that mentions ethnicity, from Brazilian people, to Afro-Brazilian, and even articles about cities, was monopolized by editor Opinoso., this accusation sounds a little nonsense.

Lecen also affirmed a brown person in the English language means someone who is a descendant of a white and a black, well, I found another good source which uses the term brown to translate pardo, I found book in English about Race in contemporany Brazil, and this book is available on Google: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=ghMHZvoRoH4C&q="pardo+(brown)"
The CIA uses a worse term, calls them as Mullato which means only black with whites: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html?countryName=Brazil&countryCode=br&regionCode=sa&#br

On the article, the term was being translated to Brown for times, and Lecen has disliked this term and changed the word for other that he thinks it is better, and accused me of changing the term without ask before when I restored it to what was before, as it is possible to see in my talk page. I know I don't own it, as the Lecen doesn't own too, he has undid edits of others users like the auréola, as if he was the owner, and accused others users of to be sockpuppet, as he did with the user Grenzer22, and recently suspecting of an IP: User_talk:Ninguém#Possible_sockpuppet_in_the_area. --Luizdl (talk) 01:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, well, you disagree with Lecen, and both of you disagree with Opinoso, and when I'm wide awake I strongly disagree with my sleepier self, and pardo has been translated as "brown", and there's disagreement within English on what "brown" means when describing people; and we could go on in a similar fashion for two hundred more kilobytes.
However, if I may return to my question: What should we do about pardo? I like your own idea; as Ninguém expresses it: to not translate any of the Brazilian racial category terms. Better refer to brancos and explain what that means, instead of talking about "Brazilian Whites" and leading people into forming mental images of Brazilian equivalents of American WASPs. How does it strike you? If it's OK, then the next question is of explaining (not translating) the perhaps unfortunate term pardo. Marcos Amorim Coelho's Geografia do Brasil 4th ed. (quoted above) seems clear on the matter, and to be in line with what other writers say. IBGE seems similarly clear, and to say something else. I think the solution that would be both intellectually honest and helpful is to present both positions, with citations. -- Hoary (talk) 01:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree, the word Pardo should just be linked to the article Pardo instead to be translated. Luizdl (talk) 01:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you, Luizdl. Not trying to be difficult here, just to tie up loose ends: How about branco and the rest? -- Hoary (talk) 01:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't demur for keep translating Branco as White and Negro/Preto as Black, I don't know about the others editors. Luizdl (talk) 02:10, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Ninguém has pointed out above that (for example) "White" might be misinterpreted as having the meaning that it has in the US. (I think he exaggerated a little, but I then made a complete fool of myself with my overly sleepy reply.) How about linking "Pardo" to Pardo (and doing the same for any other color/ancestry term that has its own article), and for Branco and the rest briefly glossing in English and then continuing with the Brazilian term?
NB just a tentative suggestion; feel free to disagree. -- Hoary (talk) 02:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
But actually the page Branco is a disambiguation page, there is an article called White Brazilian, which is for where the page actually links, does any user oppose on keep linking to there, and "black" to Afro-Brazilian? Luizdl (talk) 03:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

lol, if it means brown should be used the word brown —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.92.51 (talk) 04:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

When your laughter has subsided, you may wish to explain yourself. -- Hoary (talk) 10:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I would certainly agree to keep pardo in the original form; translations are going to be somewhat misleading in a way or other. And "Brown" is particularly unhappy because the intuitive retranslation of "brown" into Portuguese is not "pardo" but "marrom" - a term that is, at best, awkward, and practically never used to refer to people (the exception I remember from the top of my head is Ziraldo's O Menino Marrom ([1]) - but then it is about a Black boy (and a White boy that is referred in the book as "menino cor-de-rosa" - "pink boy"...)
I would also prefer to keep branco and amarelo in the original Portuguese, for the reasons mentioned in my previous post for branco, and because "Yellow" is awkward in this context, while "Asian" is again misleading, especially since in Britain it tends to refer to people of South Asia (Pakistanis, Indians, etc.). I am not so sure about "Indígena", and even less about preto. "Preto" is an awkward word, that tends to be rejected by the Black Movement in Brazil, which prefers the term "negro". On the other hand, the usual translation into "African Brazilian" is very inapt. As commented elsewhere, Brazilian Blacks do not use this term (and, by my personal experience, consider it ridiculous). If we are to keep with American Political Correctness, better would be afrodescendente, that at least is used - though again it is misleading, since it is used not only for pretos but also to pardos of African origin. I would prefer to use the English term "Black", with all its problems, or the Portuguese word negro.
More important than that, however, is perhaps the explanation of these words and their actual meaning in the context of "race" in Brazil. Ninguém (talk) 11:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Lecen has clearly sliced the text that I wrote on answering
Be carefull not to insinuate bad faith from me.
when I said my opinion it was followed by a authoritative source as one because: since the own IBGE which is administrated by the own Brazilian Federation, on its pages in English, uses the term brown
And I wrote: "Only because it's a Government's agency it doesn't mean that anything it says should be taken for granted. Because if we take your thought in account, would that mean that we couldn't use books written by renowned Brazilian historians as sources in a history article about Brazil only because the official website of the Brazilian presidency has a page devoted to the country's history, for example?"
The affirmation of lecen opinion on saying that descendants of Asian calls themselves as Pardo does not follow the sources, so, original research
Or you are being naive or you are falsely accusing me right now.
In here you can find the information about how scholars classify descendants of whites and Japanese as "mestizos" (or mixed-race or multiethnic) or "Pardo".
and as we know, Pardo is a colour choice.
Pardo it's a term used by the Government and is even criticized by Brazilian scholars. Again, as the Geographer José William Vesentini, noticed, IBGE's "data are very questionable, as they do not take in account the ethnic origin of the people (black or Indian ancestry, etc.), but only the color of skin. Moreover, the notion of “Pardo” is not very rigorous, as it includes from very dark Mulattoes to Caboclos and Cafuzos." (Vesentini, José William. Brasil, sociedade e espaço – Geografia do Brasil. 7ª. Ed. São Paulo: Ática, 1988, pp.117-118) Again, this is why Brazilian scholars prefer to use the term "mixed-race" instead of "Pardo". Scholars prefer to use the word "mestizo" (half-breed, mixed-race, multiethnic).
Lecen said . And more: every single article about Brazil that mentions ethnicity, from Brazilian people, to Afro-Brazilian, and even articles about cities, was monopolized by editor Opinoso., this accusation sounds a little nonsense.
Once again: or you are being naive or you are falsely accusing me.
I am not accusing Opinoso, because to accuse someone is to claim that that person had done something wrong but that she has not been convicted yet. Opinoso was blocked several times for article ownership and disruptive behavior. So, I am not accusing him, I am declaring that he acts as he owns articles.
Lecen also affirmed a brown person in the English language means someone who is a descendant of a white and a black, well, I found another good source which uses the term brown to translate pardo
I never said that the word Pardo does not mean Brown in English. Any dictionary says that. Pardo is not simply a skin colour, but also a colour by itself. What I was pointing out is that what we consider Pardo may not mean the same for an English-speaker. And that's the matter brought to us by Hoary and that's what we should be discussing in here instead of losing time reading your unfair attacks towards me.
The CIA uses a worse term, calls them as Mullato which means only black with whites:
CIA is a (U.S.) Government Agency and it's clearly wrong as Pardo does not mean simply a Mulatto. And I want to thank you for bringing us that source because you have just proved my point! Thank you!
As you all can see, CIA called the Pardo category "Mulatto" (White+Black=Brown) which reveals what I was trying to say all this time: an English-speaker might think that a Brazilian "Brown" is someone of White and Black descent only, that is, a Mulatto. Keeping simply as Brown will lead people to think that it's a white-black descendant population only.
On the article, the term was being translated to Brown for times, and Lecen has disliked this term and changed the word for other that he thinks it is better
As usual, or you are naive or you are falsely accusing me.
I did not "dislike" the term. All I did was to put "Pardo" followed by "(Mixed-race)". Why that? Because "Pardo" is the term used by IBGE and "Mixed-race" by Brazilian scholars.
and accused me of changing the term without ask before when I restored it to what was before
I did not accuse you. I said that you had had changed without asking before as in the text the term "Pardo (Mixed-race)" was already sourced.
as it is possible to see in my talk page.
Of course it is. I am not mad of undoing something done by someone else without explaining the reason.
I know I don't own it, as the Lecen doesn't own too
Once again you are making a insinuation about me.
he has undid edits of others users like the auréola
I did not. He has made several edits in the article and I created a discussion thread to deal with it. I never changed anything he did. With one sole exception: I had put a tag in the "Popular media" section asking it to be expanded with a paragraph about Brazilian television and Brazilian music. The section had a "Main articles:Music in Brazil, Television in Brazil" link but the text only spoke about Brazilian cinema. Auréola simply reverted what I did.
as if he was the owner
Now you are clearly falsely accusing me.
and accused others users of to be sockpuppet, as he did with the user Grenzer22
Because Grenzer only appears when Opinoso appears. It's always, always like that. You don't see him making edits in the article, but he only appears in discussions that Opinoso is part of.
and recently suspecting of an IP
That was a private message to an administrator. This same administrator never writes in my talk page which means that you are checking my contribution log. Why that? Why are you following me? Are you keeping an eye on me waiting to see if I am going to do something wrong only to complain later? As you are doing right now? Did you know that such behavior is considered harassment?
So, what is Lecen's opinion about all this matter (that is, what it Pardo)?
First of all, whatever the majority decide, I will accept. But I want to give my share on what I think about Pardo and how it should be handled in Wikipedia.
Pardo is a term mainly used by IBGE. IBGE clearly translate it as "Brown". So, we could begin translating Pardo to "Brown" but I believe it should be followed by "(Mixed-Race)" or "(Multi-ethnic)" or "(Multiracial)". So, it should be like this: "Brown (Multiracial)". Where Brown would be linked to Pardo article and Multiracial to Multiracial#Brazil.
Why that? Because:
1) It's the term used by Brazilian scholars.
2) It would avoid confusion over the term "Brown". From the moment someone reads "Brown (multiracial)" she will instantly know that it's a multiracial category and not simply a black+white category.
P.S.: IBGE use the term "Yellow" to categorize someone from Japan, China, etc... Someone from Middle-East is treated as "White". This is why Brazilian scholars use the term "Mongoloid Asian" instead of only "Yellow". Taking IBGE's studies or categories as a dogma is a mistake. The way Brazilian experts categorize ethnic groups in Brazil is obviously more precise. --Lecen (talk) 11:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
That's my thought. --Lecen (talk) 11:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Ninguém, I agree with you, but for what page should we link the words Branco and Negro? should we move the White Brazilian to "Branco (ethnic)" and link "Negro" to Negro? Luizdl (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this last lecen's tip is good too, does any editor oppose? Luizdl (talk) 01:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

