“Without becoming unidiomatic, one may boldly form superlatives and diminutives of every adjective; this is done sometimes even with nouns. Harshness of the pronunciation has accompanied the arrogance of expression.… But this tongue, transported to Brazil, breathes the gentleness of the climate and of the character of its inhabitants; it has gained in usage and in the expression of tender sentiments, and while it has preserved all its energy it possesses more amenity.… “To this first difference, which embraces the generality of the Brazilian idiom, one must add that of words which have altogether changed in accepted meaning, as well as several other expressions which do not exist in the Portuguese language and which have been either borrowed from the natives or imported into Brazil by the inhabitants of the various oversea colonies of Portugal.” There follow some eight words that have changed meaning, such, for example, as _faceira_, signifying lower jaw in Portugal, but coquette in Brazil; as a matter of fact, Ribeiro shows that the Portuguese critics who censured this “Brazilianism” did not know the history of their own tongue. In the XVIIth century _faceira_ was synonymous with _pelintra_, _petimêtre_, _elegante_ (respectively, poor fellow, dandy, fashionable youth); it became obsolete in Portugal, but in Brazil was preserved with exclusive application to the feminine. The Brazilian words unknown in Portugal are some fifty in number upon the Baron’s list. Costa finds that Portuguese, crossing the Atlantic, “almost doubled its vocabulary, accepting and assimilating a mass of words from the Indian and the Negro. Through the influence of the climate, through the new ethnic elements,--the voluptuous, indolent Negro and Indian, passionate to the point of crime and sacrifice,--the pronunciation of Portuguese by the Brazilian acquired, so to say, a musical modulation, slow, chanting, soft,--a language impregnated with poesy and languor, quite different from that spoken in Portugal.”[18] IV