Portuguese

Portuguese ( português (help·info) or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language developed from Galician-Portuguese that was spoken in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. It is an official language of the European Union, the Organisation of American States, the African Union, and Lusophone countries. With around 272.9 million speakers, Portuguese is the fifth-most spoken language in the world and the most spoken in the southern hemisphere.

During the Age of Exploration, Portuguese sailors carried their language to far off places. The exploration followed the attempts to colonise new lands by Portugal and as a result Portuguese became a widely dispersed language in the world. Brazil and Portugal are two primary Portuguese speaking nations. It's also widely used as a lingua franca in former Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau and São Tomé e Príncipe. In addition to that, for historical reasons, Portuguese speakers are also found in Macau, East Timor and Goa.

Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet language", Lope de Vega referred to it as "sweet", while Brazilian writer Olavo Bilac poetically described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela (the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful). Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after one of Portugal's best known literary figures, Luís Vaz de Camões.

In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese-language speakers in the world.

Portuguese as a foreign language

The mandatory offering of Portuguese in school curricula is observed in Uruguay, and Argentina,and similar legislation is being considered in Venezuela, Zambia, Congo, Senegal, Namibia,Swaziland, Côte d'Ivoire, and South Africa.

Future

According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese and Spanish are the fastest-growing European languages after English and the language has the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America. The Portuguese-speaking African countries are expected to have a combined population of 83 million by 2050. In total, the Portuguese-speaking countries will have 335 million people by the same year.

Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic market of Mercosul with other South American nations, such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, there has been an increase in interest in the study of Portuguese in those South American countries. The demographic weight of Brazil in the continent will continue to strengthen the presence of the language in the region.

Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was ceded to China, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there; mostly because of increased Chinese diplomatic and financial ties with Portuguese-speaking countries.

It is the language of majority of people in Portugal, Brazil, São Tomé and Príncipe (95%), and Angola. Although only 6.5 percent of the population are native speakers of Portuguese in Mozambique, the language is spoken by about 39.6% there according to the 1997 census. It is also spoken by 11.5% of the population in Guiné-Bissau.No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks Cape Verdean Creole.

There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra (15.4%), Australia, Bermuda, Canada (0.72% or 219,275 persons in the 2006 census but between 400,000 and 500,000 according to Nancy Gomes), France, Japan, Jersey,Luxembourg (9%),Namibia, Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 persons), South Africa, Switzerland (196,000 nationals in 2008), Venezuela (1 to 2% or 254,000 to 480,000), and the USA (0.24% of the population or 687,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey), mainly in New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.

In some parts of what was Portuguese India, such as Goa and Daman and Diu, Portuguese is still spoken.

Dialects

Portuguese is a pluricentric language with two main groups of dialects, those of Brazil and those of the Old World. For historical reasons, the dialects of Africa and Asia are generally closer to those of Portugal than the Brazilian dialects, although in some aspects of their phonetics, especially the pronunciation of unstressed vowels, they resemble Brazilian Portuguese more than European Portuguese. They have not been studied as widely as European and Brazilian Portuguese.

Audio samples of some dialects of Portuguese are available below.There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. For example, the caipira dialect has some differences from the one of Minas Gerais, but in general it is very close. A good example of Brazilian Portuguese may be found in the capital city, Brasília, because of the generalized population from all parts of the country.

Portugal

Micaelense (Açores) (São Miguel)—Azores.

Alentejano—Alentejo (Alentejan Portuguese)

Algarvio—Algarve (there is a particular dialect in a small part of western Algarve).

Alto-Minhoto—North of Braga (hinterland).

Baixo-Beirão; Alto-Alentejano—Central Portugal (hinterland).

Beirão—Central Portugal.

Estremenho—Regions of Coimbra, Leiria and Lisbon (the Lisbon dialect has some peculiar features not shared with the one of Coimbra).

Madeirense (Madeiran)—Madeira.

Nortenho—Regions of Braga and Porto.

Transmontano—Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro.

Brazil

Caipira—States of São Paulo (countryside; the city of São Paulo and the eastern areas of the state have their own accent, called paulistano); southern Minas Gerais, northern Paraná, southeastern Mato Grosso do Sul.

Cearense—Ceará.

Baiano—Bahia.

Fluminense—Variants spoken in the state of Rio de Janeiro (excluding the city of Rio de Janeiro and its adjacent metropolitan areas, which have their own dialect, called carioca).

Gaúcho—Rio Grande do Sul. (There are many distinct accents in Rio Grande do Sul, mainly due to the heavy influx of European immigrants of diverse origins, who have settled in colonies throughout the state.)

Mineiro—Minas Gerais (not prevalent in the Triângulo Mineiro; includes southern and southeastern Minas Gerais; the city of Belo Horizonte has an accent of its own.).

Nordestino—northeastern states of Brazil (Pernambuco, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte have a particular way of speaking).

Nortista—Amazon Basin states.

Paulistano—Variants spoken around São Paulo city and some eastern areas of São Paulo state.

Sertanejo—States of Goiás and Mato Grosso.

Sulista—Variants spoken in the areas between the northern regions of Rio Grande do Sul and southern regions of São Paulo state. (The cities of Curitiba and Florianópolis have fairly distinct accents as well.)

Carioca—Variants spoken in Rio de Janeiro City and surround area.

Brasiliense—Variant only spoken in Brasília, due to many waves of immigration, attracted by the government in order to build Brasília.