These words should be translated by their meanings in English, here in Brazil these are all colors, Branco is White, Pardo is Brown, Negro is Black and Amarelo is Yellow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.217.76.37 (talk) 02:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Could be Branco (ethnic) (but is "branco" an ethnicity?) or Branco (Brazilian demography). And it could be Negro or Black Brazilian.
By the way the Branco disambiguation page needs some corrections. "Rio Branco" is not the surname of the Baron, and people named "Castelo Branco" actually haven't a "Branco" surname - "Castelo Branco" is one surname only. Ninguém (talk) 02:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

So I started to look at the Pardo article, and to make a few corrections. Then I looked at the article's history. I swear, there are times when I have to wonder. In the Pardo article, in November 8h, at 1:34 AM, some text was included, of which the following is a part:

A genetic study conducted on White Brazilians suggests that the European and African mixture prevailed in Southeastern and Northeastern Brazil, both the most populous regions of Brazil. European and Amerindian mixture prevailed in Northern and Southern Brazil. Central-Western Brazil was not included at this study. According to Darcy Ribeiro, miscegenation between Whites and Blacks predominated in Brazil in general. However, there are regional exceptions where the indigenous element was more remarkable. Northern Brazil in general, Sertão (interior of Northeast) and the Pampa region in the South (Southwest Rio Grande do Sul) are some of the Brazilian areas where the Amerindian element may had been more important than the African one. However, the African element is not absent where the Amerindian predominated, neither the Amerindian element is absent where the African predominated. In fact, in all Brazilian regions contributions from European, African and indigenous people are found on the local population, even though the contribution of each ethnic group varies from region to region. (My - Ninguém's - bold)

([2])

Which is more or less what Lecen and me have been arguing.

The editor that introduced this text into the article? Yes. Opinoso. Ninguém (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

If a "black" Brazilian goes to Angola or Senegal they will find out that natives are different from them. Africans are much darker than most "black" Brazilians, who in fact are Multiracial as genetically they have an important degree of European genes.--79.154.37.79 (talk) 03:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Really, what takes place in Brazil and the U.S. is something that took place also in Italy during and after the fall of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago: the assimilation of slaves into the Western culture and by the white majority so after decades there is not much left from their African past. Probably most Italians, including blondes, have a black African ancestor, but it is not relevant today as that past was assimilated. The same takes place in the U.S. where over 20% of "blacks" have already over 1/4 of white genes, so they are being assimilated slowly but continuously by the white majority (and already speak the same language, have the same names and the same religion as the white American population) In fact, there are less differences between white and black Anglo Americans than between any of them wth a guy from Uganda or from Ukraine; white and black Anglo Americans have becomen a single ethnic group of Americans. The same takes place in Brazil, even more as the ethnic mixture is much more advanced. Brazilians are a single ethnic group, with similar names, religion and way of life no matter of their ancestry. And, as Americans say, "Hispanics" are also in the U.S. considered a single ethnic group even if some are whites, others indians, others blacks and the majority mixed race mestizos...but all the Hispanics united by a common cultural ancestry, religion, language and by Spanish ancestors who are the common bond the same way as the English in America and the Portuguese in Brazil.--80.31.73.71 (talk) 18:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Keeping to the point

I note the comment immediately above: "This is a very long discussion for a very small change in the article."

I have just now unenthusiastically reverted a good-faith deletion of some comments here. The deletion edit summary pointed out that this is not a forum for general discussion.

Agreed. Indeed, it's not even a forum for discussion on Brazil. However, the part I brought back is politely making a point about Brazil, one that's relevant to the article. That's why I brought it back.

However, I urge people here to err on the side of conciseness. If you have a substantive point to make, try to source it; if your point is not worth sourcing or not substantive, consider not making it. -- Hoary (talk) 05:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry. The matter about the economy has been settled for quite sometime. The unknown editor made his changes and no one reverted them (because he was indeed correct). The only issue was the way he made his point of view clear. "It's not what he said, but the way he said it". No reason to bring back the discussion, in sum. --Lecen (talk) 11:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Task-force to improve the article

Well, I would like to know if anyone is interested in creating a task-force to improve the article. There is no need at all to be an expert on Brazilian subjects. The idea is quite simple: analyze every section to look after spelling mistakes, or misplaced info, or redundant information, etc... --Lecen (talk) 17:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

race in Brazil: culture and biology

This[3] is cutting edge, and looks pretty relevant, Slrubenstein | Talk 13:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Transport in Brazil

I´ve noticed that is no Transport section. There is a Transport in Brazil page but no link from here. Does anybody mind if I work on and add a suitable section? GrahamTM (talk) 18:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Not at all, feel free to do it! Just remember to keep it small (one or two paragraphies). Good luck! --Lecen (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
´Tis done. Is it any good (self-conscious newbie needing feedback)?GrahamTM (talk) 14:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Environmental Indexes

The infobox of the country shows many economic indexes (e.g. GDP), but no environmental indexes. I tried to add the "Environment Performance Index" (EPI) to the Infobox, but I did not succeed... Does anyone know how to do it? Could you do it?

Ceilican (talk) 20:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Demographics section dispute: ending with it

Please, do not write in this section.

Well, as usual, Opinoso appeared and things got out of control. However, the article cannot stay locked and we must deal with the matter once and for all.

