ABSTRACT
Education during that period, and until 1 759, was bilingual. At the Jesuit colleges , children were taught Portuguese and Nheen gatu, but the language of hearth and home was Nheengatu. Florence ( 194 1 : 1 74) notes that ' in 1780, the ladies from Sao Paulo talked nat urally in the lingua franca of Brazil , which was the language of friendship and domestic life' (translated). Such was the widespread use of Nheengatu that interpreters between it and Portuguese were needed in courts of law.
