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Portuguese Language
*** Shopping-Tip: Portuguese Language
{{Infobox Language
|name=Portuguese
|nativename=Português
|pronunciation=[puɾtu'geʃ] (European), [poɾtu'gejs] (Brazilian)
|states=
Brazil,
Portugal,
Angola,
Mozambique, and several other
Community of Portuguese Language Countries CPLP countries
|speakers=213 Million people
|rank=6
|familycolor=Indo-European
|fam2=
Italic languages Italic
|fam3=
Romance language Romance
|fam4=
Italo-Western languages Italo-Western
|fam5=Western
|fam6=
Gallo-Iberian languages Gallo-Iberian
|fam7=
Ibero-Romance languages Ibero-Romance
|fam8=
West Iberian languages West-Iberian
|fam9=
Portuguese-Galician languages Portuguese-Galician
|script=
Latin alphabet (
Portuguese alphabet Portuguese variant)
|nation=
Angola,
Brazil,
Cape Verde,
East Timor,
European Union,
Guinea Bissau,
Macau Macao S.A.R. of China,
Mozambique,
Portugal,
São Tomé and PrÃncipe
|agency=
International Portuguese Language Institute;
CPLP
|iso1=pt|iso2=por|iso3=por}}
'''Portuguese''' ({{Audio|pt-Portugues.ogg|''português''}}) is an
Ibero-Romance languages Iberian Romance languages Romance language that originated in
Portugal, which is now the official language of
Angola,
Brazil,
Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau,
Macao,
Mozambique,
São Tomé and PrÃncipe and
East Timor.
Portuguese is
List of languages by number of native speakers ranked sixth among the world's languages in number of native speakers (over 200 million), and first in South America (186 million, over 51% of the population). It is also a major
lingua franca in Africa. It spread worldwide in the
15th century 15th and
16th century as Portugal set up a vast
Portuguese Empire colonial and commercial empire (
1415–
1999), spanning from Brazil in the
Americas to
Macau Macao in
China. In that colonial period, many
Portuguese Creoles Portuguese creoles appeared all over the world, especially in
Africa,
Asia and the
Caribbean.
Portuguese is often nicknamed ''The language of
LuÃs de Camões Camões'', after the author of the Portuguese
national epic ''
The Lusiads''; ''The last flower of
Latium'' (
Olavo Bilac); and ''The sweet language'' by
Miguel de Cervantes Cervantes.
History
{{main|History of Portuguese}}
Portuguese developed in the Western
Iberian Peninsula from
Latin brought there by
Roman Empire Roman soldiers and colonists starting in the
3rd century BC. The language began to diverge from other
Romance languages after the
fall of the Roman Empire fall of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions in the
5th century, and started to be used in written documents around the
9th century. By the
15th century it had become a mature language with a rich literature. In all aspects —
phonology,
morphology (linguistics) morphology,
lexicon and
syntax — Portuguese is essentially the result of an organic evolution of Vulgar Latin, with relatively minor influences from other languages.
Arriving on the Iberian Peninsula in
218 BC, the Romans brought with them the Roman people's language,
Vulgar Latin, from which all Romance languages descend. Already in the
2nd century BC southern Lusitania was Romanized.
Strabo, a
1st century 1st-century Ancient Greece Greek geographer, comments in one of the books of his ''
Geographia (Strabo) Geographia'' "encyclopedia": "they have adopted the Roman customs, and they no longer remember their own language." The language was spread by arriving Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near previous civilizations' settlements.
Between
409 A.D. and
711, as the Roman Empire was collapsing, the Iberian Peninsula was
Migration Period subjected to peoples of Germanic origin, known to the Romans as
Barbarians. The Barbarians (mainly
Suevi and
Visigoths) largely absorbed the Roman culture and language of the peninsula; however, Lusitania's language and culture were free to evolve on their own during the
Early Middle Ages, due to the lack of Roman schools and administration, Lusitania's relative isolation from the rest of Europe, and changes in the political boundaries of the Iberian peninsula. These changes led to the formation of what is now called "Lusitanian Romance". From
711, with the
Moors Moorish invasion of the Peninsula,
Arabic language Arabic was adopted as the administrative language in the conquered regions. However, the population continued to speak
Mozarabic language their Romance dialects so that when the Moors were overthrown, the influence that they had exerted on the language was small. Its main effect was in the lexicon.
The earliest surviving records of a distinctively Portuguese language are administrative documents from the
9th century ninth century, still interspersed with many phrases in Latin. Today this phase is known as "Proto-Portuguese" (spoken in the period between the 9th to the
12th century).
{| align="right" border="0" style="margin: 10px;"
! align="left" | ''Extract of medieval
Portuguese poetry''
|-
|
Das que vejo
|-
|
non desejo
|-
|
outra senhor se vós non,
|-
|
e desejo
|-
|
tan sobejo,
|-
|
mataria um leon,
|-
|
senhor do meu coraçon:
|-
|
fin roseta,
|-
|
bela sobre toda fror,
|-
|
fin roseta,
|-
|
non me meta
|-
|
en tal coita voss'amor!
|-
|''João de Lobeira''
(1270?–1330?)
|}
Portugal was formally recognized by the
Kingdom of Leon as an independent country in
1143, with King
Alfonso I of Portugal Afonso Henriques. In the first period of "Old Portuguese" - Portuguese-Galician Period (from the 12th to the
14th century) - the language gradually came into general use. Previously it had mostly been used on the Christian Iberian Peninsula as a language for poetry, just as
Provençal was used out of Provence. In
1290, king
Denis of Portugal Denis created the first Portuguese University in Lisbon (the ''Estudo Geral'') and decreed that Portuguese, then simply called the "Vulgar language" should be known as the Portuguese language and should be officially used.
In the second period of "Old Portuguese", from the 14th to the
16th century, with the Portuguese discoveries, the Portuguese language spread to many regions of
Asia,
Africa and
The Americas (nowadays, the great majority of Portuguese speakers live in Brazil, in South America). By the
16th century it had become a ''
lingua franca'' in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities. The spreading of the language was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people (also very common in other areas of the world) and its association with the
Catholic missionary efforts, which led to it being called ''Cristão'' ("
Christianity Christian") in many places in Asia. The
Nippo jisho, a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary written in 1603, was a product of
Society of Jesus Jesuit missionary activity in
Japan. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the
19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in
India,
Sri Lanka,
Malaysia, and
Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
The end of "Old Portuguese" was marked by the publication of the ''Cancioneiro Geral de Garcia de Resende'', in
1516. The period of "Modern Portuguese" (spanning from the
16th century to present day) saw an increase in the number of words of Classical Latin origin and erudite words of Greek origin borrowed into Portuguese during the Renaissance, which augmented the complexity of the language.