According to Opinoso, 85% of the Brazilian population are blacks. To him, Pardos and Blacks are the same, and according to him, IBGE thinks like that also. He also says that 86% of the Brazilian population has 10% of African genes. It does not matter all the remaining 90%, the 10% makes them black. Also, Whites in São Paulo has 18% African genes and in Natal, 25%. What he did not say was that Black Brazilians have an average of 48% non-African genes, most of them may come from Portuguese ancestors. Of course, if blacks have 48% of white genes and whites have around 10% of black genes, that is enough to make all of them blacks. Period. Whoever wants to know more about his claims, just take a look above. They are all there. Have fun. - --Lecen (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The Brazilian Northern and Northeastern population

Please, do not write in this section.

Important: As you may know, pardo in plain English means "Brown". However, in English a Brown person is someone who is an offspring of a White and a Black only. In Brazil, Pardo is a much broader category that includes also the Caboclo, Mulatto and Cafuzo people. That is not the only case where a simple translation of a word means something different can happen: in Brazil, "mestiço" is used to refer to any kind of half-breed. In Spanish-America, "mestizo" is used to refer to the White and Indian offsprings only.

Brazil: "The whites, in their majority, are descendants of the atlanto-mediterranean people (Portugueses, Spanish, Italian); therefore; it is the country with the greatest white population in the tropical world. The mestizos occupy a place of great prominence, being represented by caboclos (descending of whites and amerindians), mulattoes (of whites and blacks) and cafuzos (of blacks and amerindians) the blacks are equivalent to around 10%, while the remaining are yellow, particularly the Japanese and theirs descendants". (Enciclopédia Barsa in Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 4: Batráquio – Camarão, Filipe. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil, 1987, article "Brazil", p.230)
Northern region: "More than 60% of the population are formed by caboclos, mestizos of white and indian, provenient of crossings done in the region iteself or that came from the northeast region, during the rubber rush (1877-1910). The blacks are very scarce (04%). Beyond the whites, descendants of Portugusse-Brazilians (30%), there exist yellows represented by a minority of Japanese [...] and a decreasing number of indians, many of which still far away from civilization". (Enciclopédia Barsa in Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 4: Batráquio – Camarão, Filipe. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil, 1987, article "Brazil", p.255)
Northern region: "The northeastern population, of Portuguese origin finds itself intensely mixed with the primitive indian population (from which remain only modest residues) and with black elements, brought of Africa."(Enciclopédia Barsa in Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 4: Batráquio – Camarão, Filipe. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil, 1987, article "Brazil", p.258)

Where in the Northeastern region the Africans had a greater impact:

Bahia: "The population of Bahia presents a strong contingent of blacks and mulattoes, concentrated in the Recôncavo [the region around the capital Salvador], beyond numerous caboclos, who predominate in the plateaus [all the remaining area of the state], not mentioning the population of white color." (Enciclopédia Barsa in Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 3: Aparelho digestivo – Battle y Ordóñez. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil, 1987, article "Bahia", p.399)
Maranhão: "The population is concentrated mainly in the plains in the litoral and in the Itapecuru valley with strong ratio of blacks and mulattoes, beyond indian remainders of the tupis and jês groups." (Enciclopédia Barsa in Enciclopédia Barsa. Volume 10: Judô – Merúrio. Rio de Janeiro: Encyclopaedia Britannica do Brasil, 1987, article "Maranhão", p.355) - --Lecen (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Ending the dispute

Well, all what is left to be settled is what version has to stay: Opinoso's where 85% of the population is black or my own where most are caboclos, with a minority of whites, mulattoes and blacks (and in some places, indians and yellows). Anyhow, if we opt for his version, it will be quite interest to see the famous Amazon rainforest with all its black inhabitants, intead of its true indian descendant population. PLEASE, say what you think and that's it, let us not keep ourselves in endless discussions. - --Lecen (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Lecen, stop rising fake disruptions. I never said 85% of Brazilians are Blacks. 86% of Brazilians (according to a genetic study) have significant African DNA. I never said this make them all Blacks.

By the way, in your "Barsa source" nowhere it says Caboclos are majority in Northeastern Brazil. You took this information from nowhere. And even if Barsa said Caboclos are majority there, it would be the only one claiming this, because any source claim that the bulk of the population descends from Africans. Not only in Bahia or Maranhão, but in all Northeastern Brazil as well.

And about Black Brazilians having 48% of non-African DNA, I was the one who wrote this information years ago. You are using my own contributions to make your point. And this is funny. Opinoso (talk) 20:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I created a discussion thread to end the article's blocking and you call it "fake disruptions"? You never said that 85% of the population are Blacks? No? Are you sure? So, who quoted the following passage and even bold it then: "But in large parts of (states) of Amazonas, Pará, Amapá and in different points of Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí and Tocantins the map shows that blacks are more than 85% of the population." Barsa does not say that? Read the text again: "The northeastern population, of Portuguese origin finds itself intensely mixed with the primitive indian population (from which remain only modest residues) and with black elements, brought of Africa." The word "element" means that African had a small, a piece of contribution in this region. I can easily trasncribe the articles about the other Northeastern states, if necessary. And I used your source about the 48% of white genes to show how often you contradict yourself. Anyway, this is the place to let the other editor give their thoughts about the matter. Please, stop with the endless discussion. Stop with the unfair attacks. Stop with unfair accusations - --Lecen (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
The Barsa said people from Northeastern Brazil are a mix of Portuguese, Blacks and Amerindians. The source does not say Caboclos are majority. Barsa never said the African element was "minority". "Element" is not the same as "minority". Do not create new informations, please. The word "Caboclo" is not even used by Barsa. You like to accuse other people from "faking informations", but you are the one who does that.

And the 85% Black population is about some regions of North and Northeastern Brazil, not about the entire Brazilian population. Even though you're trying to sell the idea that I was the one who said that, it's not me who is saying that. It's IBGE, the official agency of the government.

