The entrance to the museum was made by panoramic elevators that allowed a glimpse of an arboreal sculpture and through which the voice of Arnaldo Antunes echoed, repeating «word» in different languages. Leaving the elevator, the audience was directed to the Great Gallery, being exhorted by a screen the size of a train.

Initially, it was thought of a screen that, evoking the real situation of a train arriving at the station, would bring the image of a person leaving for the platform speaking a specific dialect. To do so, we surveyed research results that showed the main linguistic features of some dialects. This proposal, however, was replaced with part of the material dedicated to language as a distinctive cultural sign, focusing on different semantic fields, such as dance, carnival, festivals, religion, and cuisine, for which we had elaborated a long list of words. The screen was eventually composed of images with sound material that referred to some lexical items that multiplied and danced over the moving mural, gaining the public’s attention. As a first approach, this type of show created empathy with the visitors, who, from then on, could move on to other more laid-back activities.

Opposite the large canvas, a huge panel that chronologically exposed the history of the Portuguese language embellished the wall. Considering the objective of valuing the Brazilian variety by its users, we sought to point out the linguistic diversity that characterizes us by the confluence of three lines related to indigenous, African, and Portuguese languages in the 16th century. The exhibition of the diversity of the linguistic past, capable of delimiting the indigenous and African contribution to the formation of Portuguese in Brazil, justified the peculiarity of this linguistic variety.¶{p. 91}

Right below the panel, the public was encouraged to seek more information about the implementation and dissemination of BP (Brazilian Portuguese), through interactive screens. Information on the differences between BP and EP (European Portuguese) was mainly presented in the field of morphosyntax, such as the order of components in interrogative sentences and in constructions with a characterized focus; pronominal placement and subject filling. Without getting into specifics and technicalities, we only sought to point out and naturalize differences between the two linguistic varieties, in order to value diversity and give dignity and legitimacy to BP and, by extension, linguistic security to that language speaker. To deepen the knowledge about morphosyntactic aspects of BP, the museum, under the coordination of professor Ataliba Castilho, subsequently focused on the search for specialists and on the development of programmatic content to produce support material to which users have remote access.

The subject of language as a distinctive cultural sign, understood here as the celebration of BP, demanded greater dialogue with the museum space. The dialogue with the building’s architectural structure was reinforced using columns in which totems were placed and next to which were screens whose content referred to the linguistic and cultural contribution to the support of the Portuguese language in Brazil.

Thus, words from different languages crossed the gallery, flanked by the building’s columns: professors Aryon Rodrigues and Yeda Castro pointed out, respectively, Amerindian, and African-based cultural and linguistic interpenetrations in BP. This collection was expanded with the survey of words from other languages (French, Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Arabic) which became part of Brazilians’ daily vocabulary. On the screens that showed parts of the «vocabulary column» of BP, the public had access to information about the origin and meaning of these words and the perception of the cultural and linguistic diversity that characterizes us. The research work on linguistic loans was based on some semantic fields: fashion; food; fights ¶{p. 92}and sport; ritualistic practices, games, dances and shows; architecture and housing; human relationships and behavior; economy, trade, and politics; technology.

As from time to time some outbreaks of linguistic purism rush against the entry of foreign words into BP, we proposed listening to songs that brought linguistic mixtures, such as the case of Samba do Approach by Zeca Baleiro («Venha provar meu brunch / Saiba que eu tenho approach / Na hora do lunch / Eu ando de ferryboat // Eu tenho savoir-faire / Meu temperamento é light / Minha casa é hi-tech»). However, this suggestion did not work, at least not for the first long-term exhibition.

Considering language as mortar led us to three types of linguistic research for the museum: the first involved meaning extensions; the second dealt with the baggage we carry and the third with the history we have created.

We understand meaning extension as the linguistic contribution of one area of knowledge to another. The starting point was the question that was raised to us: what is the contribution of architecture to the economy? One of the possible answers was the meaning extension that appears in the construction techniques of the colonial period marking segregation. From eira, which means «terreiro», and beira, which is a roof extension to cover the threshing floor, the idiomatic expression without thresh nor border emerged to express the situation of poverty of a person without a home and without a source of income.

