Museu da Língua Portuguesa

Click here here for the informational website of the Portuguese language Museum

The Museum of the Portuguese language in San Palo, Brazil is one of the only language museums in the world. It is rumored that the museum would have been built in San Palo, Brazil because San Paulo is the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world with over 20 million citizens. To make an efficient impact, the Secretary of Culture in Brazil decided to locate the museum in the Estacao de Luz train station, one used by hundreds of thousands of foreigners daily. The original idea for the Museum was thought up by Ralph Appelbaum -also the creator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, New York and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Once inside the museum, there are many interactive exhibits, movies, and artifacts that depict the history and evolution of the Portuguese language in Brazil: from the Treaty of Tordesillas issued on June 7th, 1494 to modern day colloquial terms used in everyday life.

The opening ceremony of the museum was on March 20, 2006 and hosted by Grammy award-winning singer Gilberto Gil and the Brazilian Minister of Culture. In the words of Gilberto: "The language speaks for you. The purpose of studying and interacting with a language in a museum, cultural and exchange programs, orthographic agreements, and the development of new words show how important it is. The language is our mother. This museum covers most, if not all, the aspects of the written and spoken language, of the dynamic language, the language of interaction, the language of affection, the language of gestures and of any other aspects that this museum was meant to promote."

This museum is a very unique cultural attraction for Brazil. No where else in the world is there a museum educating it's civilians about the history of their language, which is something very special. It would be interesting the see if the United States would open a museum of the American Language. That way tourists to the country would be cleared of any stereotypes of the American Language.