Yes, the article may be unblocked and the unreal Caboclo majority informations you added, which are not even cited in Barsa, will be erased. Opinoso (talk) 22:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, no. The Barsa says that the majority of the Northern Region's population is cabocla. It doesn't say that about Bahia or Maranhão, but those are probably the two Brazilian states with a higher proportion of Black people (along perhaps with Pernambuco and Alagoas). But this says nothing about the population of Ceará, Paraíba, and Rio Grande do Norte. Ninguém (talk) 22:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Bahia (13,950,146) and Pernambuco (8,810,256) are the most populous states in the Northeast. Paraíba (3,623,215) and Rio Grande do Norte (3,043,760) have small populations. Even if Caboclos were the majority in Paraíba or Rio Grande do Norte, this would not make them the "majority" in the entire region. And this division between "Caboclos" and "mulattos" is dubious, since there no such a thing as White and Indian ancestry separate from White and Black ancestry. All these ancestries are largely mixed with each other. There is no region in Brazil where the Amerindians did not contribute for the local population, as well there is no region where Africans did not contribute. What is being called "caboclo" surely has African ancestry, and what is being called "mulatto" surely has Amerindian ancestry. These division are based on what? Physical type or genetic ancestry or self-conciouness about race? These "racial" divisions make no sense at all. Opinoso (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Evidently, even Brazilian Whites have African ancestry, just like Brazilian Blacks have European ancestry. But race is a social construct, not a biological reality. Whites are those who are recognised as Whites; similarly, caboclos are those who are recognised as caboclos. Are they the majority of the Northeastern population? Let's ask Darcy Ribeiro:
Só assim se explica, de resto, o próprio fenótipo predominantemente brancóide de base indígena do vaqueiro nordestino, baiano e goiano. Tais características têm sido interpretadas, por vezes, como resultado de uma miscigenação continuada com os grupos indígenas dos sertões. A hipótese parece historicamente insustentável em face da hostilidade que se desenvolveu sempre entre vaqueiros e índios, onde quer que se defrontassem.
Disputando o domínio dos territórios tribais de caçadas para destiná-los ao pastoreio e lutando contra o índio para impedi-lo de substituir a caça que se tornara rara e arredia nos campos povoados pela nova e enorme caça que era o gado, os conflitos se tornavam inevitáveis. Acresce que a suposição é desnecessária, porque partindo de uns poucos mestiços tirados das povoações da costa - e aos quais não se acrescentou nenhum contingente imigratório branco ou negro - teríamos, natural e necessariamente, pelo imperativo genético da permanência dos caracteres raciais, a perpetuação do fenótipo original. Tudo isso parece ser verdade. A antropologia, porém, nega a história, mostrando a cabeça chata enterrada nos ombros, que não pode vir do nada. É inevitável admitir que, roubando mulheres ou acolhendo índios nos criatórios, o fenótipo típico dos povos indígenas originais daqueles sertões se imprimiram na vaquejada e nos nordestinos em geral.
So, according to Ribeiro, the predominant phenotype among the sertanejos of the Northeast - explicitly including those from Bahia - is "brancóide", ie, caucasoid, with an "indigenous base". Moreover, always according to Ribeiro, the "flat head" characteristic of the sertanejos "cannot come out of nothing", and shows that the phenotype of the original indigenous population was instilled into the vaqueiros and the Northeasterns in general. Ninguém (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but the Sertanejos are the people from the interior of the Northeast (Sertão, Agreste). This region does not have a large population. The coast is where most people live, and Ribeiro describes it as the "Brasil crioulo" with a Black and mixed majority. Anyway, no sources claim Caboclos are majority in Northeast Brazil. Opinoso (talk) 11:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The point, however, is to give an adequate description of the distribution of the Brazilian demographics. As we have seen, the majority of the population in the Northern region is cabocla; the majority of the population of the Northeastern hinterland population is, to quote Ribeiro, predominantemente brancóide de base indígena. In these regions, "pardo" mainly means "caboclo". The majority of the population in the coastal strip, from Salvador (and perhaps even from Ilhéus, I'm not sure) to Recife, as well as in São Luís and adjacent areas, is mulatta. In those regions, "pardo" mainly means "mulatto". Can you agree with me, Lecen, and Darcy Ribeiro, on that? Ninguém (talk) 12:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the point is to give an adequate description of demographs. Wikipedia says we provide all significant views from reliable sources. From what I have read there are more racial terms in Brazil than caboclo and mulatto - and the racial terms used in one part of Brazil may not be used in another part of brazil. Ninguem's point that pardo can mean different things is constructive, but the problem is there are many more terms, and there is no necessary reason to believe that any racial term is going to translate into a racial term used in the US or in other parts of Latin America. States use demographics to control populatiobns - demographics thus become politicsl fields, they are not just objective categories. And there is a LOT of scholarly literature on the polysemy and fluidity of Brazilian racial categories. It seems to me that this is the important piece that is missing from the article, an explanation of why this is so and why it is important.
Lecen seems to be relying on one source, one encyclopedia. Opinoso seems to favor another source. In generally, I think we should shy away from using other encyclopedias as sources. But more important is to provide other sources. As other users have commented, racial categories can be fluid, and they mean different things in different parts of the world. Someone above wrote that in the US a "brown" person is someone who has one White parent and one Black parent. That is false. Someone says we should translate Pardo as multiracial - except most racial categories in Brazil are multiracial in one way or another. Harris, in Patterns of Race in the Americas says that there are more than dozens of races in Brazil, and that Brazilians (in ethnographic research) do not consistently identify the race of someone the same way, based on photos. This means that the racial system and racial logic in Brazil is different from that of English-speaking countries. This means that simply translating words will not be educational. It seems to me that what would by helpful would be a paragraph or two on the historical background - a large amount of intermarriage or inter-racial sex in Brazil means that in some parts of brazil a faithful monogamous couple can have children who look very different. There are also parts of Brazil where there is more upward mobility for people of different races, than other parts of Latin America (in some parts, there is practically a caste system). Research has shown that better-educated and more affluent people are assigned to a whiter race than less well-educated, poorer people who have the same phenotypic traits (skin color, hair texture, etc.) Al of these issues have beenhotly debated, but I see no reason why NPOV cannot be applied here. in fact, NPOV is a non-negotiable policy, and it is pretty shocking that the main people involved in this dispute disregard NPOV. What I see here is two people, each of whom is pushing one view. But NPOV demands that we use all significant views. Peter Fry, Waquant and Hanchard and other work by Michael Hanchard, John Burdick, Donna Goldstein, Charles Wagley, Thomas Skidmore - there are a lot of great sources on research on race in Brazil. Many of them disagree. Our task is not to pick the "correct" source but to give an account of the debate. This article woudl be a lot better if instead of just a table on demographics it had a section on race in Brazil that opened by clearly saying that there are ongoing debates about what race means in Brazil, what racial categories are and how they are assigned by and to people, and the amont of racism in Brazil, and then draw on these scholarly sources to provide the different views in each debate. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This has been tried, for instance, in White Brazilian. To no avail, because the article is owned, and any attempt to discuss the definition of "White Brazilian" is reverted and classified as "disruption".

Also, there is, or there should be, no problem with using Darcy Ribeiro as a source. The problem begins when Ribeiro clearly states that caboclos are a majority both in the Northern Region and in the hinterland of the Northeastern Region, but is quoted as a source for the "information" that 85% of the combined populations of the Northern and Northeastern regions are Black. Ribeiro could be right, Ribeiro could be wrong, but he cannot be made to corroborate something he never stated - or agreed with as far as I can understand.Ninguém (talk) 13:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


You brought up many good points there, but from what I could tell in the talk page, the framework perhaps could have stuck even more closely to sources, stressing different points of view without reaching conclusions. I unfortunately do nto have much time to help. But if you wanted to work on an article on Race in Brazil which could them be sumarized in the main Brazil article I would help as much as I could .. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Slrubenstein is right. There are dozens of skin color categories used in Brazil, including funny ones like honeyed white, tanned, cinnamon, chocolate, sarará, copper, sunburned, polished, kind black, fire pink, toasted and many others. Caboclo and Mulatto are not the only two. Most Brazilians have a "tri-racial" ancestry (European, African and Amerindian) and most of the population do not fit in a Caboclo or a Mulatto category, but in both together. Caboclo and Mulatto are "racial" categories and these words are not used in the day-life of Brazilian people. People of brown skin are usually described as "Moreno". Where I live in Brazil, the word "Caboclo" is never used and many people will not even know what it means. Caboclo is more a cultural term. I know a White woman of immigrant origin who describes herself as "Cabocla" because she is from the countryside of São Paulo, and she is of Caipira culture, which is a Caboclo culture. She uses the word Caboclo to describe her culture, not her "race". The word Mulatto is not really used as well. It is often used to described dark women who dance in samba carnivals (including Black women who are not Mulatto). It's not really a self-reported racial category.

"Unofficially, Brazilians also use a racial classification of "moreno", a word that also means "brown". In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as "moreno", with a further 6% self-identifying as "moreno claro" ("light brown"), and 7% self-identified as "pardo". Telles describes both classifications as "biologically invalid", but sociologically significant". (Edward Eric Telles (2004). "Racial Classification". Race in Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil)

Brazilians of brown skin do not see themselves as "Caboclos" on one side and "Mulattos" on the other side. Everybody seem to use the same word, "Moreno", to classify their race. Caboclo and Mulatto are racial terms not used by Brazilians. Moreno is the skin color term used by most people. Also, according to a survey, half of the White population also classify themselves as "Moreno" when this category could be choosen. (MAGNOLI, Demétrio. Uma Gota de Sangue)

The binary division of Caboclos on one side and Mulattoes on the other side is a poor division given the high degree of mixture between the two groups, and both "racial" classifications are not even used by the average Brazilian. Opinoso (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ninguém, I do agree with you. Pardo in Brazil (in the whole country) it is considered an ethnic category that includes various different kind of half-breeds. A Pardo in the northeast will be (mostly) in fact a Caboclo (descendant of Whites and Indians) and in the Southeast, he will be a Mulatto (descendant of Whites and Blacks). In a few places in the Northeast, there are a large (but not majority) populations of Mulattoes. Where? In the coastal area around Recife (in the state of Pernambuco) and Salvador (in the state of Bahia) and in Maranhão. Why on those places only? History explains it all: in the 16th century Africans were brought to work as slaves in sugarcane farms in Recife and Salvador and their nearby areas. In the 17th and 18th century slaves were brought to Maranhão to work in cotton farms and to Minas Gerais (in the southeast) to work in the mines. In the 19th century they were brought to coffe farms in Rio de Janeiro. This is why there is a large population of african descendants on those regions. What about the remaining areas? like the other Northeatern states, the Northern and also in the Central-West regions? The majority are Caboclos, descendants from the Portuguese conquerors and their allies or conquered Indians. To call everyone "Black" like Opinoso does it is incorrect. To call everone "Mulatto" it would be also incorrect. The country is too large and it there are different kind of ethnicities in it. And no, I don't have only one source. I can bring as many as I have to. --Lecen (talk) 14:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


Not true. African slavery was used in all areas of Brazil. Some areas received more Africans, others less. But Africans were everywhere. All regions had significant numbers of slave. And, not a surprise, in 1864 the Northeast was the region with most slaves in Brazil.[4] Of course that the figure does not include freed people of African descent, which were also many.

