The main goal of this article is to present a reflection over two african languages, banto and iorubá, that resulted in changes involving nominal and verbal agreements in brazilian portuguese which shows a bigger context that involves cultural, economic and social issues. It is possible to notice that the agreement rules established in the formal spoken and specially written language are not followed by all native speakers. This happens because depending on the situation, social status or location, the absence of grammatically correct agreements indicates specific cultural traits from a certain group or population, often discriminated by this behavior. By investigating brazilian history, language planning and guideline laws, this article helps to comprehend better why several students are currently facing difficulties to learn the language and seeing it with a lack of interest, because the language taught in schools- the formal, elitist and normative portuguese variety- destined to writing and learning is constantly distant from their daily basis way of speaking and might provoke a form of discrimination. The text ends the discussion by trying to show how the analysis of the language historical context and the African languages' legacy might help to reduce prejudice and improve the learning process related to brazilian portuguese.
