Natives of which South American city are known as 'Cariocas'?

Carioca is a demonym used to refer to anything related to the City of Rio de Janeiro as well as its eponymous State of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. The original word, "kara'i oka", comes from the indigenous Tupi language meaning "house of carijó", which was a native tribe of Rio de Janeiro who lived in the vicinity of the Carioca River, between the neighborhoods of Glória and Flamengo.

Like other Brazilians, cariocas speak Portuguese. The carioca accent and sociolect (also simply called "carioca") are the most widely recognized in Brazil, in part because Rede Globo, the second-largest television network in the world, is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. Thus, a lot of Brazilian TV programs, from news and documentary to entertainment (such as the telenovelas), feature carioca-acting and speaking talent.

Despite the fact carioca is a more ancient demonym of Rio de Janeiro's inhabitants (known since 1502), it was replaced by fluminense in 1783, when the latter was sanctioned as the official demonym of the Royal Captainship of Rio de Janeiro (later the Province of Rio de Janeiro).

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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10 Comments

Howard Groopman

Had Caracas been a choice, many of us would have headed down that road, I'm sure.

James Clausen

My wife and I were almost kidnapped in a taxi in Rio during the carnival. We walking on the nothern end of Copacabana beach near the tunnel asked the taxi driver to go to Sugarloaf. He got on the phone to try to get information from someone we originally thought, actually he was setting up the kidnap, and when I knew we had passed the turn we called him out. He spoke as little English as we did Portuguese and we showed him the map which got us nowhere. We decided to jump out of the taxi at the next red light with people around. We did he also jumped out and now spoke English well, we yelled for the police and as the light changed and cars started to honk he got in the taxi and drove away. We went across the street got in another taxi and reversed our original course and did get to Sugarloaf. There is good and bad everywhere, we have been to 86 countries but we will NEVER go to Brazill again.