In March of
2006, the
Portuguese Language Museum, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language was built in
São Paulo, the city with the largest number of Portuguese speakers in the world.
Derived languages
{{main|Portuguese creole}}
Starting with the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many
pidgin languages with varying amounts of Portuguese influence. These pidgins remained in use in parts of Asia and Africa until the
18th century.
As these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into distinctive languages. Many of these Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced
creole languages are still alive today, used by over 3 million people worldwide, especially by people of partial
Portuguese people Portuguese ancestry.
Influence on other languages
Portuguese also
loanword loaned words to many other languages, such as
Japanese language Japanese,
Bahasa Indonesia Indonesian,
Malay language Malay,
Tetum language Tetum, as well as in several creole languages, such as
Lanc-Patuá (spoken in northern Brazil - now extinct) and
Sranang Tongo (spoken in Suriname).
Portuguese had a strong influence on the language spoken around
Sikka in
Flores Flores Island,
Indonesia. In nearby
Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in the ''
Tuan Ma ritual''.
Portuguese also influenced the
Tupi-Guarani-based
Lingua Geral, a trade language widely used in Brazil until the 18th century.
Classification and related languages
Portuguese is a member of the
Romance languages Romance branch of the
Indo-European languages Indo-European language family. It is very similar to
Galician language Galician, and somewhat less to
Spanish language Spanish. Its most distant relative among the Romance languages is
Romanian language Romanian.
The West Iberian group
More specifically, Portuguese is a member of the
West Iberian languages West Iberian subset of Romance, which also includes Spanish (Castillan) and the regional languages
Galician language Galician,
Asturian language Asturo-Leonese,
Aragonese language Aragonese,
Ladino language Ladino,
Extremaduran language Extremaduran, and dialects thereof. By most linguistic criteria, these languages are significantly closer to each other than to any other living language — including
Catalan language Catalan, the other major language of the
Iberian Peninsula.
Speakers of the West Iberian languages generally claim that they are all mutually intelligible to some extent. It is certainly true that a speaker of any of them can learn to read any other just by practicing, without formal study of the grammar. Bilingualism is quite common along the internal language boundaries of this group.
=Spanish
=
Portuguese differs somewhat from Spanish in orthography, and even more in
phonology,
grammar and
vocabulary:
:''Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar.'' (Portuguese)
:''Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar.'' (Spanish)
:"She always closes the window before having dinner."
Actually, many of the most obvious discrepancies in the lexicon are only due to different usage preferences. For example, Portuguese has in fact both ''cear'' (rare) and ''jantar'' (common), whereas Spanish has both ''cenar'' (common) and ''yantar'' (rare), all meaning "to dine".
It is also claimed that a Portuguese speaker can understand spoken Spanish better than the other way around. This alleged asymmetry could be due to the general reduction of unstressed vowels in Portuguese, compared to Spanish.
=Galician
=
Galician, spoken mostly in
Galicia (Spain) Galicia (Northwest Spain), is actually closer to Portuguese (especially in its Medieval form) than to Spanish. The resemblance is masked in writing because Galician
orthography follows the Spanish model.
Indeed, the question of whether Portuguese and Galician are separate languages or dialects of the same language has been hotly debated for decades, and is loaded with political and sociolinguistic implications. The controversy can be compared with that over
Moldovan language Moldovan and
Romanian language Romanian, or over
Flemish language Flemish and
Dutch language Dutch.
=Ladino
=
Ladino is a nearly-extinct language that was spoken by
Sephardic Jews in the Iberian Peninsula. In many ways, Ladino is closer to Portuguese than to Spanish, because the Ladino-speaking community has roots in Portugal as well as in Spain. Compare for example Ladino ''ainda'' ("still") with Portuguese ''ainda'' and to Spanish ''aún''. Ladino, like Portuguese, also conserved many of the initial [f] sounds that mutated to [h] (and were eventually lost) in Spanish. For example, Ladino ''fija'' ("daughter") and ''favlar'' ("to speak") match Portuguese ''filha'' and ''falar'', whereas Spanish has ''hija'' and ''hablar''.
=Asturo-Leonese
=
Another member of the West Iberian group is
Asturian language Asturo-Leonese, that comprises the dialects Asturian and Leonese (spoken in Northwest Spain, East of Galicia) and Mirandese (spoken in Northeast Portugal). It differs from Portuguese in several phonetic features, such as {{IPA|[ÊŽ]}} instead of {{IPA|[l]}} in word-initial positions (e.g., Portuguese ''lÃngua'' {{IPA|['lingwa]}} vs. Mirandese ''lhéngua'' {{IPA|['ÊŽÉ›ngwa]}}); preservation of invervocalic {{IPA|[l]}} and {{IPA|[n]}} from Vulgar Latin; and use of diphthongs in tonic position where Portuguese has vowels (e.g. Portuguese ''castelo'' {{IPA|[kas'tÉ›lu]}} vs. Mirandese ''castiélho'' {{IPA|[kas'tjɛʎu]}}.
Other Romance languages
Even though Portuguese has obvious lexical and grammatical similarities with all the other Romance languages outside of the West Iberian branch, it is not intelligible with them to any practical extent. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study of basic grammar and vocabulary, before being able to understand even the simplest sentences in those languages (and vice-versa):
:''Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de jantar.'' (Portuguese)
:''Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de diner.'' (
French language French)
:''Lei chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare.'' (
Italian language Italian)
:''Ea închide întodeauna fereastra înainte de a cina.'' (Romanian)
On the other hand, Portuguese is phonetically closer to French and Catalan than to Spanish in some respects; such as the occurrence of nasalization, palatalization, diphthongization of low-mid stressed vowels, aspiration of /f/, devoicing of sibilants, and change of intervocalic {{IPA|[ʎ]}} to {{IPA|[ʒ]}} — all features that are not shared by Spanish. The same can be said of the basic vocabularies: compare e.g. Portuguese ''bom'' ("good") with French or Catalan ''bon'' and Spanish ''bueno''; or Portuguese ''filha'' with French ''fille'', Catalan ''filla'', and Spanish ''hija''.
Latin
Even though the Romance languages are all derived from Latin, they are arguably much closer to each other than to their common ancestor. The main difference is the noun
declension system of Classical Latin, an essential feature which allows great freedom in its word order, and has no counterpart in any Romance language (except to some extent in Romanian, which preserved three of Latin's seven noun cases). In this regard, the distance between Portuguese and Latin is comparable to that between English and Anglo-Saxon. Indeed, while Portuguese speakers can quickly learn to see through the spelling changes and thus recognize many Latin words, they will often fail to understand the meaning of Latin sentences.
