Infobox Language
name=Portuguese
nativename=Português
pronunciation= [puɾtu'geʃ] (European), [portu'ges] , [portu'geis] or [pohtu'geiʃ] (Brazilian)
states=POR
BRA
AGO
MOZ
CPV
STP
GBS
ETM
MAC
speakers=Native: 240 million (speakers)[ [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=por Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International] (14th ed. cited [http://www.helsinki.fi/romaanisetkielet/lingua_portuguesa.htm here] ). Also 196 million, according to [http://www.sk.com.br/sk-stat.html English and Portuguese Numbers in the World] ] ]
rank= 6 (native speakers)
familycolor=Indo-European
fam2=Italic
fam3=Romance
fam4=Italo-Western
fam5=Western
fam6=Gallo-Iberian
fam7=Ibero-Romance
fam8=West-Iberian
fam9=Galician-Portuguese
script=Latin alphabet (Portuguese variant)
nation=9 countries
flagcountry|African Union
flagcountry|European Union
flagcountry|Union of South American Nations
flagcountry|Mercosur
agency=International Portuguese Language Institute; CPLP; Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazil); Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Classe de Letras (Portugal)
iso1=pt|iso2=por|iso3=por
Portuguese (Audio|pt-Portugues.ogg|"português" or "língua portuguesa") is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) around 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 and other parts of India and Macau in China. It was used as the exclusive lingua franca on the island of Sri Lanka 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 240 million). It is the language of about half of South America, even though Brazil 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 sizeable 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
Today, Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique.[ [http://www.cplp.org/ CPLP] Official website] 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%), São Tomé and Príncipe (95%) and Angola (60%), and is the most widely spoken language in 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. [See the main article Geographic distribution of Portuguese, for references.] ]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 [cite book|title=Global Results of By-Census 2006|year=2007|publisher=Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) of the Macau Government] , 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. [Uruguay recently adopted Portuguese language in its education system as an obligatory subject http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultnot/lusa/2007/11/05/ult611u75523.jhtm]
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, [ [http://www.proenglish.org/issues/offeng/languagepercentages.htm Where America's Other Languages Are Spoken] ] Florida, [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/22/news/journal.php Widely spoken but 'minor'? Portuguese seeks respect] ] Massachusetts, New Jersey, [Hispanic Reading Room of the U.S. Library of Congress website, [http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/arrivals.html Twentieth-Century Arrivals from Portugal Settle in Newark, New Jersey] ,] New York [ [http://www.nyu.edu/classes/blake.map2001/brazil.html Brazucas (Brazilians living in New York)] ] and Rhode Island. [Hispanic Reading Room of the U.S. Library of Congress website, [http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/whaling.html Whaling, Fishing, and Industrial Employment in Southeastern New England] ] In some parts of India, such as Goa [ [http://www.colaco.net/1/port.htm Portuguese Language in Goa ] ] and Daman and Diu [ [http://www.rjmacau.com/english/rjm1996n3/ac-mary/portuguese.html The Portuguese Experience: The Case of Goa, Daman and Diu] ] Portuguese is still spoken. There are also significant populations of Portuguese speakers in Canada (mainly concentrated in and around Toronto) [ [http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/ecp/content/portuguese.html Multicultural Canada] ] Bermuda [ [http://www.worldinfozone.com/country.php?country=Bermuda World InfoZone: Bermuda] ] and Netherlands Antilles.
Portuguese is an official language of several international organizations. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries[ (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, [ [http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/languages/index_en.htm EUROPA website] Languages in the EU] 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.]Portuguese and Spanish are the fastest-growing European languagesFact|date=August 2008, 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. [ [http://actualidad.terra.es/internacional/articulo/obiang_comunidad_naciones_1710388.htm "Obiang convierte al portugués en tercer idioma oficial para entrar en la Comunidad lusófona de Naciones"] , "Terra". 13-07-2007]
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
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. [From [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/mapa07.html Audio samples of the dialects of Portuguese] at the Instituto Camões website.] 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.
Angola
# "Benguelense" — Benguela province.
# province.
# "Sulista" — South of Angola.
Brazil
# "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.
# "Cearense" — Ceará.
# "Baiano" — Bahia.
# ").
# "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.)
# "Mineiro" — Minas Gerais (not prevalent in the Triângulo Mineiro, southern and southeastern Minas Gerais).
# have a particular way of speaking). [Note: the speaker of this sound file is from Rio, and he is talking about his experience with Nordestino and Nortista accents.]
# "Nortista" — Amazon Basin states.
# "Paulistano" — Variants spoken around São Paulo city and the eastern areas of São Paulo state.
# "Sertanejo" — States of Goiás and Mato Grosso (the city of Cuiabá has a particular way of speaking).
# "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.)
# "Carioca" — Variants spoken in Rio de Janeiro City and Niteroi
Portugal
# .
#
# (there is a particular dialect in a small part of western Algarve).
# (hinterland).
# [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som49.html "Baixo-Beirão"; "Alto-Alentejano"] — Central Portugal (hinterland).
# [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som9.html "Beirão"] — Central Portugal.
# (the Lisbon dialect has some peculiar features not shared with the one of Coimbra).
# .
# .
# .
Other countries
* Cape Verde — )
* Daman and Diu, India — "Damaense".
