A grim expression and furrowed brow cross my face whenever mainlanders insist on thinking I do not have an Azorean accent, just because São Miguel diction does not come out of my mouth.

      Since my university student days in Lisbon, I have tried to explain these assumptions to “my almost-compatriots” (Antero de Quental’s term). Settlers from the north, center and south of Portugal who established themselves on different islands brought differing accents. Pronunciations in the Azores vary not only from island to island, but also within each island, from town to town and place to place.

      Hence the diversity of dialect variants. On all of the Azorean islands there is one common trait: the preservation of archaic structure. This is because, given their physical isolation, the Azores have for six centuries constituted an (ultra)peripheral territory vis-à-vis the Portuguese mainland, Europe and the Americas. This closing off of the islands was a determining factor in the sense that on this archipelago the purest, most authentic and genuine expression of Portuguese has been preserved and perpetuated.

      I am just wasting my breath for nothing. And there are mainlanders who, disbelieving what I say, keep insisting, “Come on, cut out the nonsense and speak with the Azorean accent.”

      “But I’m not from São Miguel,” I respond, wishing I could slap them.

      In fact, a great lack of knowledge (bordering on ignorance) still exists elsewhere about what happens in the Azores archipelago, which comprises nine islands, nineteen concelhos, and 155 towns.

      And in this regard, if there has been any evolution, it has been very slow. Back in the 1960s, an episode became famous that occurred on Terceira during my adolescence, involving a civil servant from Angra. Unable to reach Graciosa in his line of duty for lack of ferry service, he received a telegram from a high-ranking official in Lisbon’s Terreiro do Paço [national government offices] with the following order: “Get to Graciosa immediately on foot.”

      A decade later, when I was a university student at the Faculty of Letters in Lisbon, a classmate of mine from Cascais was very surprised at my being an Azorean but not dark.

      Nowadays, with so much technology available, the fact is that the outside media talk about the Azores only for the worst reasons: earthquakes, storms and other bad news.

      One hundred years after the publication of Raul Brandão’s book As Ilhas Desconhecidas [The Unknown Islands], the Azorean islands have ceased to be forgotten — but unfortunately they are still largely unknown.

Published in Portuguese as “Do desconhecimento sobre os Açores” at: https://graciosadigital.blogspot.com/2026/05/opiniao-victor-rui-dores-do.html