Geographic distribution
{{main|Geographic distribution of Portuguese}}
image:Iilp.png thumb|240px|The International Institute for the Portuguese Language logo depicts Portuguese as a language spoken in the eight corners of the world (the eight independent nations where it has official status).
Portuguese is the first
language in
Angola,
Brazil,
Portugal and
São Tomé and PrÃncipe, and the most widely used language in
Mozambique. Portuguese is also one of the official languages of
East Timor (with
Tetum) and
Macau Macao S.A.R. of China (with
Chinese language Chinese). It is widely spoken, but not official, in
Andorra,
Luxembourg,
Namibia and
Paraguay.
Portuguese Creoles are the mother tongue of
Cape Verde and part of
Guinea-Bissau's population. In Cape Verde most also speak standard Portuguese and have a native level language usage.
Large Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities exist in many cities around the world, including
Montreal and
Toronto in Canada;
Paris in
France;
Asunción in
Paraguay; and
Boston, Massachusetts Boston,
New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford,
Cape Cod,
Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River,
Providence, Rhode Island Providence,
Newark, New Jersey Newark,
New York City,
Orlando, Florida Orlando,
Miami, Florida Miami,
Sacramento, California Sacramento,
Honolulu and
Houston, Texas Houston in the
United States,
Buenos Aires in
Argentina,
Uruguay, and
Nagoya Hamamatsu in
Japan, in
Switzerland,
Belgium,
Liechenstein,
Bermudas, some communities in
India,
Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka and
Thailand. Portuguese is spoken by about 187 million people in South America, 17 million in Africa, 12 million in Europe, 2 million in North America and 610,000 in Asia.
image:Map-Lusophone World-en.png left|400px|Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status.
The '''CPLP''' or
Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries is an international organization consisting of the eight independent countries which have Portuguese as an official language. Portuguese is also an official language of the
European Union,
Mercosul 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 is with Spanish the fastest growing western language, and, following estimates by UNESCO it is the language with the higher potentiality of growth as an international communication language in Africa (south) and South America. The Portuguese speaking African countries are expected to have a combined population of 83 million by 2050. The language is also starting to gain popularity in Asia, mostly due to East Timor's boost in the number of speakers in the last five years, and Macau is becoming the Chinese Mecca for learning Portuguese, where in early 21st century, the language use was in decline, today it is growing as it became a language for opportunity due to Chinese strategical cooperation with the Portuguese speaking countries.
Dialects
{{main|Portuguese dialects}}
Portuguese has two major standard dialects: Brazilian and European Portuguese (BP and EP). In addition there are several variants spoken in Africa and Asia, though these have not been subject to the same thorough research as the dialects of Brazil and Portugal. The differences between dialects both within and between the two spheres of influences are generally not too major, though the sheer number of BP speakers has lead to a very large amount of various
sociolects and
ideolects. There are several similarities in pronunciation, syntax and simplification in grammar use between vernacular BP and Angolan Portuguese (AP), but there are no differences between standard EP and AP.
Phrase- and sentence-level stress and tone patterns and differ significantly between dialects: south-central European Portuguese dialects are often described as a
stress-timed dialects (consistent with the loss of pre-stress vowels), while most Brazilian Portuguese dialects are
syllable-timed.
EP dialects are divided into two major groups: northern and south-central dialects. The northern are distinguished by a more conservative and complicated series of
fricatives. The dialects of
Azores and
Madeira in one hand,
Brazil,
Angola and
São Tomé and PrÃncipe in the other hand have developed separate unique features, but have much in common with the south-central group. BP dialects are divided into a northern and southern groups, where the northern dialects tend to slightly more
vowel#Articulation open pre-
stress (linguistics) stressed vowels.
Though geographically specific vocabulary are common, they are not always completely consistent. Examples of words that are different in Portuguese dialects from three different continents: Africa (Angola), Europe (Portugal) and South America (Brazil).
''Bus''
* Angola & Mozambique: ''machimbombo''
* Brazil: ''ônibus''
* Portugal: ''autocarro''
''slum quarter''
* Angola: ''musseque''
* Brazil: ''favela''
* Portugal: ''bairro de lata'' or ''ilha''
''Go away''
* Angola: ''ir embora'', (or ''bazar'' as a slang - from Kimbundu ''kubaza'' - to break, leave with rush);
* Brazil: ''ir embora'', (or ''vazar'' as a Slang - Portuguese "to leak");
* Portugal: ''ir embora'', (or ''bazar'' as a slang - from Kimbundu ''kubaza'' - to break, leave with rush);
=Brazil
=
There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. For example, the dialect in
EspÃrito Santo has some differences from
Rio de Janeiro's, but in general it is very close. A good example of Brazilian Portuguese may be found in the capital city,
Brasilia, due to the generalized population from all parts of the country.
image:Portugueselanguagedialects-Brazil.png thumb|Portuguese dialects of Brazil
#
Caipira — rural
São Paulo, Paraná and Minas Gerais
# Cearense —
Ceará
# Baiano —
Bahia
# Carioca —
Rio de Janeiro
#
Gaúcho —
Rio Grande do Sul
#
Mineiro — center of
Minas Gerais
# Nordestino — northeastern states of Brazil, north of Minas Gerais
# Nortista —
Amazon Basin
#
Paulistano —
Greater São Paulo metropolitan São Paulo
# Sertanejo —
Goiás and
Mato Grosso
# Sulista — southern Brazil
image:Portugueselanguagedialects-Portugal.png thumb|Portuguese dialects of Portugal
=Portugal
=
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som69.html Açoreano] —
Azores
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som40.html Alentejano] —
Alentejo
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som44.html Algarvio] —
Algarve
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som1.html Alto-Minhoto] — northern
Braga (interior)
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som49.html Baixo-Beirão; Alto-Alentejano] — central Portugal (interior)
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som9.html Beirão] — central Portugal
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som22.html Estremenho] —
Coimbra and
Lisbon
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som60.html Madeirense] —
Madeira
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som14.html Nortenho] — parts of Braga and
Porto
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som6.html Transmontano] —
Trás-os-Montes
=Angola
=
# Benguelense —
Benguela province
#
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som85.html Luandense] —
Luanda province
# Sulista — southern Angola
image:Portugueselanguagedialects-Angola.png thumb|Portuguese dialects of Angola
Other areas
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som87.html Caboverdiano] —
Cape Verde
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som88.html Guineense] —
Guinea-Bissau
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som92.html Macaense] —
Macau
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som89.html Moçambicano] —
Mozambique
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som83.html Santomense] —
São Tomé and Principe
*
image:Loudspeaker.png [http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som84.html Timorense] —
East Timor
* Damaense —
Daman (India)
* Goês —
Goa
Sounds
{{main|Portuguese phonology}}
As with
French language French, Portuguese is often noted for its contrastive use of
nasal vowels and the large number of
diphthongs. European Portuguese has 9 simple non-nasal vowel phonemes (one of which occurs only in unstressed syllables); Brazilian Portuguese has 7. Both dialects have 5 simple nasal vowel phonemes, and 10 oral and 4 nasal diphthongal phonemes. There are 19 consonant phonemes.
