Portuguese language
Portuguese (Portuguese: português) is a Romance language. It came from Galician-Portuguese, which was first spoken in Northwestern Iberia. It then spread south and split. During the colonial era, Portuguese was also spread to Brazil and other parts of the world.
| Portuguese | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| português | ||||
| Pronunciation | ||||
| Native to | Portugal, Brazil | |||
| Native speakers | 215 million (2010)[2] | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Early forms: | Medieval Galician
| |||
| Writing system | Latin (Portuguese alphabet) Portuguese Braille | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in |
Many international organisations | |||
| Regulated by | International Portuguese Language Institute Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazil) Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Classe de Letras (Portugal) CPLP | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-1 | pt | |||
| ISO 639-2 | por | |||
| ISO 639-3 | por | |||
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-a | |||
 Native language
Official and administrative language Cultural or secondary language | ||||
| ||||
Where it is spoken
The Portuguese language is the third-most spoken western language (after English and Spanish). There are about 240 million native speakers, including the people of Portugal, Brazil, and Cape Verde (Cabo Verde). It is also an official language of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique (Moçambique), Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe (São Tomé e Príncipe), which have Portuguese as the lingua franca, but native languages are also spoken. It is also an official language in East Timor and Macau.
Also, some enclaves in Asia, such as Goa and Daman and Diu, in India; Flores, Indonesia; and Malacca, Malaysia, have Portuguese-speakers, and it is a minority language in Venezuela, Canada, Uruguay, Namibia, Romania, Moldova, Turkey, and the United States.
Vocabulary
Portuguese and English have words that mean the same and are similar as well. The words came from the same languages (usually Latin, Greek or Arabic).
- Visão Vision
- Informação Information
- Confuso Confused
- Baptismo Baptism
- Artigo Article
- Capital Capital
- Total Total
- Mapa Map
- Problema Problem
- História History
Some English words come from Portuguese, such as tank (tanque), cacao (cacau), marmalade (marmelada from marmelo "quince"), caramel, molasses, mosquito, cobra, breeze (brisa), albino, coconut, zebra, pagoda, Mandarin, buccaneer, fetish, tapioca and commando.
The Portuguese word parentes is similar to the English word "parents", but it means "relatives", and the Portuguese word to mean "parents" is pais.
Sample phrases
- Olá! Hello!
- Oi! Hi!
- Como estás? How are you?
- Estou bem, obrigado! I’m ok thanks!
- Como está/estás? How are you?
- Tu falas Português? Do you speak Portuguese?
- Eu falo português. I speak Portuguese.
- Eu não falo português. I do not speak Portuguese.
- Tenho que ir, tchau! I have to go, goodbye!
- Até logo! See you soon!
- Tchau! Bye!
- O que estás a fazer? What are you doing?
- Eu tenho 18 anos. I'm 18 years old.
Different versions
Portuguese is the official language of all countries of the CPLP (Comunidade dos países de língua portuguesa, "Community of Portuguese Language Countries"). The Portuguese-speaking countries have more than 240 million people across the world. The CPLP was formed in 1996 with seven countries: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. East Timor joined in 2002.
The CPLP nations speak Portuguese with different accents. In some regions of Brazil (the country has 81% of the world's Portuguese-speakers), tu'("you" but used only to family and close friends) is not used as much as in Portugal. Also, regional slang can be found in different areas. The Portuguese Orthographic Agreement of 1990 (Acordo Ortográfico de 1990) tries to get rid of some of the differences in spelling.
Portuguese Language Media
Spoken area of Galician-Portuguese (also known as Old Portuguese or Medieval Galician) in the kingdoms of Galicia and León around the 10th century, before the separation of Galician and Portuguese.
Sign in Japanese, Portuguese, and English in Oizumi, Japan, which has a large lusophone community due to return immigration of Japanese Brazilians.
Multilingual signage in Chinese, Portuguese and English at the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge port building in Macau. Portuguese is a co-official language in Macau.
Ethnically diverse East Timor has Portuguese as one of its official languages.
Statue of the Portuguese Poet Luís de Camões at the entrance of the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro.
Variants and sociolects of Brazilian Portuguese.
Linguistic map of the state of Minas Gerais, according to the scientific study Esboço de um Atlas Linguístico de Minas Gerais (EALMG), "Draft of a Linguistic Atlas for Minas Gerais". Federal University of Juiz de Fora, 1977. The light zone speaks mineiro, the intermeadite zone caipira, the dark zone baiano.
Sara, a native speaker of European Portuguese.
Spoken Brazilian Portuguese.
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References
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This language has its own Wikipedia project. See the Portuguese language edition. |
- ↑ Regional pronunciation in Brazil:
[po̞χtuˈɡeɕ ~ puxtuˈgeɕ] (BP-florianopolitano), (BP-fluminenseii)5
[poɾtuˈɡes] (BP-paulistano), (BP-curittiban Ftt5to), (BP-catarinense),
[poɹtuˈɡejs] (BP-cttkaipira), (BP-sulista, colloquial), (BP-sertanejo),
[po̞χtuˈɡes ~ po̞htuˈɡes] (BP-capixaba), (BP-mineiro), (BP-brasiliense),
[pɔχtuˈɡejs] (BP-nordestino), (BP-baiano), (BP-nortista), [po̞ɾtuˈɡes] (BP-gaúcho), (riverense portuñol).
In this discussion of a female politician from Alagoas state it is possible to notice that the "r" in this position is an [h] sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKoGPP0ntz0 - ↑ Nationalencyklopedin "Världens 100 största språk 2010" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2010