Portuguese language

Lore & Background

Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone. As a result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has retained some Celtic phonology. Portuguese language structure reflects both its Latin roots and centuries of outside influences. These are seen in phonology, orthography, grammar, and vocabulary. Phonologically, Portuguese has a rich system of nasal vowels, complex consonant variations, and different types of guttural R – as well as other sounds in its European and Brazilian varieties. Its spelling, based similarly to English on the Latin alphabet, is largely phonemic but is influenced by etymology and tradition. Recent spelling reforms have attempted to create a unified spelling for the Portuguese language across all countries that use it. Portuguese grammar retains many Latin verb forms, and possesses several unique features (such as the future subjunctive and the personal infinitive). Its vocabulary is derived largely from Latin, but also includes from Celtic, Germanic, Arabic, African, Amerindian, and Asian languages, resulting from historical contact based on wars, trade, and colonization. There is significant variation in the dialects of Portuguese worldwide, with two primary standardized varieties: European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, each one having numerous regional accents and subdialects. African and Asian varieties generally follow the European written standard, though these will often display different phonological, lexical, and sometimes even syntactic features. While there is broad mutual intelligibility among the assorted lusophone population, variation may be observed in speech patterns, vocabulary, or grammar.

Reader's Guide

The history of Portuguese begins with the Roman presence in the Iberian Peninsula starting in 218 BC. Latin served as the administrative and ecclesiastical language, and the variety spoken by soldiers, settlers and officials was known as Vulgar Latin. In the northwestern periphery of the empire, the Vulgar Latin spoken in Gallaecia developed distinctive features, including loss of intervocalic l and n, simplification of geminate consonants, and evolution of initial clusters cl-, fl-, and pl- into palatal sounds. After Germanic invasions in 409, the Visigoths extended their rule, contributing fewer than forty commonly cited lexical items of Gothic origin. In 711, Muslim forces crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, leading to Islamic rule; in the northern Christian kingdoms, Galician–Portuguese emerged in the region of Gallaecia. This variety constituted a unified linguistic system from the 9th to the 14th century. When the Kingdom of Portugal became independent in 1143, its inhabitants continued to use this shared variety. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, Galician–Portuguese served as the literary language of lyric poetry across the Iberian Peninsula. The identification of the oldest document written in Old Portuguese is a matter of scholarly debate; one philologist identifies a document from 1175 as the earliest surviving document written in Portuguese, but other scholars argue that the presence of Romance elements in the text is limited and insufficient to classify it as such.

Did You Know?

• Portuguese is the most widely spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group and has retained some Celtic phonology.
• The Portuguese vocabulary includes words from Celtic, Germanic, Arabic, African, Amerindian, and Asian languages.
• The oldest surviving document written in Portuguese may date to 1175, but this is debated among scholars.