The call for letters: migration, culture and identity in the letters of call of Italians in Brazil

Abstract

Among the centuries XIX and XX, a total of one and a half million Italians emigrated to Brazil. This is a phenomenon that forced his players to live long, often painful and permanent separations of family affection and communities themselves. An experience that began with the ocean crossing, a kind of rite of passage that focuses on the condition of migrant symbolically, characterized by feelings of eradication. The tangible evidence of this process of fragmentation of identity and the attempts of , but stubbornly held are, indeed, the cards that allow a restore point of continuity with the past and with their community of origin. The ship sets sail with its cargo of goods and men, accompanied by a mat of words and writings that now constitute a valuable testimony and, in some respects, irreplaceable moments to try to reconstruct the history of the Italian language in your contact with the Portuguese language. This article breaks down a particular type these letters: the letters of call. Interference linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of written language in these documents are a useful prism to examine identity and cultural exchanges due to the contact between the two cultures.