29. UAI

Yes! My absolute favourite! For real now!

I’m not able to keep a conversation if you take this one away from me.

But for “uai” I’ll have to tell you a bit about Brazil’s geography. Not too much, no need to run, but I need to situate you here in order to explain this three-letter great word.

So, Brazil is divided in five main regions: North, Northeast, South, Southeast and Midwest. I’m proudly from the Midwest, the heart of the country, more specifically from a State called Goiás. And Goiás has a neighbour State from the Southeast region called Minas Gerais. Now, there’s a bit of a quarrel about who owns the “uai” (and the cheese-bread by that matter), but the fact is that both states use it. The Minas Gerais were there first, so maybe we just stole their slang and I’m fine with it.

As for what does it mean, it has no literal translation, quite similar to “eita” that we saw on day #2. It’s an interjection that, in theory, express shock, perplexity, surprise, admiration or impatience. Or just to reinforce what you just said in case your interlocutor disbelieve or doubt your assertion.

I particularly use it when I’m confused (like when Mr. Fiancé loses his phone inside the apartment: “‘Uai’, wasn’t it right there a second ago?”), when I’m disappointed (“That isn’t right, ‘uai’”), when I clarify someone’s confusion (“Of course I put salt on my pasta water, ‘uai’”). It doesn’t really mean anything, but it emphasizes anything around it, it pretty much depends on the intonation.

The origin of this expression is somewhere in Minas Gerais (or maybe in the countryside of São Paulo), but it has never been a consensus about how it came to exist, and linguists have been studying it for a while now. Some say it’s a derivation of “olhai” (the imperative form of look), some say it would be a password used by members of Freemasonry back at the Inconfidência Mineira (a separatist movement in Minas Gerais), some say it has to do with the why, as the pronunciation is the same.

The fact is that “uai” is absolutely awesome and I can’t live without it.

So, dear foreign. If you ever get to come to the heart of Brazil, you will hear a “uai” here and there, that’s how you know you’ve arrived. Until then, we’ll keep meeting here every day.

Till tomorrow, uai,

expressionada