To assume there are large populations of "pure" Portuguese and Amerindian ancestry, without African ancestors, is an unsourced information. Moreover, race in Brazil is based on skin color, not in ancestry. Many Brazilians do not even know where their grandparents were born. Few Brazilians know who were their great-grandparents. Almost no Brazilians know who were their great-great-grandparents. Noboby can claim not to have African ancestors, unless the person know who were their millions of ancestors. In fact, all humans are descended from Africans, because this is the place where all human beings came from. More remote or more recent, we all came from Africa. The Portuguese themselves already brought to Brazil their recent mixture with North Africans and with Sub-Saharan Africans. Portugal is described not as an "European country", but as an area of transition between Africa and Europe by Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda and Gilberto Freyre, among others. If the Portuguese are not able to say they are not of African descent, nobody in Northeastern Brazil is. Then, the "Caboclo" people, which according to Lecen means a person with not a single African ancestor, is not true.

""The ethnic and cultural indecision between Europe and Africa seems to have been the same in Portugal as in other parts of the peninsula. (...)" (Gilberto Freyre)

Moreover, since the Caboclo word is not widely used by Brazilians, and also not used by the official agency (IBGE) there's no need to talk about it in this article. Opinoso (talk) 14:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have made a quite clear and (in my opinion) quite reasonable proposal. It was based on the available sources, including Darcy Ribeiro - who, by the way, uses, systematically, the term "caboclo", and specifically to refer to people of mixed European-Amerindian ancestry. It seems we are now drifting into a different discussion. No problems. If we are to discuss the meaning, both biological and cultural, of the Brazilian words for "races", then we should discuss them with sources, and without distorting the sources to make them support things that they do not say (for instance, nowhere Ribeiro says that the word "caboclo" is meaningless). We should also be able to understand why different sources use different classifications, and the political meaning of such classifications. Otherwise we will get stuck with the irrational "85% of the Northern Region is Black, because 85% report as "pardo" in the Census, and the SPIR classifies all "pardos" as Blacks" (of course they do; they are worried about quota, and their political consequences, not about a scientific anthropological or demographical classification). We would also need to be able to understand how those categories are linked to social prejudices and discrimination (saying that all or almost all Brazilians have "African blood" may be true, but it doesn't account for the fact that some Brazilians are considered White in spite of such ancestry, and enjoy in fact what can be called "White privilege", while others are considered Blacks or "pardos" and do not enjoy such status). And finally, we should be able to discuss all that without calling each others racists and whatnot - preferably with some admin handing out blocks to those who opt to do so.
Also, it is absolutely not true that "moreno" means "brown". I can say that Hitler's SA's shirts were "pardas" (indeed, that's a specific way to refer to the SA in Portuguese: "camisas pardas"); I can't say that they wore "camisas morenas". I can say "um cachorro pardo" (a brown dog), but not "um cachorro moreno".
"Moreno" means a person with a tanned skin; it is euphemistically applied to non-Whites in Brazil, as it does not (yet) carry the negative connotations of "preto", "negro", "pardo", "mulato", "escuro", etc. But it is equally used to refer to White people with a sun tan, or with dark eyes and hair. "Moreno" definitely cannot be used to refer to non-human subjects, so it cannot actually be translated as "brown". Ninguém (talk) 15:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
According to the dictionary, moreno means "a person who has a brownish skin tone". It is the word widely used by Brazilians to describe themselves. Opinoso (talk) 14:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

While African slavery existed in all parts of Brazil, its impact on demographics were quite different according to the regions, and the economic activities in such regions. For instance, slavery does not match well with husbandry, as cowherds need to be both mounted and armed, which is not wise to allow slaves to be. For that reason, the Black presence in the Southwestern region of Rio Grande do Sul was always small. Husbandry was also the predominant economic activity in the Northeastern hinterland, which explains why Darcy Ribeiro finds the "sertanejos" have a "brancóide" phenotype.

Nobody assumes there are large (or otherwise) populations of "pure" Portuguese-Amerindian ancestry. What needs to be described and explained is the predominance, in some areas of Brazil, including the Northeastern hinterland, of a population whose phenotype corresponds to that of a mix of White and Amerindian features, but not to Black features.

"Race" in Brazil is based in skin colour? Well, yes. But skin colours are phenotypically associated with genomes that come from different parts of the world. A person who is White almost certainly has European or Middle Eastern ancestry. Maybe she has also East Asian or Subsaharan African ancestry, too; maybe even she has more of that than of European ancestry. But without some European or Middle Eastern ancestry, how would she be White? The same goes, mutatis mutandi, for a Black person: she may have more European ancestry than Subsaharan ancestry, but she necessarily does have some of the latter.

But we are here faring away from a specific discussion into generalities, which is useless. At the level of generality in which we can say that "all humans are descended from Africans, because this is the place where all human beings came from", it is useless to try to discuss "races". Better to say that all Brazilians are human, period. What is striking, however, is that Opinoso goes on and on and on with his personal theories (yes, personal, because albeit he quotes Darcy Ribeiro as a source, such theories are not supported by a minimal reading of Ribeiro) about races, without any consideration of such kind of generality. But when others point out that such theories are unsourced or missourced, and show how they are contradictory or opposed to what whe actually know about race in Brazil, we are told, by Opinoso no less, that any discussion of race is useless, because, after all, we are all humans and come from Africa...

It is also striking that Opinoso teaches us that the word "caboclo" shouldn't be used because it isn't widely used by Brazilians or the IBGE, when his preferred source, Darcy Ribeiro, makes extensive use of such word. Ninguém (talk) 15:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Race in Brazil is based on skin color. The Caboclo word in used by Ribeiro to describe the people from Northern Brazil, not from Northeastern. The Brazilian census reflects what people think about their skin color, including the historical tendency to whiten themselves. not their race or genetic ancestry. The word Caboclo does not make sense. Opinoso (talk) 15:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

So Ribeiro talks a lot about a word that does not make sence, and even uses it to describe the majority of the population of the Northern Region? Then perhaps Ribeiro shouldn't be used as a source at all. Ninguém (talk) 15:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ninguém, you are losing your time. you might prove thorugh 2 + 2 = 4 and even so Opinoso will not back down. We need the opinion of other editors as I tried before he appeared. It's simple: are 85% of the Brazilian population the northern and northeast areas Blacks or are the majority of them Caboclos? Ignore him for the moment. You are really losing your time. Let's focus on other editors. - --Lecen (talk) 16:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Ribeiro may be used as source, he was a famous and renowned anthropologist. But Phone Books and vestibular lists may not. Opinoso (talk) 16:38, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Opinoso, that has nothing to do with the present matter. You insist on putting doubt on other editors good faith. You do not want to settle the dispute. So, please, let other editors speak. - --Lecen (talk) 16:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