European Portuguese differs from the dialects spoken in Brazil and the former Portuguese colonies by a marked
velarization that affects vowels as well as consonants. The vowels are generally lowered and centralized (approaching a
schwa), giving the pronunciation a distinctly lax quality that is present in colloquial as well as formal speech and often results in complete reduction of vowels.
Consonants
{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Sans Unicode"
|+caption | Consonant phonemes of Portuguese
|-
!
! colspan="2" |
Bilabial
! colspan="2" |
Labiodental Labio-
labiodental dental
! colspan="2" |
Dental
! colspan="2" |
Alveolar consonant Alveolar
! colspan="2" |
Postalveolar Post-
Postalveolar alveolar
! colspan="2" |
Palatal
! colspan="2" |
Velar
! colspan="2" |
Uvular
|- align=center
|
Plosives
| {{IPA|p}}
| {{IPA|b}}
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA|t}}
| {{IPA|d}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA|k}}
| {{IPA|g}}
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
|
Nasals
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|m}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|n}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɲ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
|
Fricatives
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA|f}}
| {{IPA|v}}
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA|s}}
| {{IPA|z}}
| {{IPA|ʃ}}
| {{IPA|Ê’}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| {{IPA|Ê?}}
|- align=center
|
Flap consonant Flaps
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɾ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
|
Laterals
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|l}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ÊŽ}}
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|}
*In most of Brazil, {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}} have the affricate allophones {{IPA|[tʃ]}} and {{IPA|[dʒ]}}, respectively, before {{IPA|/i/}}.
*At the end of a syllable, the phoneme {{IPA|/l/}} has the velarized allophone {{IPA|[É«]}} in European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese has the allophone {{IPA|[w]}} instead.
*In many parts of Brazil, {{IPA|/ɲ/}} is pronounced as a nasal glide {{IPA|[j̃]}} which nasalizes the vowel before it. E.g. ''ninho'' "nest" is pronounced {{IPA|['nĩj̃u]}}.
*There is great dialectal variation in the pronunciation of the phoneme {{IPA|/Ê?/}}. Its most common values are {{IPA|[Ê?]}}, {{IPA|[r]}}, {{IPA|[h]}} or {{IPA|[x]}}. See the entry on the
Guttural_R#Portuguese guttural r in Portuguese, for more details.
*The pronunciation of the phoneme {{IPA|/s/}} at the end of a syllable can be {{IPA|[s]}}, {{IPA|[z]}}, {{IPA|[ʃ]}}, or {{IPA|[ʒ]}} depending on the dialect and on whether it is followed by a voiced consonant, by a voiceless consonant, or final. See the
Portuguese phonology page, for more details.
Vowels
Image:Portuguese_vowel_chart.png frame|right|Chart of Lisbon Portuguese vowels
The European Portuguese {{IPA|/ɯ/}} is by tradition transcribed as a high central vowel {{IPA|[ɨ]}}, but is more accurately described as a somewhat centralized
high back unrounded vowel, {{IPA|[ɯ̈]}}. {{IPA|[Ê?]}} for some /u/ occurs in the dialects of Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Algarve (Barlavento area) and São Miguel Island. [ø] occurs in São Miguel Island, for example in boi [bø] "ox".
Lexical stress
Portuguese features lexical
stress (linguistics) stress, which can be the sole distinguishing feature of
minimal pairs:
:''falaram'' {{IPA|[faˈlarɐ̃w̃]}} "they spoke" vs. ''falarão'' {{IPA|[falaˈrɐ̃w̃]}} "they will speak" (BP)
: ''dúvida'' {{IPA|[ˈduvidÉ?]}} "doubt (noun)" vs. ''duvida'' {{IPA|[duˈvidÉ?]}} "he doubts" (EP and BP)
:''ouve'' {{IPA|['ovi]}} "he hears" vs. ''ouvi'' {{IPA|[o'vi]}} "I heard" (only in BP)
:''túnel'' {{IPA|['tunɛl]}} "tunnel" vs. ''tonel'' {{IPA|[tu'nɛl]}} "wine cask" (only in EP)
Primary stress may vary between any of the three final syllables of the word, but mostly on the last two. In EP, a secondary stress falls on syllables with diphthongs when the primary stress is placed elsewhere in a word. There is a partial correlation between the position of the stress and the final vowel; for example, the final syllable is usually stressed when it contains a nasal phoneme or a diphthong, or an open vowel. Portuguese spelling rules take advantage of this correlation to minimize the number of diacritics.
A notable feature of EP is the historical erosion of vowel phonemes that precede the stressed syllable. This phenomenon, which has not occurred in BP, often leads to the replacement of two successive syllables by a single syllable with a consonant cluster. Because of this trend, 16th century Portuguese poems no longer
meter (poetry) scan when read in EP, but still do in BP.
Prosody
tone (linguistics) Tone is not lexically significant in Portuguese, but phrase- and sentence-level stress are important. There are of six dynamic tone patterns that affect entire
phrases, which indicate the mood and intention of the speaker such as implication, emphasis, reservation, etc. As in most Romance languages, interrogation is expressed mainly by sharply raising the tone at the end of the sentence.
Grammar
{{main|Portuguese grammar}}
The Portuguese grammar is fairly similar to that of other Romance languages. Within that family, predictably, Galician and other Iberian languages are the most similar in grammar, and Rumanian is the most distant.
Like most Indo-European languages, Portuguese classifies most of its lexicon into four major
part of speech word classes, namely
verbs,
nouns,
adjectives, and
adverbs, which are the only classes open to new words. It also has smaller classes like
pronouns,
prepositions,
article (grammar) articles,
grammatical conjunction conjunctions,
interjections,
determiners and other
particle (grammar) particles.
Portuguese is basically a
Subject Verb Object SVO language, although the subjects may follow the verb in a few special cases. Portuguese is a
null subject language.
