Fifth most widely spoken language in the world;

Spoken as an official language in Portugal, Brazil,

Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau,

Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe;

Spoken by 272.9 million people, thus being the

most spoken language in the southern hemisphere.

Portuguese is a Latin language;

Galician origins;

Portuguese re-conquering;

Sea expansion, cultural and vocabulary influence.

Portuguese has different characteristics. This

happens within Portugal itself, but also in Brazil and

in other Portuguese speaking countries.

These differences are related to phonetics,

vocabulary and some grammatical structures.

Portuguese based Creolo languages are extremely

different in all of those features.

Within Portugal different dialects exist in various regions. They differ in some expressions. Here are the most important dialects and some examples of native speakers:

1- Micaelense (Açores) (São Miguel)—Azores. Pedro Pauleta, retired footballer 2 - Alentejano—Alentejo (Alentejan Portuguese) José Carlos Malato, TV presenter 3 - Algarvio—Algarve (there is a particular dialect in a small part of western Algarve) Cavaco

Silva, current president of Portugal 4 - Alto-Minhoto—North of Braga (hinterland). Abel Salazar, doctor and scientist 5 - Baixo-Beirão; Alto-Alentejano—Central Portugal (hinterland). Eugénia Melo e Castro, famous singer and songwriter

6 - Beirão— Central Portugal. Carlos Lopes, former olympic Gold medalist 7 - Estremenho—Regions of Leiria and Lisbon, David Fonseca, famous singer

8 - Madeirense (Madeiran)—Madeira, Cristiano Ronaldo, famous football player 9 - Nortenho—Regions of the districts of Braga, Porto and parts of Aveiro. Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, President of FCP 10 - Transmontano Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. Leonel Vieira, famous film director.

5

1 10 8

6 9

2

3 4 7

Brazilian Portuguese is the most spoken variety of portuguese. It is very different from European Portuguese mainly when regarding pronunciation.

Because Brazil is such a big country, many different dialects emerged. Many famous people are native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese:

Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil, from Pernambuco speaking the “Nordestino” variety (7).

Ronaldinho Gaúcho, famous football player, from Porto Alegre, speaking the “Gaúcho” variety (5).

Cape Verde Portuguese is closer to European

Portuguese than Brazilian Portuguese but it is

however, different. There is also a mix between

Cape Verdean Portuguese and Creole, which is

closer to the other African varieties of Portuguese.

Cesária Évora, a famous Cape Verdean singer

(Creole speaker)

Some voices demand the recognition of “Angolan

Portuguese” as a specific variant.

However, while there are certain idiomatic particularities in

the Portuguese spoken by Angolans, their government is still

deciding whether or not these differences are enough to

make it being a special variant.

José Eduardo dos Santos, president of the Angolan Republic

There are also other countries where Portuguese varieties are spoken such as:

• Daman and Diu, India—Damaense (Damanese Portuguese)

• East Timor—Timorense (East Timorese Portuguese)

• Goa, India—Goês (Goan Portuguese)

• Guinea-Bissau—Guineense (Guinean Portuguese)

• Macau— Macaense (Macanese Portuguese)

• Mozambique—Moçambicano (Mozambican Portuguese)

• São Tomé and Príncipe— Santomense (São Tomean Portuguese)

• Uruguay—Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay (DPU)

The interaction between Portuguese and Asian and South

American native populations, caused the appearance of

many loan words.

Indonesian, Manado, Malay, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese

and many South Asian languages are somewhat Romanized

by the influence of Portuguese.

Other native Amazonian tribal languages were modified by

traces of the Portuguese language.

The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the

Portuguese language. One example is Mei.

Starting in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between

Portuguese travelers and settlers, African slaves, and local

populations led to the appearance of many pidgins

(simplified languages).

As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of

succeeding generations, they evolved into fully developed

creole languages, which remained in use in parts of Asia and

Africa.

Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles

are still spoken today, by over 3 million people worldwide.

Most of the Portuguese vocabulary derives from Latin, since

Portuguese is a Romanic language. However, other languages

that came into contact with it have also left their mark. In the

13th century, the lexicon of Portuguese had about 80% words of

Latin origin and 20% of pre-Roman, Germanic and Arabic origin.

Due to the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula during

the Middle Ages, and the participation of Portugal in the Age of

Discovery, it has adopted loanwords from all over the world.

The Phoenicians and Carthaginians also left

some scarce traces.

In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula was

conquered by the Germanic and Visigoths.

They contributed with a few words to the

lexicon, mostly related to warfare.

Between the 9th and 13th centuries, when Portugal

was under influence of the Moors, Portuguese

acquired about 800 words from Arabic. They are

often recognizable by the initial Arabic article “al”.

Beginning in the 15th century, the Portuguese

maritime explorations led to the introduction of many

loanwords from Asian languages.

Due to the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic

slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese

colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese

got several words from Africa, especially names for most

of the animals and plants found in those territories.

Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from

other European languages, such as French, Spanish,

English, etc.

A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is

the verb. Morphologically, more verbal tenses from

classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese

than by any other major Romanic language.

It has also some innovations not found in other

Romance languages.

European Portuguese still uses the future subjunctive

mood, which developed from medieval West Iberian

Romance and in present-day Spanish and Galician

has almost entirely become obsolete.

Currently, the use of a new grammatical agreement

is taking place. It brings Brazilian Portuguese and

Vernacular Portuguese closer together.

Some mute consonants are repressed, some stresses

disappeared and the use of capital letters in certain

words has changed.

This agreement has been criticized by some linguists

due to its unpredictable rules and the changing of

words without concerning its phonology.

The phonology of Portuguese can vary considerably between dialects;

It can lead to difficulties in understanding

properly what is supposed to be;

Portuguese is a pluricentric language;

Portuguese has one of the richest vowel phonologies of all Romance languages, having both oral and nasal vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs.

Portuguese uses vowel height to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables.

Portuguese has 14 phonemic diphthongs: 10 oral and 4 nasal.

Examples: In the word ‘’pai’’ the oral diphthong is –ai [aj].

In the word ‘’mão’’ the nasal diphthong is –ão [ɐ ̃w]

As a triphthong: [waj] can be written as –uai as in the word “Paraguai”;

Regarding consonants there are 19 of

them. Some are written with more than one

alphabetic consonant

Example: the sound /ʃ/ can be written as

ch- as in ‘’chato’’

Portuguese literature is notably known for its

important lyricists, novelists and play writers

such as Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago and Gil Vicente respectively.

It was born in the ‘’Cantigas de Amigo’’ popularized by King Dinis

In the Renaissance one of the most important

pieces ‘’Os Lusíadas’’ was written by Camões.

In the Romanticism, Almeida Garrett

wrote numerous novels highly regarded

by literary critics, even after its decay in

the rest of Europe.

The Realist current emerged later on as

famous realist writers were already dead

when Eça de Queiroz wrote his popular

novel “Os Maias”.

Portuguese literature was quite relevant in

the European Modernism as Fernando

Pessoa is regarded as one of the greatest

modernist poets of all time.

Finally, Nobel prize winner and now

deceased writer, José Saramago is one of

the most famous novelists of the modern

world.

The Portuguese language is a true

testament to the Portuguese History and

Culture along with its former colonies, its

famous writers and its complex

grammatical rules.

It is indeed an old language that has

resisted the test of time, become modern

and marked the life of millions of people all

over the world!