Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portuguese (Portuguese: português) is a Romance language. It originated from Galician-Portuguese, which was first spoken in Northwestern Iberia. It then spread south and split. During the colonial era, Portuguese also spread to Brazil and other parts of the world.
 |
| Portuguese | |
|---|---|
| português | |
| Pronunciation | |
| Native to |  Portugal Brazil |
Native speakers | 215 million (2010)[2] |
Early form | |
| Latin (Portuguese alphabet) Portuguese Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | 9 countries 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 | |
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.
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).
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.
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.
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