So, Opinoso, the word "caboclo" doesn't make any sence at all? And yet Darcy Ribeiro writes a whole chapter about "O Brasil Caboclo"? Perhaps he is right and you are wrong? Perhaps the word "caboclo" makes sence, and your statement the it doesn't is the problem here? Ninguém (talk) 17:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Lecen is mistaken. Lecen asks "are 85% of the Brazilian population the northern and northeast areas Blacks or are the majority of them Caboclos." That is not the question. Do all researchers consider Blacks and Caboclos mutually intelligible categories? I have read much literature that refers to caboclos as a class, not as a race. The real questions are: who are the different groups of people who use words like caboclo, and in what ways in what contexts? Whatpeople use words likek Black, and in what ways and in what contexts? The real task is to start by identifying different views, not to try to count people living in the Northeast. Ribiero is of course one very important source, though dated; so is Charles Wagley. I mentioned other sources, just as important: Peter Fry, Waquant and Hanchard and other work by Michael Hanchard, John Burdick, Donna Goldstein, Thomas Skidmore. The question is, what claims have these researchers made about race in brazil. Where do they agree and where do they disagree? These are the questions. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Instead of discussing endlessly on what race means in Brazil or whether the word "caboclo" is much used or not in Brazil, couldn't it just be explained clearly the way it is? I mean, any person - I really mean any person - who has travelled through the Northeast region in Brazil knows there are two hugely different regions when it comes to demographic and economic history: the Coastal regions (Zona da Mata) and the hinterlands (Sertão). Some states had less rainy climates even in their coasts, so they also had a similar history to that of the Sertão - that is the case of Ceará, Piauí and Rio Grande do Norte. So the thing to be explained is simply: the Northeastern region has very distinct regions that were settled and economically used in different ways, so that the Sertão had greater influence of Amerindians and Portugueses than the Coast, where Africans were massively brought to work on tropical plantations, resulting that there the population generally has darker skin colour and more direct influence of Africans. Actually, genetic studies have showed the huge majority of Sertanejos also have African ancestry, but the question could be put in its phenotypical relevance: in the Sertão the Africans were proportionally less relevant to the "formation" of the population than in the Zona da Mata.
I really think that distinction is essential because it's not only a question of skin colour: it also has much to do with the history of each region and its main cultural influences (it's visually evident that Salvador or Recife have much more African influences than any city in the Sertão). And one shouldn't overlook the relevance of the Sertão population because actually they are more than 20-25 million people, about half of the total population, because that includes entire states like Ceará (8.5 million people), Rio Grande do Norte (3.1 million) and Piauí (3.1 million), and that is one of the most densely populated semiarid areas in the world.187.41.241.157 (talk) 08:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Villa-Lobos

Shouldn't the name of Villa-Lobos be mentioned at least on the Arts section (since I've noted the Music section has been dropped out)? I mean, not only Heitor Villa-Lobos is the most talented and famous Brazilian composer ever, whose works are performed and recorded in all the world, but he was also one of the most influential people ever to appear in the Brazilian music scenario. His music influenced directly MPB artists like Tom Jobim (he himself said that) and he was arguably the Brazilian musician who got to join many cultural influences from all over Brazil into a real Brazilian style of making music. I think his importance is just too big to justify a mention of his superb work for Brazilian culture.187.41.241.157 (talk) 08:06, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Improving the article

Good afternoon, my friends. Around 20 days ago I asked for everyone's help to improve the article. No one volunteered.

Anyone who has a little bit ox experience on Wikipedia is able to see that the article has issues. Mainly, its huge size full of non-important information (at least, not important this article) and lack of credible sources.

Thus, I will begin making changes into the article and I would like that all of you to pay attention to all my acts in case i go to far. Please, do not engage on edit warring. All I ask is to discuss in here and make everything the most civil as possible.

For what I am going to do, I will take a few Wiki pages as models. The first and most important is Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. There we can find all the guides we need to make a Featured class article.

The other articles are:

  • Canada - It is continent-size country in the Americas just like Brazil
  • Peru - it is bio-diversified country in the Amazon rainforest region just like Brazil
  • India - it is a fast-growing country that is part of the BRIC just like Brazil

And last, but not least, what they have in common is that all of them are featured articles.

So, I will begin with the Etymology section and them move foward. All changes I make I will report them in here with reasons for them. Kind regards, --Lecen (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

The original text was not clear about the origin of Brazil's name and someone changed the meaning of the text taken from Eduardo Bueno's History of Brazil added by me. Although no source was erased (with the exception of one that it will not make any difference) and much of the text was kept intact, it's much more clear and easy to understand. --Lecen (talk) 13:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why you want to privilege the Irish legend version saying were certain that the name of the newly discovered land had come from the Irish legendary island of Hy-Brazil, when the country was named to Brazil it wasn't a new discovered land anymore, as Brazil was not the first name of the country, it has been called as Monte Pascoal, Terra de Vera Cruz, Santa Cruz etc. of course when they finally changed the name to Brazil it was known to be a continent not an Island, they called the natives as Indians for example, they were trying go to India which is Asian continent, there are even some historians which say they aren't trying go to India, they was trying to discover another piece of America [5] due to the Treaty of Tordesillas; and really the version of the tree's name is very more accepted, as some time ago I sourced it using the Brazilian government website, which was removed with the summary government website is not an etymology source.Luizdl (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure that "Etimology" deserves a whole section of itself - much less the first one. I suggest to just mention it in the lead, such as
"Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil, probably from Celtic "bress" - blessing - or from brazilwood), officially the Federative[9] Republic of Brazil" Ninguém (talk) 11:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
That sounds good to me, especially as the section has FACT tags, which I put in place of a citation of a page at the advertising-heavy encyclopedia.com and something by a man who describes himself as a historian of the US Civil War. -- Hoary (talk) 12:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The explanation here, which was good if overlong, pointed to a fuller explanation in Name of Brazil that was distinctly worse. I therefore merged the discussion that was here with (unsourced) odds and ends there, and removed the entire section from this article, adding a link to Name of Brazil from the very start of this article. -- Hoary (talk) 00:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

But in the articles about very others countries have a whole section on Etymology, for example:

It seems to be very common an article about a country to have an etymology section, why the article about Brazil doesn't deserve if it was sourced? Luizdl (talk) 00:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Luiz, I would really apreciate if you could, if possible, avoid (once again) say that I am pushing my point of view. It is not I who said that the name of Brazil came from the island. It was the author of that book who used as source Gustavo Barroso, one of the greatest Brazilian historians. The same book says that Brazil had the following names: Pindorama (the name given by Indians), True Cross Island (Ilha de Vera Cruz, 1500), New Land (Terra Nova, 1501), Parrots' Land (Terra dos Papagaios, 1501), Holy Cross Land (Terra de Santa Cruz, 1503), Holy Cross of Brazil Land (Terra de Santa Cruz do Brasil, 1505), Brazil Land (Terra do Brasil, 1505) and Brazil (since 1527). Notice that the first time the name Brazil appears it is as "Holy Cross of Brazil". I hardly believe that they were talking about a cross in a wood, but instead in a place, an island, perhaps? Anyway, my opinion doesn't matter. --Lecen (talk) 14:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Hoary, can we restore this section? because it is common to have an etymology section in countries articles. Luizdl (talk) 15:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If it is indeed common for such articles to have such sections, then so much the worse for those articles.
Simply, we don't know for sure what the etymology of "Brazil" is. We do have at least two stories. Let's imagine that suddenly one lexicographer acquires convincing evidence that one of these stories is right or that another is wrong, and that within five years or so all the other lexicographers of note agree. I cannot believe that any sane, intelligent adult's understanding of Brazil (the nation, not the word) would thereby be changed in the slightest.
The etymology of "Brazil" is more or less interesting trivia, that's all. The etymology has a sourced article, Name of Brazil, and that article is linked from this article. Enough.
Unless of course you can explain how readers' understanding of Brazil would be altered by their understanding of competing stories about the etymology of "Brazil". -- Hoary (talk) 15:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

History

No change in the text, except for the name of a few historical characters (Dom Pedro I became "Pedro de Alcântara" instead of "Dom Pedro", for example). As it was debated over and over, I saw no reason to change anything. Now it has less sections. The Republic period is divided in two smaller sections. The reason for that is in case someone wants to make nowadays "history" larger, all it will need to do is to take some of the text from the section and put in the other, thus, leaving more space for expansion. --Lecen (talk) 13:38, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Government and politics

I believe that no change has to be done in this section. Moving on... --Lecen (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Foreign relations and military

Now Foreign relations and military are grouped in one section as in other articles. Removed redundant information about the Brazilian Armed Forces and also changes absurd errors found in the text (Brazilian Armed Forces with more than 1 million personnel) and other information not found in its sources (such as 2.5% of GDP are expended with the military and the source is the Brazilian constitution).

