Methodology & sources

The Falando Atlas of Brazilian Portuguese is a free reference of regional vocabulary: words, slang and expressions that are more typical of one part of Brazil than another, plus “concept maps” that show the different names one thing has across the country. Each entry carries an English meaning, at least one example sentence, a register label, the regions it is associated with and how strongly, and the sources behind those claims.

It is not a dialect survey, a pronunciation atlas or a complete dictionary of any region. It currently documents 196 entries across 5 regions and 5 concept maps, and it grows as entries are verified. Brazil is linguistically diverse; no list this size can be exhaustive.

Regional words rarely stop at a state line. Instead of painting a word as “used in São Paulo and nowhere else”, every entry records, per region, how strongly it is tied to it:

• Strongly associated (solid fill) — the word is a recognised marker of the region; locals and outsiders both identify it with the place.
• More common here (medium fill) — heard elsewhere, but noticeably more frequent or more natural in this region.
• Also used here (light, dashed) — widely understood or used nationally, listed because it is part of how this region talks.
• Historical / dated (outline) — associated with the region in older usage or literature; rarer in everyday speech today.

• Strongly associated
• More common here
• Also used here
• Historical / dated

The coloured area is the administrative region(s) the sources name — a macro-region, a state or a city-led state — not a measured isogloss. Approximate. Usage varies by age, social group and context; a word can be heard outside the highlighted area. Vocabulary also varies with age, social group, urban versus rural speech and context, and a word can be perfectly common outside the highlighted area.

Every published claim (meaning, region, register, etymology or example) is tied to at least one source. Sources are tiered:

1. Tier 1 — the Atlas Linguístico do Brasil (ALiB) and other published dialect atlases, peer-reviewed linguistics papers, university theses.
2. Tier 2 — major Brazilian dictionaries (Houaiss, Aurélio, Michaelis, Caldas Aulete), corpus evidence, regional dictionaries and glossaries by recognised authors or institutions.
3. Tier 3 — explainers and glossaries in credible press and established regional media, and well-maintained educational reference sites.
4. Tier 4 — native-speaker verification (named reviewer, region, age band) and moderated community contributions.

An entry is published only once its meaning and its regional association each have a source. The confidence shown with a regional claim follows the best source behind it (Tier 1 → high, Tier 2 → medium, Tier 3–4 → low). Tier 4 evidence on its own never publishes a regional claim — it can confirm a meaning or add an example, but a region needs at least a dictionary or documented glossary behind it. Sources are listed on every card; the compiled sources for a page are listed at its foot.

Where a source is listed without a quotation, it is the glossary the entry was originally compiled from rather than a page re-read during the current review — cited so that no regional claim appears without a source you can go and check yourself, and never counted as more than low confidence.

To keep every page genuinely useful, a region page is published only once at least 25 verified entries are documented for it; a concept map needs at least 3 variants used in at least two different regions; an expression gets its own page only when it has a usage note, two or more examples and a source. Entries that do not meet those bars still appear on their parent region’s page (Pará on the North page, Ceará on the Northeast page, and so on).

Idioms — multi-word expressions with non-literal meaning — have their own pages in Falando’s idiom dictionary; the atlas lists regional idioms and links to those pages rather than duplicating them.

Entries start as drafts from Falando’s vocabulary database, which already tagged regional words by macro-region and state. Each is then reviewed against the sources listed on its card: the meaning is checked, the regional claim is tied to a source, the regional strength is set, a usage note is written, register and currency are checked, and explicit words are flagged (they are hidden by default on region pages). Native-speaker review of published entries is ongoing, region by region; where a source and a speaker disagree, the entry says so in its note. Corrections follow the same path; nothing submitted through the form below changes the atlas without review.

The atlas is written and maintained by the Falando team. It is free to use and will stay free.

Cite the atlas as a web resource, naming the page you used and the date you accessed it.

Maps and concept-map images may be reused under a CC BY 4.0 licence with attribution to “Falando Atlas of Brazilian Portuguese” and a link to the page. The entry texts remain © Falando; quote them with attribution.

Suggestions are reviewed by an editor before anything changes — nothing is published automatically.