Verbs
As in most Romance languages, the Portuguese verb is usually
inflection inflected to agree with the
subject's
grammatical person (with three values, '''1'''=I/we, '''2'''=you, '''3'''=he/she/it/they) and grammatical number (singular or plural), and to express various attributes of the action, such as time (past, present, future); completed, frustrated, or continuing; subordination and conditionality; command; and more. As a consequence, a regular Portuguese verb stem can take over 50 distinct suffixes.
=Moods and tenses
=
Grammarians usually classify the verbal inflections (i.e. the
synthetic language synthetic verb forms) into the following
grammatical mood moods,
grammatical tense tenses, and
non-finite verb non-finite forms:
*
indicative mood, used in the main
clauses of
declarative sentences:
**
present tense present: ''ele canta'', "he sings"
**
past tenses:
***perfect: ''ele cantou'', "he sang"
***imperfect: ''ele cantava'', "he was singing"
***pluperfect: ''ele cantara'', "he had sung"
**
future tense: ''ele cantará'', "he will sing"
*
conditional mood: ''ele cantaria'', "he would sing"
*
subjunctive mood (also called "conjunctive"), to express desire, possibility, or in subordinate clauses:
**present: ''que ele cante'', "that he sings"
**past: ''que/se ele cantasse'', "that/if he had sung/would sing"
**future: ''se ele cantar'', "if he sings/will sing"
*
imperative mood, used to express wish, command or advice: ''cante!'', "sing!"
*
infinitive infinitive form
**Impersonal: ''cantar'', "to sing"
**Personal: ''cantares'', "you to sing" or "that you sing"
*
gerund gerund form: ''cantando'', "singing"
*past (or passive)
participle participle form: ''cantado'', "sung"
There are also are many compound tenses expressed with inflected forms of the auxiliary verbs ''ser'' and ''estar'' (variants of "to be"), ''haver'' and ''ter'' (variants of "to have").
The gerund is never inflected for person or number, and is used in compound tenses, e.g. ''ele está cantando'' ("he is singing"), and as an adverb, e.g. ''ele trabalha cantando'' ("he works while singing"). In the European dialect, the gerund is usually replaced by ''a'' ("to") + infinitive, as in ''ele está a cantar'' ("he is singing"). The participle is used in compound verb tenses, as in ''ele havia cantado'' ("he had sung"). It is also used as an
adjective, and in this case it is inflected to agree with the noun's gender and number: ''um hino cantado'' ("a sung anthem",
masculine singular), ''três árias cantadas'' ("three sung arias",
feminine plural). Some verbs have two distinct participle forms (one regular, one irregular), for these two uses.
=Conjugation classes
=
Verbs are divided into four conjugation classes according to the ending of their infinitive form, which may be one of "-ar", "-er", "-ir", and "-or". Each conjugation class has its own distinctive set of 50 or so inflection suffixes: ''cant|ar'' → ''cant|ou'' ("he sung"), ''vend|er'' → ''vend|eu'' ("he sold"), ''part|ir'' → ''part|iu'' ("he left"), ''rep|or'' → ''rep|ôs'' ("he put back")
Some suffixes undergo various regular adjustments depending on the final consonant of the stem, either in pronunciation, in the spelling, or in both. Some verbal inflections also entail a shift in syllable stress: '' 'canto'' ("I sing"), ''can'tamos'' ("we sing"), ''canta'rei'' ("I will sing"). There are a couple hundred verbs that have a few irregular inflections, and about a dozen or so that are very irregular, including the auxiliaries ''ser'' ("to be"), ''haver'' ("there to be" or "to have"), ''ter'' ("to possess" or "to have"), ''ir'' ("to go"), and a few others.
=Peculiar verb forms
=
In addition to the compound forms for completed past actions, Portuguese also retains a synthetic
pluperfect tense. ''Ele havia falado'' ("he had spoken") can also be expressed as ''ele falara''. However, the pluperfect tense is losing ground to the compound forms. In Brazil, while pluperfect forms like ''falara'' are generally understood, they are regarded as
archaism archaic or
literary language literary and rarely used.
Portuguese subjunctive mood has three synthetic inflections, conventionally called present, past and future. They are used in certain subordinate clauses, generally to express conditions, wishes, intentions, or other "non-actual" actions. While the first two tenses are present in other Romance languages, the subjunctive future is rather uncommon, even within the Indo-European family as a whole.
A feature that is unique to Portuguese and Galician among the Indo-European languages is that they allow (or require, in some contexts) inflection of the infinitive verb form according to the person of the subject:
:''Está na hora de voltar.'' ("It is time (for me) to go back.")
:''Está na hora de voltarmos.'' ("It is time (for us) to go back.")
=Compound verb forms
=
Like all Romance languages, Portuguese has many compound verb tenses, consisting of an auxiliary verb (inflected in any of the above forms) combined with the gerund, participle or infinitive of the principal verb. The basic auxiliary verbs of Portuguese are ''haver'' ("to have", from Latin ''habere''), ''estar'' ("to be", Latin ''stare''), and ''ir'' ("to go", Latin ''ire''), which have analogs in most other Romance tongues.
However, Portuguese often uses ''ter'' (originally "to possess", from Latin ''tenere'', "to hold") instead of ''haver''. Thus, for example, "he had spoken" can be translated as ''ele havia falado'' or ''ele tinha falado''. While ''ter'' is used as auxiliary by other Iberian languages, it is much more pervasive in Portuguese, where it may replace ''haver'' even in its existential sense, as in ''tem muito peixe no mar'' ("there is plenty of fish in the sea"), although this latter use is not indorsed by the official grammar. The use of ''ter'' instead of ''haver'' is more prevalent in
Brazil than in
Portugal, and seems to be growing.
=Clitic pronouns
=
Besides the main pronouns that can be used as subject of a sentence, Portuguese has several
Portuguese weak pronouns weak pronouns that can only replace the
grammatical object ("direct object" in Portuguese grammars) or certain
prepositional phrases ("indirect objects"), or be the target of a
preposition. The object pronouns can be placed before the verb as separate words, as in ''ela me ama'' ("she loves me"), or as
clitics, i.e. appended to the verb after the tense/person inflection, as in ''ele amou-a'' ("he loved her") or ''ele deu-lhe o livro'' ("he gave her/him the book"). Note that Portuguese spelling rules (unlike those of Italian and Spanish) require a hyphen between the verb and a suffixed clitic.