It is a small and clean section just an in other articles about countries. I also removed some images from other sections. --Lecen (talk) 14:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

States and Municipalities

I've removed most of the text in it (it can be found in their rexpective articles). It's still overly large when compared to Canada and India's own sections. I'll see what I can do about it. --Lecen (talk) 14:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Geography and Flora and Fauna

Removed an image, changed the place of another one. No change in the text. Now the sections are similar to the ones in India article. --Lecen (talk) 14:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Economy

Changed picture of President Lula with other BRIC leader for a soilbean fiels picture. Removed box with info on Brazilian economy (no other country article has and it can be found in the article about economy in Brazil). Removed a paragraphy about tecnology in the colonial era (when King João VI came to Brazil in 1808) as it is clearly redundant. Removed an image of a TV. The article is over 160kb. I want to make it 120kb just like Canada. --Lecen (talk) 15:00, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Reply regarding article changes

The name change of Dom Pedro to Pedro de Alcântara is good and sounds much better.

Many nation articles have the Military section seperate from the foriegn relations section and it maes more sense to do it this way as it allows for more detail in each subject. The Brazilian military does infact have a military force of about 1,318,000 troops but many of these units are auxilliarys (reserve units).

As for the economy section, Mexico also has an economy info bozx as an example and we should not shrink the size of a section just because other articles have smaller sections, i also think that the article was fairly good with the sized sections that it already had and i firmly believe that the sections should not be made smaller just to adhere to the size of other country articles. Rahlgd (talk) 00:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

None of the featured class articles has such a giant and detailed section about military. It is clear now that you do not allow any change into that section or in any other place in the article which means ownership. If you continue with such behavior and keep preventing any change into the article I will report you, do you understand that? --Lecen (talk) 01:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The article is too long.
Each significant aspect of Brazil has, or should have, its own article. That's where details should go.
The article appears to contain a lot that is worthwhile somewhere. That it is worthwhile does not entail its inclusion in this article.
An edit such as this is retrogressive. Lecen is making the article shorter. He may not always do this in the best way; if he doesn't, then point this out to him or if necessary revert certain of his changes.
One obvious absurdity of this article: A picture of some nubile female with the caption "Brazil has a social positive reputation around the globe. (Gisele Bündchen, model)". I'd never heard of her, but the article on her informs me that she's a model/sleb who makes loads of money. Good for her: pleasant face (and I presume delightful legs to match), but this says squat about Brazil. Incidentally, I'm not sure of either the meaning or the grammaticality of "a social positive reputation".
Back to the main question. It's not of whether the article should be shortened: it should be shortened. It's of how the article should be shortened. It seems to me that Lecen has been tackling this in a transparent, competent and indeed praiseworthy way (by which I don't mean to imply that his edits have been flawless).
If I have misunderstood, please explain. -- Hoary (talk) 02:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The article is 184kb. WP:SIZERULE says " > 100 KB Almost certainly should be divided" —Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeAllen (talk • contribs)
The current article size is approaching double that size and is likely to pass 200KB at this rate. We have sub-articles for a reason. That is to make sure that articles don't reach the size of way over the size of 100kB. We don't need to put every single bit of information on the main article. The load time for Brazil is longer than any articles I come across. Adding more extraneous information that could otherwise be put into sub-articles isn't helping the situation nor is it helping in the readability of the article. The problem isn't that we need to adhere to the size of the other country articles, it's that the article is too long. Elockid (Talk·Contribs) 05:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Lecen's changes seem reasonable to me. The article is enormous (and I am impressed especially by the size of the lead, which elsewhere I was taught should be very, very short). The change in the name of the section on the colonial period was extremely necessary - the old version, as usual, pretended that nothing happened in Brazil between Pedro Álvares Cabral and the arrival of Swiss immigrants to Nova Friburgo. More material is still necessary about the occupation and development of the Northern and Southern regions, as well as about the economy of the Southeast and Northeast.

There are still wild fantasies that need to be removed, such as the following gem:

From all over Brazil, as well from Portugal, thousands of immigrants, from all ethnicities, departed toward the mines.

First, of course, not "all" ethnicities: the Thai, the Japanese, the Welsh or the Berber, to name a few, didn't depart toward the mines - much less "from Portugal" and "all over Brazil". And then... how many "ethnicities" were then in Portugal? The article on Ethnic groups in Portugal is a redirect to Portuguese people, so it seems that in Wikipedia's own enlightened view, there is only one ethnic group in Portugal. What would be the "ethnicities" in Brazil at that time that would be "immigrating" to Minas Gerais? The Tupinambá? The Pataxó? The Ge people?

Can we change such disgrace, or if so is someone who never even edited the article before drop in from nowhere and manage to get the article protected with all its 54823590423 kilobytes and absurds? Ninguém (talk) 12:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you make such a big deal of it, I fear that you might provoke exactly the reaction that you claim to fear.
First, "from all ethnicities" is indeed poor at best. But to say it's ridiculous because "all" implies inclusion of (say) Thais whereas there weren't any Thais is being a little perverse. In context, "all" is rather obviously limited to the ethnicities that were then within reach. But your second question about this phrase is a good one.
I think that if people wail here about how awful this article is (and in some ways it is indeed awful), this will risk an overly defensive reaction from those who have worked on it, and a rerun of all the tedium that has plagued a pile of articles on south America. So don't wail about it; just try to fix it. -- Hoary (talk) 15:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Less load time! Yay! The article in terms of size is approaching to a good size. Each of the section's length is about the same as some other country articles. Elockid (Talk·Contribs) 20:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that I just took a quick look of the article, and it's a huge improvement (with my computer performance and web loading time) than 2 days ago. :) Great work. I think someone just forgot what a "summary" was and went bananas.  :-) —Mike Allen 16:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Footnotes that amplify

There are many books that have footnotes that amplify what's in the main text. I'm always prone to writing them myself, and I've written them in Wikipedia articles in my time.

However, they're unusual in Wikipedia, where readers are accustomed to have footnote index numbers leading to source notes; and for this reason (as well perhaps as others) they're not really desirable in Wikipedia.

I'm particularly puzzled by the great number of notes in this article that provide further detail, original texts, etc. After all, this article is supposed to be the streamlined version. Whatever people want to read here about Brazil, they should find a more detailed alternative somewhere else (e.g. articles specifically about Brazilian history). It's not this article but those detailed articles, surely, that should have quotations, details, and other miscellaneous bulk.

Of course the bulky notes here may only be temporary, as authors prepare to move them to those other articles. This is one reason why I'm not rushing to pare them down. -- Hoary (talk) 15:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

That's my fault, indeed. I added quotations inside references to make sure to everyone that I was not 'making up' everything. We could remove it later, although I believe we should focus first in the main text itself. I also removed ethnicities mention in the history section. It's not important to understand Brazilia history and it was added by me only to please Opinoso in the past discussions. I've went now from "Etymology" to "States and Municipalities". I think they are fine now. The article was 185kb before. Now it's around 165kb. --Lecen (talk) 15:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. I hope that the article can soon be brought under 120kB. -- Hoary (talk) 15:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
PS well done Lecen. The way things are going, the article will soon be under 100kB -- and much the better for it. -- Hoary (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Canada article is over 120 kb and it's considered a featured class article. Do you really think we should keep editing? I believe it's quite good now. What is left is to check sources and similar stuff. --Lecen (talk) 03:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
True, it's no longer gruesomely long; but the process of shortening it seems to improve it, so I'd be in no hurry to curtail this process. To be honest I haven't even looked at the lower half. As for the upper half, I'm sure that it could be improved by some consolidation of footnotes. (I mean, I start[1] to get tired[2] when there are too many clauses and even phrases[3] that each have their own notes[4].) However, I do see the point in keeping these separate, at least until the article has stabilized: it strengthens each sourced assertion against incompetent later edits. So I wouldn't rush this. (Incidentally, I shall be away from the internet for a couple of days starting right now.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Multiethnic society?

The lead of the article states that Brazil is a "multiethnic society". I wonder what this is meant to signify. As far as I see, Brazil is not a multiethnic society, except in a sence in which practically all countries in the world are "multiethnic". There are many, probably hundreds of, small indigenous ethnic groups, but they all summed up don't make a million people (and their belonging to the Brazilian society is at least discussable); there are also small rural minorities of descendants of European immigrants (mainly from Italy and Germany) that can arguably be called "ethnic groups", but they are also small; their very integration into Brazilian society tends to destroy their particular ethnicity.

