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Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil. It is bordered on the north by the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Uruguay, and on the west by Argentina.

1 History

Although mainly rural for much of its early history, Rio Grande do Sul served as the launching pad for several major wars Brazil waged against its southern and western neighbors. It also was a focal point for internal rebellion in the 19th century. Getulio Vargas, who led Brazil as dictator from 1930 and later was elected president in 1950 (before committing suicide), was a native of Rio Grande do Sul.

Rio Grande do Sul's population consists primarily of the descendants of European immigrants, especially Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, and GermansThe Germans ( German: die Deutschen are people of German descent i. ones associating themselves with the heritage of German culture. The concept of who is a German has varied. Until the 19th century, it denoted the speakers of German, and was a much more but to a much smaller extent, very small groups of PolesThe Poles are a western Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with Poland and the Polish language. There are around 38 million Poles in Poland as well as autochthonous Polish minorities in the surrounding countries such as Germany, Ukraine, Romania, et, RussiansRussians Russkie are an ethnic group of East Slavic people, which live primarily in Russia and neighboring countries. Note: often the term Russian is used to refer to any citizen of Russia. In the Russian language there also exists additional recently rev, LithuaniansThe first Lithuanian person to set foot on Brazilian soil, according to a record dated in 1886, was a certain colonel Andrius Visteliauskas. His mission was to aid the Brazilian armed forces in the Paraguayan War that was going on at that time. His experi, UkrainiansThe Ukrainians are a Slavic people of central- eastern Europe. They are the descendants of several people who inhabited the vast area extending from north of the Black Sea to the borders of Russia, Poland, Moldova, Belarus and Slovakia. Ukraine had a very, JewThe word Jew is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to either a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or a member of the Jewish culture or ethnicity. This article discusses the term as describing an ethnic group; for as and later on in the 1960s, some JapaneseEthnic Japanese are usually those who live outside Japan but originally came from mainland Japan or those descendants. The majority of them live in regions such as: United States, mostly California Brazil There is a small ethnic Japanese community in Nort immigrants settled in different areas of the state.

The first German immigrant families arrived in Rio Grande do Sul in 1824 at São Leopoldo town and in the following century an estimated quarter of a million Germans settled in the country, mostly in Rio Grande do Sul and the neighboring state of Santa Catarina.

Most of the German speakers in southern Brazil spoke or eventually adopted the Hunsrückisch dialect so that it became the most commonly used German dialect in this part of the world and still spoken by millions today (also referred to as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch to differentiated it from the Hunsrückisch spoken in Germany).

In its 180 years of history Riograndenser Hunsrückisch has been greatly influenced by other German dialects (such as Pomeranian, Pfälzisch ) and by immigrant languages such as the national language, Portuguese but also to some degree by Italian.

All minority languages in the southern Brazil have been experiencing significant degrees of decline in the last few decades, not only immigrant languages such as Italian or Talian and German, but also the indigenous languages of the Kaingang (also spelled Kaingáng , Cainguangue , etc.) and the Guarany (spelled Guaraní in Portuguese).

In the far western area of the state are the remnants of Brazil's 17th century Jesuit missions or reductions (aldeias) to the Guaraní Indians. Important to the region, it should be notited that Jesuit Father Roque Gonzales also known as Roque Gonzales de Santa Cruz arrived from Paraguay on the 03 of May of 1626 to establish the Saint Nicolas Mission Reduction (today known as São Nicolau in Portuguese) was the first white person to enter in what is today know as the state of Rio Grande do Sul. From all the ruines left behind by the vanished Guarany Missions (or Missões Guaranís in Portuguese), the most significant one is São Miguel or São Miguel Arcanjo , located nearby the present city of Santo Angelo . There is a very interesting ongoing Light and Sound (or Som e Luz in Portuguese) nightly show that happens at and is displayed upon the ruins of the São Miguel church.