* East Timor — )
* Goa, India — "Goês".
* Guinea-Bissau — ).
* Macau, China — )
* Mozambique — )
* São Tomé and Príncipe — [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som83.html "Santomense"]
* Uruguay — "Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay (DPU)".
Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most coloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages which should not be confused with Portuguese itself.
History
Arriving in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, the Romans brought with them the Latin language, from which all Romance languages descend. The language was spread by arriving Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous civilizations.Portuguese is written with the Latin alphabet, making use of five diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, contraction, nasalization, and other sound changes (acute accent, grave accent, circumflex accent, tilde, and cedilla). Brazilian Portuguese also uses the diaeresis mark. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes.
Brazilian vs. European spelling
There are some minor differences between the orthographies of Brazil and other Portuguese language countries. One of the most pervasive is the use of acute accents in the European/African/Asian orthography in many words such as "sinónimo", where the Brazilian orthography has a circumflex accent, "sinônimo". Another important difference is that Brazilian spelling often lacks "c" or "p" before "c", "ç", or "t", where the European orthography has them; for example, cf. Brazilian "fato" with European "facto", "fact", or Brazilian "objeto" with European "objecto", "object". Some of these spelling differences reflect differences in the pronunciation of the words, but others are merely graphic.
Examples
;Excerpt from the Portuguese national epic "Os Lusíadas", by author Luís de Camões (I, 33)
Noted non-native speakers
* Anna Chlumsky, US actress
* Calouste Gulbenkian, Armenian oil magnate and philanthropist
* Deborah Blando, US singer
* Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian freedom-fighter and national hero
* Igor Sechin, Russian politician
* J. K. Rowling, British author (of the "Harry Potter" series)
* Jordana Brewster, US actress
* Laura Pausini, Italian singer
* Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet
* Nat King Cole
* Peter Burke, British historian and sociologist
* Pierre Verger, French photographer and anthropologist
* Raúl Cubas, former president of Paraguay
* Robyn Ah Mow-Santos
* Ronald Biggs, British thief
* Queen Silvia of Sweden
* Shakira, Colombian singer
* Stephan Zweig, German author
* Sting, British singer, former lead singer in The Police
* Taro Aso, prime minister of Japan
* Vernon A. Walters
* Vira Vovk, Ukrainian author and translator
ee also
*Brazilian literature
*Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP)
*Instituto Camões
*International Portuguese Language Institute
*List of Brazilian poets
*List of countries where Portuguese is an official language
*List of Portuguese language poets
*Lusophone
*Museum of the Portuguese Language
*Portuguese-based creole languages
*Portuguese in the United States
*Portuguese literature
*Portuguese poetry
*Portuñol
*Spelling reforms of Portuguese
Notes
References
General
* "A Língua Portuguesa" in [http://www.linguaportuguesa.ufrn.br/ Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil]
Literature
* "Poesia e Prosa Medievais", by Maria Ema Tarracha Ferreira, Ulisseia 1998, 3rd ed., ISBN 978-972-568-124-4.
* "Bases Temáticas — Língua Portuguesa" in [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/bases/lingua.htm Instituto Camões]
* "Portuguese Literature" in [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12307a.htm The Catholic Encyclopedia]
Phonology, orthography and grammar
* International Phonetic Association (1999) "Handbook of the International Phonetic Association" ISBN 0-521-63751-1
* Mateus, Maria Helena & d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000) "The Phonology of Portuguese" ISBN 0-19-823581-X [http://books.google.com/books?id=Onr9OFylajYC&pg=PP1&ots=qYJ80vag4U&dq=Phonology+of+Portuguese&hl=pt-BR&sig=6ZYy5zVrjHgGIbS8FeqxHuXf--Q#PPA1,M1 (Excerpt available at Google Books)]
* Bergström, Magnus & Reis, Neves "Prontuário Ortográfico" Editorial Notícias, 2004.
* [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/cpp2/index.html A pronúncia do português europeu - European Portuguese Pronunciation]
* [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/mapa02.html Dialects of Portuguese at the Instituto Camões]
* [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/mapa06.html Audio samples of the dialects of Portugal]
* [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/mapa07.html Audio samples of the dialects from outside Europe]
Reference dictionaries
*Antônio Houaiss (2000), "Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa" (228,500 entries).
*Aurélio Buarque de Holanda Ferreira, "Novo Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa" (1809pp)
Linguistic studies
* Lindley Cintra, Luís F. [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/biblioteca/novaproposta.pdf "Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-Portugueses"] (PDF) Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971.
External links
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/portuguese/ Learn Portuguese] "BBC"
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/portuguese/talk/languagenotes.shtml Portuguese Language Notes] "BBC"
* [http://www.aulp.org/ AULP - Associação das Universidades de Língua Portuguesa] Portuguese Language Universities Association.
* [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s113139.htm Portuguese in East Timor] an interview with Dr. Geoffrey Hull.
* [http://www.portuguesedictionary.net Portuguese Dictionary] with gender and type of words.
* [http://www.academia.org.br/ ABL - Academia Brasileira de letras] (em português) - (Brazilian Academy of Letters)(Portuguese)
Template group
list =