A look at the lexicon used in the quilombola community Rio das Rãs, Bahia

Abstract

This work presents a study on part of the lexicon of the quilombola community Rio das Rãs, located in the municipality of Bom Jesus da Lapa, Bahia. The objective is to verify if the words spread out, stun, stretcher, plume, porunga, rifurão and sargabunda are registered in Portuguese dictionaries; if so, since when, or if they consist of innovations by the members of that community. It starts from the present, following the Labovian model, by collecting data through 24 oral interviews recorded in surveys lasting 50 minutes each; it goes back to the past, when consulting dictionaries of the Bluteau (1712-1728); Moraes Silva (1789) and Houaiss (2001). The results indicate that, of the analyzed words, spread out, stun, stretcher, plume and porunga are dictionaries by Bluteau (1712-1728), Moraes Silva (1789) and Houaiss online (2001), presenting practically the same meanings presented by the speakers of Rio das Rãs, and only two words rifurão and sargabunda were not found in the selected dictionaries.