Germany, as a national state, only unified in 1871, so the standard German existing today was, until the 19th century, a literary language, the one used by Martin Luther in his famous translation of the Bible.
What is known is that German immigrants in Brazil came from different parts of Germany, so Hunsrik-speaking Brazilians do not necessarily descend from people from Hunsrück.
German colonies in the South were usually formed in regions of forest depopulated or inhabited by Indians, who were expelled for the arrival of immigrants.
This differentiation favored the feeling of a minority group, which allied itself with the formation of solid ethnic institutions, such as schools, churches, social associations and a German-language press.
This linguistic and cultural isolation was combated aggressively by the nationalist government of then Brazil's president Getúlio Vargas, through the nationalization campaign.
The police inspected people's private lives, breaking into houses to burn books written in German, or languages other than Portuguese.
The first, from the SIL International, is led by professor and doctor Ursula Wiesemann and has an approach more focused on using the writing system used naturally by its native speakers in everyday actions, such as interpersonal interaction and the use of social networks.
[10][6][23] The spelling translated into Portuguese as "Brazilian Hunsrückisch" is also accepted by the project, however the preference is for the use of the former to generate a clearer differentiation of the language.
[25] This project recommends the spelling Hunsrückisch to refer to the dialect in its native form,[1] with Hunsrickisch being an alternative as a way to emphasize the pronunciation of the word.
The Hunsrik spelling is also used by Glottolog in its bibliographic database of the least known languages in the world, catalog of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
[28][29] In some municipalities in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, the language is also called Deitsch (Altenhofen) or Taytx (Wiesemann), in clear reference to its roots in standard German.
[30] Recent Roman Catholic papal candidate Odilo Scherer[31] of Cerro Largo (located in the northwest of Rio Grande do Sul) grew up with Hunsrik as many from his native region did, using it side-by-side with Portuguese, the national language.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Cláudio Hummes of Montenegro, Rio Grande do Sul (in the Altkolonie region of the state), grew up speaking Portuguese alongside Hunsrik.
[33] During an interview in 2011, renowned Brazilian writer, translator, and international relations professor Aldyr Schlee talked in detail about having been an eyewitness to the repression of Hunsrik in his native state of Rio Grande do Sul during World War II.
4 Too hot Pilatos fer te hooche priister un tsum folek kesaat: Ich khan khee xult an tëm man fine!
4 Doropshi sot de Pilatus zu deniewescht Priister an dem Vollek: Ech fanne keng Schold un dësem Mann.
5 Mee si hu sech drop behaapt: Hien hetzt d’Vollek mat senger Léier uechter ganz Judea op.
4 Da sprach Pilatus zu den obersten Priestern und der Volksmenge: Ich finde keine Schuld an diesem Menschen!
2 And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King."