Portuguese language
Portuguese, português o língua portuguesa, belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. It is a widely spoken macro-language and one of the most important languages in the world, ranking sixth after Chinese, Spanish,English, Hindi and Arabic. The global population of mother-tongue Portuguese speakers is estimated at about 204.3 million, while other estimates put the figure at 215 million. After the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, Vulgar Latin replaced the local languages. Along the Atlantic coast, Latin gradually evolved into Galician-Portuguese. After the incorporation of Galicia into Spain, Portugal remained independent and the language was divided into Galician and Portuguese. In the 14th-16th centuries, Portuguese spread to many regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas. In the 16th century, it became a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, where it was used for colonial administration, trade and communication between locals and Europeans. Some Portuguese-speaking communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia retained the language even after their independence from Portugal. It was the origin of the Portuguese-based Creole languages. The Portuguese language spread throughout the world in the 15th and 16th centuries, when Portugal built a far-reaching colonial and commercial empire that included countries in Asia, Africa and South America. Today, Portuguese and Portuguese-based Creole languages are the official, de-facto or co-official languages of Brazil (203 million), Portugal (10.8 million), Mozambique (24.7 million), Angola (24.4 million), Guinea-Bissau (1.7 million), East Timor (1.2 million), Macao (588,000), the Green Islands (538,500), and São Tomé and Príncipe (190,400). Please note that the above figures are population estimates, not the actual number of speakers as first and/or second languages in these countries. In 1986, Portuguese became an official language of the European Union (EU). In 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) was created to promote cooperation and cultural exchanges between member countries and to create a Portuguese standard. Portuguese is a pluricentric language, that is, it has two spoken standards and two written standards. There are two main groups of dialects: those of the Iberian Peninsula (European Portuguese) and those of Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese). The differences between both relate to pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Portuguese dialects that are spoken in Africa and Asia are closer to those of Portugal than to those of Brazil. European Portuguese is divided into northern and southern dialects. Prestige dialects are based on the southern variety as spoken in the capital, Lisbon. Standards of prestige of Brazilian Portuguese in general are those of European Portuguese. Although standard written Brazilian Portuguese was originally based on standard European Portuguese, there are differences between the two that affect spelling, vocabulary and, to a lesser extent, grammar.Speakers of Portuguese
Dialects of Portuguese
Translation agency for Spanish-English-Portuguese
Now that you know a little more about the Portuguese language, you might be interested to know that we offer professional translation services from both English to Portuguese and from Portuguese into English. We specialise in translation from and into Spanish.
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