Papua New Guinea is home to >10% of the world’s languages and rich and varied biocultural knowledge, but the future of this diversity remains unclear. We measured language skills of 6,190 students speaking 392 languages (5.5% of the global total) and modeled their future trends using individual-level variables characterizing family language use, socioeconomic conditions, students’ skills, and language traits. This approach showed that only 58% of the students, compared to 91% of their parents, were fluent in indigenous languages, while the trends in key drivers of language skills (language use at home, proportion of mixed-language families, urbanization, students’ traditional skills) predicted accelerating decline of fluency to an estimated 26% in the next generation of students. Ethnobiological knowledge declined in close parallel with language skills. Varied medicinal plant uses known to the students speaking indigenous languages are replaced by a few, mostly nonnative species for the students speaking English or Tok Pisin, the national lingua franca. Most (88%) students want to teach indigenous language to their children. While crucial for keeping languages alive, this intention faces powerful external pressures as key factors (education, cash economy, road networks, and urbanization) associated with language attrition are valued in contemporary society.

Papua New Guinea is home to >10% of the world′s languages and rich and varied biocultural knowledge, but the future of this diversity remains unclear. We measured language skills of 6,190 students speaking 392 languages (5.5% of the global total) and modelled their future trends, using individual-level variables characterizing family language use, socio-economic conditions, student′s skills, and language traits. This approach showed that only 58% of the students, compared to 91% of their parents, were fluent in indigenous languages, while the trends in key drivers of language skills (language use at home, proportion of mixed-language families, urbanization, students′ traditional skills) predicted accelerating decline of fluency, to an estimated 26% in the next generation of students. Ethnobiological knowledge declined in close parallel with language skills. Varied medicinal plant uses known to the students speaking indigenous languages are replaced by a few, mostly non-native species for the students speaking English or Tok Pisin, the national lingua franca. Most (88%) students want to teach indigenous language to their children. While crucial for keeping languages alive, this intention faces powerful external pressures as key factors (education, cash economy, road networks, urbanization) associated with language attrition are valued in contemporary society.

This paper aims to analyze Iberian influences, especially Portuguese, in the Brazilian political institutions. We understand that the institutions of the Portuguese colonial administration, which existed before the beginning of the colonization itself, were responsible for shaping Brazilian political practices up to the present day, transforming themselves into entrenched cultural values. To explain such factors, we adopt a theoretical framework based on the debate between traditional and modern State, based on Weber's Studies on State and Patrimonialism. We understand that one of the consequences of this historical heritage is the ongoing tension between a formally rational-legal organization and the common use of cordiality and the "Brazilian jeitinho", a Brazilian cultural pattern, as well as tolerance of practices that undermine formal institutions. We consider this practice an informal institution, per Levitsky and Helmke (2006) conceptualization. In order to prove such elements, we adopted a historical and cultural analysis of the Iberian heritage and later analyzed institutional data collected in the 2002 Brazilian Social Survey (PESB 2002)RESUMOO Presente artigo tem como intuito analisar a influência ibérica, notadamente portuguesa, nas instituições políticas brasileiras. Entendemos que as instituições da administração colonial portuguesa, existentes desde antes do início da colonização em si, foram responsáveis por moldar as práticas políticas brasileiras até os dias de hoje, transformando-se em valores culturais arraigados. Para explicar tais fatores adotamos um arcabouço teórico baseado no debate entre Estado tradicional e moderno, calcado nos Estudos de Weber acerca do Estado e do patrimonialismo. Entendemos que uma das consequências dessa herança histórica é a contínua tensão entre uma organização formalmente racional-legal, e o uso corriqueiro da cordialidade, do "jeitinho brasileiro", bem como a tolerância a práticas que ferem os aspectos institucionais formais referidos, mas são culturalmente aceitas. Para comprovar tais elementos adotamos uma análise histórica da herança ibérica e posteriormente analisamos alguns dados institucionais coletados na Pesquisa Social Brasileira de 2002.

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