Skimming over an architecture manual, we observed the extension of the meaning of its terms to the areas of economics and politics (coverage > insurance coverage; floor > salary floor; ceiling > salary ceiling; bench > ruralist bench in parliament; wing > government wing, and so on). Unfortunately, the interactive screen exposed scheme with a single expression failing to show the reiteration of this kind of metaphorical extension, rendering the scheme inoperative.

At the time, we did not think about metaphors in everyday use, as proposed by Lakoff and Johnson [1980], but this would be an interesting path for this type of museum that, without resorting to technicalities of linguistic theories, ¶{p. 93}intends to reveal how the speaker gives new meanings to words. We believe that presenting the role of metaphorical thinking (conceptualizing one domain to another) is a good strategy to show a form of reasoning that we follow and, above all, intends to point out the correlation between language and culture.

The interest in production, and not just in the product, led us to suggest an activity about the baggage we carry. Therefore, we proposed schemes for the derivation process, seeking to facilitate a quick understanding of the order and the multiple possibilities of combinations in order to bring out the intuitive awareness of the domain of structural operations, such as: 1) the creation of new verbs from prefixes (ter > ater > deter > reter); 2) the creation of new word categories with the apposition of suffixes (instituting > institution > institutional > institutionalizing > institutionalization); 3) the regular production of nominalizations (conduzir > condução, therefore: induzir, produzir, reduzir, seduzir ecc.; assistir > assistência, therefore: consistir, desistir, persistir, resistir). We believed it would be interesting to point out that such schemes show serial formations that alleviate the brain’s effort to store information.

Within this same bias, but to illustrate the story we created, the nominalization with the suffix -ção creates the effect of excessive repetition of an activity like pingação «drop», bateção «beat», falação «speaking». Nominalization with the suffix -aço expresses the idea of increase: pacotaço «big package», chifraço «big horn», bandidaço «very crook bandit», badernaço «great riot», or noisy expression to protest with whistle apitaço, honk buzinaço, hitting the tray bandejaço or the pan panelaço. Nominalizations in -ata appear to mark electoral rallies on foot passeata, by car carreata, by tractor tratorata and by boat barcata. They are suffixes that express the noise effect. In fact, -aço and -ata are correlated with the political opening obtained with the movement of the «diretas já». As we were asked for proposals to apply the linguistic material, we suggested showing the rumor effect and its association with collective manifestations. An alternative, an idea, by the way, suggested at one of our ¶{p. 94}first meetings, was the creation of a kind of series of words to which noises would be associated, triggering images of these manifestations. However, this proposal was left aside.

Insisting on the production issue, we suggested the schematization of words to compose the sector of history that we created, based on sociocultural practices. As an example, we pointed out the case of the proliferation of new words from the elements -dromo and -tone.

The first of them (dromo) that appears in the classics autodrome (autódromo), velodrome (velódromo) and hippodrome (hipódromo) underwent semantic change. With the victory of the Formula 1 Grand Prix by Brazilian drivers (Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna), the word autódromo became a space for festive celebration by Brazilians. The element -dromo «drome», which etymologically means «racetrack», was reinterpreted as «parade track» and gave rise to sambódromo «carnival parade track» and, subsequently, «dance track», as in forródromo «forró dance floor». From «track» it became a mere «place reserved for». Thus, fumódromo, a «place reserved for smokers», was created from a Federal Law 9294/96 that prohibited smoking in closed public and private places; cellulódromo «place reserved for cell phone use»; camelódromo «place reserved for street vendors»; bicicletódromo «space reserved for storing bicycles». The proposal was to show how the linguistic attitude that the speaker has in connection to a word, such as autódromo, can become a trigger for the creation of new lexical items. Constructions like these are examples of operations that banish radicals from dictionaries to relate them to a new symbolic universe of signs. Another strategy used to create new lexical items is the vocabulary and expressive fusion that also occurs with foreign words. For example, from panettone, the Brazilian created chocotone, a panettone with chocolate filling, and sorvetone, a panettone filled with ice cream. The forms trufotone and brigadeirotone are, in turn, truffles and brigadeiros (chocolate sweets with sprinkles) filled with pieces of panettone.