Portuguese language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portuguese PortuguêsÂ
Pronunciation:	[puɾtu'geʃ] (European), [portu'ges], [portu'geis] or [pohtu'geiʃ] (Brazilian)
Spoken in:	Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Chinese S.A.R. of Macau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Total speakers:	Native: 177 million (2005)[1]Â
Ranking:	6 (native speakers)[1]
Language family:	Indo-European  Italic   Romance    Italo-Western     Western      Gallo-Iberian       Ibero-Romance        West-Iberian         Galician-Portuguese          PortugueseÂ
Writing system:	Latin alphabet (Portuguese variant)Â
Official status
Official language in:	9 countries  African Union  European Union  Union of South American Nations  Mercosur Organization of American States Community of Portuguese Language Countries
Regulated by:	International Portuguese Language Institute; CPLP; Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazil); Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Classe de Letras (Portugal)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	pt
ISO 639-2:	por
ISO 639-3:	por
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Portuguese (português (help·info) or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) about 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries as Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire (1415–1999) which spanned from Brazil in the Americas to Goa in India and Macau in China, in fact it was used exclusively on the island of Sri Lanka as the lingua franca for almost 350 years. During that time, many creole languages based on Portuguese also appeared around the world, especially in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

Today it is one of the world's major languages, ranked 6th according to number of native speakers (approximately 177 million^[1]). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America, spoken by nearly all of Brazil's population, which amounts to over 51% of the continent's population even though it is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. It is also a major lingua franca in Portugal's former colonial possessions in Africa. It is the official language of ten countries (see the table on the right), also being co-official with Spanish and French in Equatorial Guinea, with Cantonese Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau, and with Tetum in East Timor. There are sizable communities of Portuguese-speakers in various regions of North America, notably in the United States (New Jersey, New England and south Florida) and in Ontario, Canada.

Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet language", while Brazilian writer Olavo Bilac poetically described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela: "the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful".

Geographic distribution

Main articles: Geographic distribution of Portuguese and List of countries where Portuguese is an official language

Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status.

Member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

Today, Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique.^[2] It is also one of the official languages of Equatorial Guinea (with Spanish and French), the Chinese special administrative region of Macau (with Chinese), and East Timor, (with Tetum). It is a native language of most of the population in Portugal (100%), Brazil (99%), Angola (60%), and São Tomé and Príncipe (50%), and it is spoken by a plurality of the population of Mozambique (40%), though only 6.5% are native speakers. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks Cape Verdean Creole.^[3]

Small Portuguese-speaking communities subsist in former overseas colonies of Portugal such as Macau, where it is spoken as a first language by 0.6% of the population^[4] and East Timor.

Uruguay gave Portuguese an equal status to Spanish in its educational system at the north border with Brazil. In the rest of the country, it's taught as an obligatory subject beginning by the 6th grade. ^[5]

It is also spoken by substantial immigrant communities, though not official, in Andorra, France, Luxembourg, Jersey (with a statistically significant Portuguese-speaking community of approximately 10,000 people), Paraguay, Namibia, South Africa, Switzerland, Venezuela and in the U.S. states of California, Connecticut,^[6] Florida,^[7] Massachusetts, New Jersey,^[8] New York^[9] and Rhode Island.^[10] In some parts of India, such as Goa^[11] and Daman and Diu^[12] Portuguese is still spoken. There are also significant populations of Portuguese speakers in Canada (mainly concentrated in and around Toronto)^[13] Bermuda^[14] and Netherlands Antilles.

Portuguese is an official language of several international organizations. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries^[2] (with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the eight independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language. It is also an official language of the European Union,^[15] Mercosul, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union of South American Nations, and the African Union (one of the working languages) and one of the official languages of other organizations. The Portuguese language is gaining popularity in Africa, Asia, and South America as a second language for study.

Estação da Luz, home of the Museum of the Portuguese Language, in São Paulo, Brazil.

Portuguese and Spanish are the fastest-growing European languages, and, according to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the language with the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America. The Portuguese-speaking African countries are expected to have a combined population of 83 million by 2050. Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic market of Mercosul with other South American nations, such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, there has been an increase in interest in the study of Portuguese in those South American countries. The demographic weight of Brazil in the continent will continue to strengthen the presence of the language in the region. Although in the early 21st century, after Macau was ceded to China in 1999, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is becoming a language of opportunity there; mostly because of East Timor's boost in the number of speakers in the last five years but also because of increased Chinese diplomatic and financial ties with Portuguese-speaking countries.

In July 2007, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema announced his government's decision to make Portuguese Equatorial Guinea's third official language, in order to meet the requirements to apply for full membership of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. This upgrading from its current Associate Observer condition would result in Equatorial Guinea being able to access several professional and academic exchange programs and the facilitation of cross-border circulation of citizens. Its application is currently being assessed by other CPLP members.^[16]

In March 1994 the Bosque de Portugal (Portugal's Woods) was founded in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. The park houses the Portuguese Language Memorial, which honors the Portuguese immigrants and the countries that adopted the Portuguese language. Originally there were seven nations represented with pillars, but the independence of East Timor brought yet another pillar for that nation in 2007.

In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the largest number of Portuguese speakers in the world.

Dialects

Main article: Portuguese dialects

Portuguese is a pluricentric language with two main groups of dialects, those of Brazil and those of the Old World. For historical reasons, the dialects of Africa and Asia are generally closer to those of Portugal than the Brazilian dialects, although in some aspects of their phonetics, especially the pronunciation of unstressed vowels, they resemble Brazilian Portuguese more than European Portuguese. They have not been studied as widely as European and Brazilian Portuguese.

Audio samples of some dialects of Portuguese are available below.^[17] There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. For example, the caipira dialect has some differences from the one of Minas Gerais, but in general it is very close. A good example of Brazilian Portuguese may be found in the capital city, Brasília, because of the generalized population from all parts of the country.

Portuguese dialects of Angola

Angola

1. Benguelense — Benguela province.
2. Luandense — Luanda province.
3. Sulista — South of Angola.

Dialects of Portuguese in Brazil

Brazil

1. Caipira — States of São Paulo (countryside; the city of São Paulo and the eastern areas of the state have their own dialect, called paulistano); southern Minas Gerais, northern Paraná, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul.
2. Cearense — Ceará.
3. Baiano — Bahia.
4. Fluminense — Variants spoken in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo (excluding the city of Rio de Janeiro and its adjacent metropolitan areas, which have their own dialect, called carioca).
5. Gaúcho — Rio Grande do Sul. (There are many distinct accents in Rio Grande do Sul, mainly due to the heavy influx of European immigrants of diverse origins, those which have settled several colonies throughout the state.)
6. Mineiro — Minas Gerais (not prevalent in the Triângulo Mineiro, southern and southeastern Minas Gerais).
7. Nordestino — northeastern states of Brazil (Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte have a particular way of speaking).^[18]
8. Nortista — Amazon Basin states.
9. Paulistano — Variants spoken around São Paulo city and the eastern areas of São Paulo state.
10. Sertanejo — States of Goiás and Mato Grosso (the city of Cuiabá has a particular way of speaking).
11. Sulista — Variants spoken in the areas between the northern regions of Rio Grande do Sul and southern regions of São Paulo state. (The cities of Curitiba, Florianópolis, and Itapetininga have fairly distinct accents as well.)

Dialects of Portuguese in Portugal

Portugal

1. Açoriano (Azorean) — Azores.
2. Alentejano — Alentejo
3. Algarvio — Algarve (there is a particular dialect in a small part of western Algarve).
4. Alto-Minhoto — North of