The culture of alcohol in Brazil: linguistic and identity aspects in the 18th and 19th centuries

Abstract

Through this article, aspects inherent to the culture of alcohol in Brazil are presented, as well as its linguistic particularities and the identity issues that are related to the country, during the 18th and 19th centuries. Our objective is to bring to light knowledge of part of the history of our country that involves the cultivation of a product of secular use, the alcohol, and around it, linguistic uses and attributes that identify Brazil in the mentioned periods. An 18th century memorial document and a 19th century manual for the distillation and preparation of liqueurs were used to retrieve information about alcohol as a beverage, the linguistic aspects of a lexical order around alcohol and the identity traits that such a culture provided and also characterized Brazil at related times. Therefore, the theoretical basis of this work is based on some authors, such as Cuche (1999) and Wagner (2010), which deal with knowledge involving the culture, Silva (2012) who deals with identity issues, Mattos e Silva (2008), addressing aspects of Historical Linguistics, Biderman (2001), with lexical studies, among other researchers.