Clitic placement may require some adjustments in the verb ending and/or in the pronoun, e.g. ''cantar'' + ''o'' = ''cantá-lo'' ("to sing it"). The direct and indirect object pronouns can be contracted, as in ''dei'' + ''lhe'' + ''os'' = ''dei-lhos'' ("I gave it to him"), although this feature seems to be falling into disuse, and is completely absent from Brazilian Portuguese.
A distinguishing feature of Portuguese among Romance languages is the occurrence of
mesoclisis, the insertion of the weak pronouns between the verb stem and
future tense future or
conditional tense conditional verb ending:
:''comprá-lo-ei'' = ''comprarei'' + ''o'' ("I will buy it").
:''dar-to-ia'' = ''daria'' + ''te'' + ''o'' ("I would give it to you").
:''dar-lho-ia'' = ''daria'' + ''lhe'' + ''o'' ("I would give it to him").
Such forms are used in formal writing and in European Portuguese dialects, but hardly ever used in spoken Brazilian Portuguese.
Nouns and adjectives
Every Portuguese noun, including inanimate objects and abstract concepts, has one of two
grammatical genders,
masculine and
feminine, and one of the two
grammatical numbers,
singular or
plural. Most
adjectives and
demonstratives, and all articles must be inflected according to the
gender and
number of the noun they reference:
:''esta linda casa branca'' ("this nice white house")
:''este lindo carro branco'' ("this nice white car")
:''estas lindas aves brancas'' ("these nice white birds")
:''estes lindos gatos brancos'' ("these nice white cats")
The concept of number is substantially the same as in
English language English. The concept of gender is absolutely non-existent in English, but is retained in many other modern
Indo-European languages. As in all Romance languages, the grammatical gender of inanimate entites is quite arbitrary, and often different from that used in sister languages. The gender of animate beings often matches the
biological sex, but there are many exceptions: ''autoridade'' ("authority") and ''girafa'' ("giraffe"), for example, are always feminine; whereas ''peixe fêmea'' ("female fish") is strictly masculine.
The agreement rules apply also to adjectives used with
copulas, e.g. ''o carro é branco'' ("the car is white") vs. ''a casa é branca'' ("the house is white"). The most common noun and adjective endings are "''-o''"/"''-os''" for masculine singular and plural, "''-a''"/"''-as''" for feminine; but there are many other patterns.
Demonstratives
Portuguese
demonstratives show a three-way distinction between close to the speaker, close to the listener, and far from both:
:''este lápis'' - "this pencil"
:''esse lápis'' - "that pencil" (near you)
:''aquele lápis'' - "that pencil" (over there, away from both of us)
In colloquial Brazilian Portuguese, ''esse'' is often used for ''este'' when there is no need to make a distinction. The basic adverbs of place also have a three-way distinction: ''aqui'' ("here"), ''aÃ'', ("there", near you), and ''ali'', ''lá'', or ''acolá'' ("over there", far from both of us)
Prepositions
Portuguese prepositions are somewhat similar to those of neighboring Romance languages; but there are some conspicuous differences. For example, the Italian prepositions ''di'' ("of") and ''da'' ("from") map to the same word in Portuguese, ''de''. There is no simple correspondence between English and Portuguese prepositions.
The English
possessive suffix "'s" has no systematic counterpart in Portuguese (or in any other Romance language except Rumanian), which generally makes the possessive with the preposition ''de''.
Vocabulary
{{main|Portuguese vocabulary}}
Almost 90% of the Portuguese vocabulary is derived from Latin; needless to say, with substantial phonological and morphological changes which accumulated throughout its history.
One conspicuous and distinctive change was the loss of intervocalic [l] in a very large set of words, such as ''
SALIRE'' → ''sair'' ("to exit"), ''
COLARE'' → ''coar'' ("to drip"). Another pervasive change, also fairly specific to Portuguese, was the voicing of [t] in [d], as in ''
AMATVS'' → ''amado'' ("loved").
=Reintroduced Latin words
=
A few words remained virtually unchanged, like ''taberna'' ("tavern"); or even returned to a form close to the original, such as ''coxa'' ("thigh"). Many of these "retro" events happened in the late Middle Ages, due to the use of
Church Latin by the
Catholic Church, and during the
Renaissance, when
Classical antiquity in general, and
Classical Latin Literary Latin in particular, enjoyed great prestige. Thus, for example, Latin ''
AVRV'', which had originally evolved to ''ouro'' ("gold") and ''dourado'' ("golden"), was re-introduced as the adjective ''áureo'' ("golden"). In the same way, ''
LOCALE'' ("place"), which had evolved to ''lugar'', was later re-introduced as the more erudite ''local''. Many erudite
Greek language Greek words and combining elements were also introduced or re-introduced in this way.
=Contributions from other languages
=
Very few Portuguese words can be traced to the native or pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the
Phoenicians,
Carthaginians,
Iberians,
Lusitanians, and
Celts. Some notable examples are ''abóbora'' ("pumpkin") and ''bezerro'' ("year-old calf"), from
Iberian languages; ''cerveja'' ("beer"), from
Celtic languages Celtic; ''saco'' ("bag"), from
Phoenician language Phoenician; and ''cachorro'' ("dog"), from
Basque language Basque.
In the 5th century Portugal was conquered by the
Suevi,
Visigoths and
Alans,
Germanic peoples Germanic tribes who had been displaced from
Central Europe by the
Huns. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed only a few words to the lexicon, mostly related to warfare — such as ''espora'' ("spur"), ''estaca'' ("stake"), and ''guerra'' ("war") from
Gothic language Gothic ''*spaúra'', ''*stakka'', and ''*wirro'', respectively.
Between the 9th to the 15th centuries Portuguese adopted about 1000 words from
Arabic language Arabic, by influence of the
Caliphate of Cordoba established by the
Muslim Moors in the Iberian peninsula. Those words are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article ''a''(''l'')''-'', and include many common words such as ''aldeia'' ("village") from ''التجارية'' ''aldaya'', ''alface'' ("lettuce") from ''الخس'' ''alkhass'', ''armazém'' ("warehouse") from ''المخزن'' ''almahazan'', and ''azeite'' ("olive oil") from ''زيت'' ''azzait''. From Arabic also came the grammatically peculiar word ''oxalá'', meaning "may God will that".
Starting in the 15th century, the great expansion of Portuguese maritime exploration and trade introduced many loanwords from all over the world.
Asia contributed, for instance, ''catana'' ("cutlass") from Japanese ''katana''; ''corja'' ("rabble") from Malay ''kórchchu''; and ''chá'' ("tea") from
Cantonese language Cantonese ''
Tea#The word tea chá''.
