Portuguese has two different words for baby: bebé in Portugal and bebê in Brazil.
The word was brought from French bébé; while the Portuguese took the accent at face value (keeping the same accent from French, but applying Portuguese rules to the accent, therefore making the e an open vowel), Brazilians decided to keep the phonetics intact (since the acute accent in French is used for the exact same purpose as the circumflex in Portuguese: to close a vowel).
Also of note: [o/a] bebé is used as a two-gendered noun, meaning you should refer to a baby girl using a bebé and a baby boy via o bebé (like most other nouns that work like this, the masculine is the go-to gender when you’re not aware of gender or you’re talking about babies in general; if you’re talking about something that refers solely to baby girls, use the feminine instead). Portuguese is still a bit behind when it comes to adapting the language to non-binary situations (the masculine gender being used in generic descriptions of professions is an important issue, and so is the lack of third gender pronouns and signifiers)
Compare this with [a] criança (child), which is always feminine regardless of the actual gender of the child.
Related words:
- [o] berço: crib/cot
- [o] leite: milk
- [o] nascimento: birth
The European Portuguese Experience 
Speaking (writing/reading) about “adapting the language to non-binary situations” in Portuguese: The HORRIBLE mistake “presidenta” (a “enta” que preside) would be a nice EP experience post. What do you think? ;)
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Well, “presidenta” is more of a Brazilian thing (and also a very politicized turn-of-phrase, used only by Dilma supporters and enforced by the president herself), so I’m not entirely sure it’s under our mantle here; that would also involve talking at length about Brazilian history and we’d lose the Portuguese-oriented thread of the blog.
Besides, I’ll eventually have to devote one Word of the Week post to “[o/a] presidente de Câmera” (vs. [o/a] prefeito/a), so that’s probably the best opportunity to talk about this particular issue while approaching it from a purely Portuguese and EP-oriented perspective.
Thank you so much for your always interesting feedback! Um abraço (:
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Sounds fair! :D
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Olá Luís:
I must admit that I am not sure I can differentiate the pronunciation of bebé from bebê. I checked with forvo.com and found only one entry for “bebé” and none for “bebê”. Could give me some tips on the pronunciation …based on mouth position, etc? Agradeço desde já!
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Hello, Elaine. In bebé, both “e”s are open [ɛ] (wider opening of the mouth, like the first e in elephant, elegy, Edward); in bebê, both “e”s are closed [e] (mouth more closed than [ɛ], but not as much as [i] and like the e in mesa, vez, peso; and all French words with é – paté, opportunité, beauté, marié, féminin…).
“Bebé” is an anomaly in EP since it has an open vowel on an unstressed syllable, but “bebê” in BP should sound pretty similar to “bébé” in French (perhaps with a slight emphasis on the last syllable, but not in all dialects owing to BP’s more syllable-time phonology, especially in slower speach).
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