PORTUGUESE
|
ABOUT THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE
Portuguese (português, also língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is today Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal. It is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, and co-official with Chinese in the Chinese S.A.R. of Macau and with Tetum in East Timor.
Called "the sweet language" by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, and more recently described by the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela ("the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful"), Portuguese is today a major world language, ranked fifth among the world's languages in number of native speakers (over 200 million).
It is the language with the most speakers in South America (186 million, over 51% of the continent's population), and also a major lingua franca in Africa. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th century as Portugal set up a vast colonial and commercial empire (1415–1999), spanning from Brazil in the Americas to Macau in China. In that colonial period, many Portuguese creoles appeared around the world, especially in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
Countries/Areas where Portuguese is spoken
|