From the 16th to the 19th century, the role of Portugal as intermediary of the slave trade from West and Southern Africa, as well as the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, led to the borrowing of many words of African and
indigenous peoples of Brazil Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From
Kimbundu language Kimbundu, for example, came ''kifumate'' → ''cafuné'' ("head caress"), ''kusula'' → ''caçula'' ("youngest child"), ''marimbondo'' ("wasp"), ''bungular'' ("dance like a wizard") from ''kubungula''. From South America came ''batata'' ("
potato"), from
Taino language Taino; ''ananás'', from
Tupi-Guarani ''naná'' and ''abacaxi'' from
Tupi language Tupi ''ibá cati'' (two species of "
pineapple"), and ''tucano'' ("
toucan") from
Guarani language Guarani ''tucan''; and many more.
Finally, since the Middle Ages to the present day, the Portuguese lexicon received a steady influx of loanwords from languages of its European neighbors — often in spite of strenuous efforts by the national Literary Academies to preserve the "purity" of the language. Here are only a few examples:
:Spanish: ''melena'' ("hair lock"), ''fiambre'' ("ham")
:French: ''crochet'' → ''colchete'' ("crochet"), ''paletot'' → ''paletó'' ("jacket"), ''baton'' → ''batom'' ("lipstick"), ''filet'' → ''filé'' ("steak"), ''mayonnaise'' → ''maionese''
:Italian ''maccherone'' → ''macarrão'' ("pasta"), ''piloto'' ("pilot"), ''carrozza'' → ''carroça'' ("carriage"), ''barracca'' → ''barraca'' ("barrack")
:Dutch: ''dijk'' → ''dique'' ("dam")
:English: ''football'' → ''futebol'', ''flirt'' → ''flerte'', ''rifle'', ''revolver'' → ''revólver'', ''tank'' → ''tanque'', ''stock'' → ''estoque'' , ''knock out'' → ''nocaute'', ''folk lore'' → ''folclore''
Writing system
{{main|Portuguese alphabet}}
Portuguese is written using the
Latin alphabet with 26 letters. However, K, W and Y are used only for proper names and vernacular derivatives thereof, like ''darwinismo'' ("
Darwinism"), or metric units and symbols, like ''watt'' and ''km''. It uses
ç and
acute,
grave,
circumflex and
tilde accents over vowels, and (in Brazil)
diaeresis on U.
Spelling reforms
As of 2005, Portuguese has two major written forms:
* European and African Portuguese
*
Brazilian Portuguese
{| {{prettyinfobox}} align="right"
|+
'''Written varieties'''
! bgcolor=#DDDDDD | Portugal & Africa
! bgcolor=#DDDDDD | Brazil
! bgcolor=#DDDDDD | translation
|-
!colspan="3" |''Different pronunciation''
|-
|Ant'''ó'''nio
|Ant'''ô'''nio
|Anthony
|-
|V'''é'''nus
|V'''ê'''nus
|Venus
|-
|Fa'''c'''to
|Fato
|Fact
|-
!colspan="3" |''Silent consonants''
|-
|a'''c'''ção
|ação
|action
|-
|dire'''c'''ção
|direção
|direction
|-
|elé'''c'''trico
|elétrico
|electric
|-
|ó'''p'''timo
|ótimo
|very good
|-
!colspan="3" |''Diacritics''
|-
|Freq'''u'''ente
|Freq'''ü'''ente
|Frequent
|-
|id'''e'''ia
|id'''é'''ia
|idea
|}
In Brazil most first 'c's in 'cc', 'cç' or 'ct'; and 'p's in 'pc', 'pç' or 'pt' were eliminated from the language, since they are not pronounced in the cultivated spoken language, but are remnants from the language's Latin origin (though some continue to exist in cultivated Brazilian Portuguese, others in European Portuguese). An example is "facto" (in Portugal) and "fato" (in Brazil), both meaning fact — one of the rare words that will continue to be accepted and is pronounced differently in both countries.
Also, there are differences in accent marks, due to:
# Different pronunciation: ''Brazil uses
closed vowels in words such as "Antônio" (Anthony) or "anônimo" (anonymous), whereas Portugal and Africa use open ones, "António" or "anónimo", respectively.''
# Easier reading: ''Because "qu" can be read in two different ways in Portuguese: "kw" or "k", Brazil uses the
diaeresis (called 'trema' in Portuguese), instead of "cinquenta" they write "cinqüenta". Currently, some press in Brazil has stopped using this accent mark. It was part of an orthographic agreement but abolished in Portugal.''
A
1990 Spelling Reform (Port. ''Reforma Ortográfica''), intended to create an International Portuguese Standard, was ratified by Brazil, Cape Verde, and Portugal. East Timor, not an original subscriber, will ratify shortly along with Guinea-Bissau. Brazil and East Timor were the biggest supporters of the reform and pressured the CPLP for a fast implementation, but the implementation date has not yet been set. In East Timor, both orthographies are currently being taught to children.
Galicia (Spain) Galicia was also invited to take part in the reform but the Galician government ignored the invitation (note that this government states that
Galician language Galician and Portuguese are different languages). However, an unofficial commission formed by Galician linguists (supporting the unity of the language) was sent and participated in the reform.
#Notes 2
At first, the Agreement established that its entrance into practice would only occur when all the countries of the CPLP had ratified it. But the Portuguese-speaking African countries have not ratified, possibly due to problems in implementing it. In the CPLP’s summit of
26 July 26–
27 July 2004, an adjustment will prompt implementation when just three countries ratify it. The agreement will eliminate most first 'c's in 'cc', 'cç' or 'ct'; and 'p's in 'pc', 'pç' or 'pt' from European/ African Portuguese, the dieresis and accent marks in words ending in "éia" in Brazil and add some new spelling rules. And it will allow either orthography for words like ''anónimo'' or ''anônimo'', depending on the dialect of the author or person being transcribed. Late in
October 2004, Brazil became the first to approve the adjustment and asked its ambassadors in Portugal and Cape Verde to promote the rapid implementation in those countries. The agreement will enter into practice in the first day of the next month when the third country ratifies it.
Even if today's orthographies do not harm intelligibility between native speakers, the orthography of one country is considered incorrect in the other, leading to two different translations of the same book written in another language and it can confuse foreigners that are learning the language. One endeavor of this reform is to promote the language internationally, just like the
Spelling reform#Spelling reform of the Spanish language spelling reforms of
Spanish language Spanish by the
Real Academia Española helped to promote the Spanish language. The language is not very popular internationally, even if it is the third-most-spoken Western language in the world, after English and Spanish. Another objective is Portugal and Brazil's aid to African countries in education of the Portuguese language to African and Amerindian populations, Brazil's educational aid to Africa and greater cultural and academic exchange.
