Shoutbox

Hi Heyder,

I'd like to congratulate you for your great work. Your individual initiative and effort deserves a loud clap from all of us Messenger Plus Brazilian users.

Since I've read the discussion over pt x pt-BR, I'd like to leave my two cents:

Although Brazilian Portuguese was born from "European" Portuguese, they can not be considered as being the same language. Distant grown brothers, if we consider the written Portuguese, and really distant cousins if we consider the talked Portuguese . Languages are live things, that evolve and transform, adapting itself to the cultural and economic context. And Brazilian Portuguese grew apart from its distant brother, receiving influences from native people ("indios") and immigratory waves (japaneses, italians, germans, lebaneses etc). It's why it's called "Brazilian Portuguese", and not only "Portuguese";

Due this characteristic the "Brazilian Portuguese" is much more flexible and prone to accept neologism and foreignism. We do not bother in keep the word "mouse" to designate the input device, because the device does not resemble a "rato" for us. We use "monitor" (a short for "monitor de video") instead of "écran" (nobody knows the word "écran" in Brazil) because we already had this word from TV (sometimes we use "tela" to designate the specific area of the "monitor" where the images are displayed). We use "arquivo" for "file", and it is OK for us, because a "file" can contain a lot of "documents" - the same way a real "arquivo" does. And if somebody insists in the word "ficheiro" as a more specific translation for "file", even so it wouldn't be the correct word for us, because we use "fichário" instead of "ficheiro";

As we can see the roots of our language can be the same but nowadays there are some differences. And in specific areas, as computers and technology, there is *a lot* of diferences. It is so clear that a lot of big players in the software industry translated their softwares to Brazilian Portuguese. My Win2K is pt-BR. My Office2k too. And my CorelDraw Suite, my children's "The Sims 2", my TextPad (if somebody asks for an European company) are pt-BR. And my OpenOffice 2.0, and my Firefox too! And, mainly, my Messenger is pt-BR...

Well, what more can I say? It's really a pity that the author of the this great software don't deserves some attention to your initiative. Maybe you hadn't started it in a so organized way, as the "pt team" stated. But, wait! Was they a "managed", "organized" and "efficient" team when *they* started? I don't think so...

A final thought: don't get annoyed by some comments made by the "official portuguese team". What I could seen through these posts was not collaboration or constructive criticism. It's mainly vanity and jealousy. As our desire to use a good Brazilian localized version would be a threat for their "establishment"... I don't give a damn (sorry) to people who think like them. You shouldn't too. Keep the good work going, and if I can help you something you can count on me.

Um abraço