As far as I understand, a "multiethnic society" would be something like Switzerland or former Yugoslavia, where diverse "ethnic groups" are (or were) in fact recognised by legislation and united in a federal manner. Ninguém (talk) 01:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

My guess is that it was intended to mean something warm and fuzzy like "It's immediately obvious when you go there that people have different-sounding names and different-looking faces." Not that I say that this warrants the term that you question. -- Hoary (talk) 02:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
This is how countries like Brazil are treated. Canada is considered a multiethnic society, as is US. We should really, really and really avoid potential polemic subjects such as race and ethnicity. Just let it be, folks. --Lecen (talk) 03:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about Multiethnic society. It states that

One scholar argued in 1993 that fewer than 20 of the then 180 sovereign states could be said to be ethnically and nationally homogenous, where a homogenous state was defined as one in which minorities made up less than five per cent of the population.

It gives the following reference: [1]

Now, I haven't read the book and don't know if David Welsh actually wrote that; I also don't know how authoritative his opinion is, and whether other authors use different criteria, etc. Supposing that this is a well-accepted definition of "multiethnic society" and that in fact fewer than 20 States can be said to be homogeneous, then what comes to (my, at least) mind is that Brazil is actually one of those fewer than 20 States in which ethnic minorities make up less than five per cent of the population.

Or perhaps the problem is in the Multiethnic society article? Ninguém (talk) 15:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that the description here of Brazil as "multiethnic" either (a) is vapid or (b) is uncritically based on others' unthinking description of Brazil as "multiethnic". At the same time I strongly agree that a discussion here of matters of ethnicity or "race" is a sure way (i) to make the talk page descend first to a tiresome brawl and then to a pained silence (cf this talk page) and (ii) to destroy any chances of improving the majority of the article that's not concerned with ethnicity or "race". ¶ Meanwhile, I don't even want to look at Multiethnic society. -- Hoary (talk) 15:15, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Welsh, David (1993). "Domestic politics and ethnic conflict". In Brown, Michael E. (ed.). Ethnic Conflict and International Security. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 43–60. ISBN 0691000689.

Time

Whether or not we're in 2010, we're certainly past 2008. Can somebody who (unlike me) knows about Brazil please sort out the (no doubt well intended) footnote tangle about time in the "infobox"? I'm sure that this can be made very much simpler. (The link to a nonexistent additional note is merely one of the more conspicuous confusions here.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I've now "fixed" this -- except that I'm pretty sure that I haven't fixed it for the better, because I realize that I don't understand summer time in Brazil. -- Hoary (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Economy

Could someone take a look at the GDP data? In the article it says that Brazil is number 8, 9 and 10 in world ranking. After all, what is its place? --Lecen (talk) 14:08, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

For consistency, country rankings are based on the IMF rankings. So it should be the 10th largest. Elockid (Talk·Contribs) 05:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Don't know, don't care. However, until this recent couple of edits of mine, the article said it was 10th and for this purpose cited a World Bank publication saying that it was 8th. That is dishonest. I have therefore changed the article to say that it was 8th. If the IMF is more accurate, use IMF figures, but please use them honestly. -- Hoary (talk)

Dates

One advantage of the "lipstick on a pig" linking of dates was that one could write them any old way and depend on the viewer's preference to have them be systematized one way or another. But that's been done away with, and a mixture of

  • 20 December 2008 (etc)
  • December 20, 2008 (etc)

does look a bit tacky. And this article has just such a mixture.

Let's (eventually) have them all in one form or other. Which do you all prefer? (I have my own strong preference, but I'll politely keep silent about this for now.) If the Portuguese-language / Brazilian preference is for one or other of these two, how about using that to decide? -- Hoary (talk) 03:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to make the changes in the way you think it's the best. --Lecen (talk) 09:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I get the impression that Brazil uses day-month-year (so the night before last was "31/12/09"). Am I right? If I am, I suggest that this article should use the "31 December 2009" pattern. -- Hoary (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Yep. It was "31 de dezembro de 2009" (31 December 2009). We could use that. --Lecen (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Right, "31 December 2009" it will be. -- Hoary (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Encarta

Much of this article is sourced to Encarta. Encarta is now dead, but this is a minor problem. More important is that Encarta is/was a mere general-purpose encyclopedia, i.e. a tertiary source, and Wikipedia generally avoids the use of tertiary sources. Ideally everything here that's sourced to Encarta should (if it remains factually correct) be sourced elsewhere. -- Hoary (talk) 05:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Cited books

Books are cited in a most haphazard fashion. For example, "Fausto (2005)" is multiply cited, but anomalous in having the form "author(s) (year)", and is nowhere explained. (Is it Fausto and Devoto's book Brasil e Argentina [my emphasis], perhaps?)

There does seem to be a pattern of not giving bibliographical information the second and subsequent time that a book appears in a note. Fine. But what about the first note -- should there be full bibliographical information there, or not? (I don't much mind either way.)

As most of the books cited are recent and most recent books have ISBNs, most of these books should have ISBNs specified.

How are book titles capitalized in Portuguese/Brazil -- something like the "up" style (The Illusion of Stability: The Brazilian Economy under Cardoso) of English, or the "down" style (The illusion of stability: The Brazilian economy under Cardoso)? -- Hoary (talk) 13:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It was I the one who wrote the history text, so I should explain the way i used sources. Books that are used only once can be found in the "notes" section. Books that are used several times, such as the one written by Thomas Skidmore (Skidmore, Thomas E. Uma História do Brasil.4. ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2003.), C. R. Boxer (Boxer, Charles R.. O império marítimo português 1415-1825. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002)and Elio Gaspari(Gaspari, Elio. A ditadura envergonhada. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002.) can be found with their full description at the "references" section. The reason for that is to keep the article small. Writing them over and over each time they are used would leave the article heavy. Ow, but you can change it if Wikipedia has different rules. And you shouldn't stick too much wondering how it is in Brazil because since this is the English Wikipedia, we should follow its standards when possible. --Lecen (talk) 14:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
It's not a good idea to repeat the details again and again. We agree on that. Good. But should we distinguish between (a) books cited once (no entry in the bibliography, all needed details in the note) and (b) those cited more than once (entry in the bibliography, no details in the note)? This distinction pares down a few bytes but I fear that the result may confuse; also, changing the total number of citations of any book from one to two, or vice versa, requires complex editing. So I suggest that the details are given in the first note in which any book is cited and every cited book is listed in the bibliography. Of course this will lead to some duplication, which I find aesthetically displeasing, but it's a small price to pay. And to make the notes less gruesomely long we can skip ISBNs and perhaps language icons there. ¶ Now capitalization, and with the examples above. If it's Uma História do Brasil isn't it O Império Marítimo Português 1415-1825 or similar? Or if it's O império marítimo português 1415-1825 isn't it Uma história do Brasil? (I'm ready to be told "no it isn't": I know that the rules are different again in French and German.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
"O Império Marítimo Português 1415-1825" (The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825) and "Uma história do Brasil" (A history of Brazil) not only are completely different books but they are also written by different authors (the first by the British Charles Boxer and the second by the American Thomas Skidmore). I can't imagine how someone would be confused by one or another even if he/she doesn't know Portuguese. All he/she has to do is too look in the references section for a guy called "Skidmore" and his books and another one called "Boxer" and his book. However, about your question, if we should change it or not, does Wikipedia has some kind of standards for it? --Lecen (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I must have phrased my second question poorly. It was merely about the matter of capitalization. In an English context, we can write either of
  • O Império Marítimo Português 1415-1825 / Uma História do Brasil
  • O império marítimo português 1415-1825 / Uma história do Brasil
Which of these is generally preferred in Brazil?
I rush to agree that capitalization of book titles is trivial compared with other problems of this article, notably bogus sourcing: footnotes that point to web pages that say nothing relevant. (Next I suppose we'll find footnotes that point to web pages that say things that are relevant but different -- footnotes that blatantly lie.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
It's better the second option: "O império marítimo português 1415-1825 / Uma história do Brasil". As I told you, I will check all internet sources. I will do that tomorrow. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 01:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Unless your brain is wired up in an entirely different way from mine, the effort will drive you nuts. Please just start on checking the internet sources today, don't attempt to do the lot in a single day! -- Hoary (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
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