Another agreement was made for the new words that will come into the language.
Examples
;''Extract of «
The Lusiads» (I, 33)''
{| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" style="font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode"
|-
!bgcolor=#EEEEEE|Translation
!bgcolor=#EEEEEE|Original
!bgcolor=#EEEEEE|
International Phonetic Alphabet IPA
!bgcolor=#EEEEEE|
|-
|Against him supported the beautiful Venus
|Sustentava contra ele Vénus bela,
|{{IPA|suʃtẽˈtavÉ? ˈkõtɾÉ? ˈelɨ ˈvÉ›nuʃ ˈbÉ›lÉ?}}
|-
|She was attached to the Lusitanian people,
|Afeiçoada à gente Lusitana,
|{{IPA|É?fÉ?jsu̯ˈaðÉ? a ˈʒẽtɨ luziˈtÉ?nÉ?}}
|-
|Due to so many qualities she saw in them
|Por quantas qualidades via nela
|{{IPA|puɾ ˈkwÉ?̃tÉ?ʃ kwÉ?lidadɨʃ viÉ? ˈnÉ›lÉ?}}
|-
|Of the ancient her beloved Roman;
|Da antiga tão amada sua Romana;
|{{IPA|dÉ? É?̃ˈtigÉ? tÉ?̃w̃ É?ˈmadÉ? 'su̯É? Ê?uˈmÉ?nÉ?}}
|-
|In the strong hearts, in the great star,
|Nos fortes corações, na grande estrela,
|{{IPA|nuʃ ˈfɔɾtɨʃ kuɾÉ?ˈsõj̃ʃ nÉ? ˈgɾÉ?̃dɨ ɨʃˈtɾelÉ?}}
|-
|That they had shown in the Tingitana land,
|Que mostraram na terra Tingitana,
|{{IPA|kɨ muʃˈtɾaɾÉ?̃w̃ nÉ? ˈtÉ›Ê?É? tÄ©Ê’iˈtÉ?nÉ?}}
|-
|And in the language, in which when she imagines,
|E na lÃngua, na qual quando imagina,
|{{IPA|i nÉ? ˈlÄ©guÉ?, nÉ? kwaÉ« ˈkwÉ?̃du imÉ?ˈʒinÉ?}}
|-
|With little corruption she believes it is Latin.
|Com pouca corrupção crê que é a Latina.
|{{IPA|kõ ˈpokÉ? coÊ?upˈsÉ?̃w̃ kɾe kɨ É› É? lÉ?ˈtinÉ?}}
|}
See also
*
Portuguese literature
*
List of Portuguese language poets
*
Camoens Prize
*
Instituto Camões
*
Lusitanic
*
Portuguese in the United States
*
Portuguese on the Internet
*
Portunhol
*
Nhengatu language
*
Saudade
*
English as she is spoke
*
Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary of 1603
*
Portuguese Swadesh list Swadesh list of Portuguese words
Notes
*
1First and Second with first language speakers, respectively. Only counting figures from countries in the table "
Portuguese language#Geographic distribution Portuguese language countries and Territories". Considering second language speakers those people who are bilingual and use Portuguese as a second language.
* ²[http://www.lusografia.org/ao/index.htm www.lusografia.org]
References
General
* ''A LÃngua Portuguesa'' in [http://www.linguaportuguesa.ufrn.br/ Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil]
Literature
* ''Poesia e Prosa Medievais'' Ulisseia 1998 (3rd ed.; ISBN 9789725681244).
* ''Bases Temáticas - LÃngua 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
* Bergström, Magnus & Reis, Neves ''Prontuário Ortográfico'' Editorial NotÃcias, 2004.
Reference dictionaries
*
Antônio Houaiss (
2000), ''
Dicionário Houaiss da LÃngua Portuguesa'' (228,500 entries).
*
Aurélio Buarque de Hollanda, ''
Novo Dicionário da LÃngua Portuguesa'' (1809pp)
Linguistics studies
* Lindley Cintra, LuÃs F. ''Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-Portugueses'' Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971.
External links
{{InterWiki|code=pt}}
{{Wikibookspar||Portuguese}}
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Portuguese/English and English/Portuguese Dictionary and Translator with 15.253 words
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Ethnologue report for Portuguese
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IILP International Portuguese Language Institute
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IILP - Ortographic Agreement of 1990
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União de Escritores Angolanos Angolan authors
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Academia Brasileira de Letras Brazilian authors
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Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores Portuguese authors
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Instituto Camões Portuguese language studies
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Estação da Luz da Nossa LÃngua Portuguese language studies in Brazil
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Instituto Português do Oriente - Portuguese language studies in Southeast Asia
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Observatório da LÃngua Portuguesa Observatory of Portuguese language
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Biblioteca Virtual do Estudante de LÃngua Portuguesa Virtual library for Portuguese language students
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Escola Virtual Virtual School. Portuguese language classes as taught in Portugal.
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AULP - Associação das Universidades de LÃngua Portuguesa Portuguese Language Universities Association.
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Biblioteca Nacional National Library of Portugal
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Biblioteca Nacional National Library of Brazil
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Dicionários-Online.com A directory of Portuguese dictionaries.
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Portuguese dictionary A very complete Portuguese dictionary
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Dictionary of Portuguese language swearwords used in Portugal, Brazil and Angola
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Ciberdúvidas da LÃngua Portuguesa Popular transnational website for doubts in the Portuguese language for native speakers
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Conjugador de verbos Portuguese language verb conjugator
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Je Parle Portugais Eu Falo Português (I speak Portuguese) - The Portuguese language disclosure project in France
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5º Colóquio Anual da Lusofonia 2006 Lusophone meeting in
Bragança
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The Alliance of Portuguese Clubs and Associations of Ontario (A Aliança dos Clubes e Associações Portuguesas do Ontário)
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Diccionarios en internet Portuguese, English dictionaries.
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Music Express has a large amount of free-to-download music, mainly in Portuguese.
English-language pages for beginners
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European Portuguese pronunciation and grammar guide
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Learn basic Portuguese phrases
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All free Portuguese dictionaries
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Short Portuguese Lessons
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Introduction to Brazilian Portuguese
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The Pronunciation of the Portuguese of Portugal
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Pronunciation guide
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Portuguese Vocabulary Exercises
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Brazilian Portuguese course
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Brazilian Portuguese course with audio
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Type any text with Portuguese characters - an online editor
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Portuguese Vocabulary
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