Nations where Portuguese is spoken
Portuguese Language in the World
Between 170 and 210 million
people speak Portuguese throughout the world today. Portuguese ranks
eighth among the most
spoken languages in the
world (third among the western languages, after English and Castilian)
and is the official language of seven countries: Angola (10.3 million
inhabitants), Brazil (151 million), Cabo Verde (346,000), Guinea-Bissau
(1 million), Mozambique (15.3 million), Portugal (9.9 million), and
São Tomé and Príncipe islands (126,000).
In 1986, Portuguese became an official language in the European Union
(EU), formerly the European Economic Community, when Portugal was admitted
to the organization. As a result of the Mercosul agreements that created
the Southern Latin American Common Market, who includes Brazil, Portuguese
is being taught as a foreign language in the other member countries.
In 1996, was created the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries
(CPLP in Portuguese). The purpose of this community is to increase
cooperation and cultural exchanges among the member countries, to create
a uniform Portuguese standard and to spread the language.
In the vast noncontiguous areas of the world where Portuguese is spoken
there are differences and variations in the pronunciation, grammar
and vocabulary (this is the case with every living language). Though
we cannot deny these differences, they are not sufficient to challenge
the basic structure of the language. Despite its history, Portuguese
continues to maintain its considerable cohesion among its many variations.
When we study the forms which the Portuguese language has assumed in
Africa, Asia and Oceania, we must distinguish two varieties, the Creole
ones and the non-Creole ones. The Creole varieties were the result
of contacts established beginning in the 15th century with indigenous
languages. The Creoles, more than dialects, must be considered as languages
derived from Portuguese because of the important differences between
them and the Portuguese mother tongue.
The Portuguese Language in Europe
In the western part of the Iberian Peninsula, where Galician-Portuguese
was spoken, we find three large language groups with well-defined phonetic
characteristics, mainly concerning the way the sibilants are pronounced
- utilization or not of the same phoneme in roSa (rose) and paSSo (step)
or in Cinco (five) and Seis (six):
- Galician dialects;
- Northern Portuguese dialects; and
- Central-Southern Portuguese dialects
The border between the two Portuguese dialects noted above crosses Portugal from the northeast to the southeast. It should also be noted that a few Portuguese regions have their own peculiar phonetic characteristics. These include the northern region that takes in part of Minho and the Douro seaside; an extensive area of Beira-Baixa and the Alto-Alentejo, primarily in the central-southern part of the country and also the Algarve in the central-southern area.
The dialects spoken in the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira represent an extension of the mainland Portuguese dialects. These could be included in the central-southern group. The exceptions are the islands of São Miguel and Madeira, which, independent of each other, are moving away from the central southern norm by adding peculiarities, a few of which are also found on the mainland.
The Galician
Several linguist and intellectuals defends the linguistic unity of Galician-Portuguese
until today. According to this point of view, the modern Galician and
Portuguese languages would be parts of a same linguistic system, with
different written norms (as British and American English or European
and Brazilian Portuguese). The official position in Galicia, however,
is to consider the Portuguese and the Galician as autonomous languages,
even if they share some characteristics.
The Portuguese Language in the Americas
History of the Portuguese Language in Brazil
When
Portugal first colonized Brazil, a process that began with discover
in the year 1500,
Tupi,
or more precisely the Tupinambá, one of
the languages of the Tupi-Guarani family spoken by indians who lived
on the Brazilian seacoast, was used along with Portuguese as the general
language of the colony. This was primarily because the Jesuit priests
studied and taught the Tupi language. In 1757, Tupi was banned by royal
decree, although the language had already been overwhelmed by Portuguese
spoken by the large number of immigrants from the mother country. When
the Jesuits were expelled in 1759, Portuguese became the language of
the country. However, Portuguese inherited words associated with flora
and fauna from indigenous languages. Among these words were abacaxi (pineapple),
mandioca (manioc flour), caju (cashew), tatu (armadillo), and piranha,
the voracious fish, as well as proper and geographic names.
The Portuguese language in Brazil received a new source of contributions
with the influx of African slaves. The African influence came primarily
from the Iorubá spoken by slaves from Nigeria. Some of these words
also found their way to Europe. Iorubá contributions derived from
words connected with religion and the Afro-Brazilian cuisine. From the
Angolan Quimbundo language came words such as caçula, meaning
the youngest child, moleque (a street child), and the dance samba.
During the 18th century, other differences between the American and
European Portuguese developed. At that time Brazilian Portuguese
failed to adopt
linguistic changes taking place in Portugal produced by French influence.
The Brazilian Portuguese remained loyal to the pronunciation used at
the time of its discovery. However, when Don João, the Portuguese
king, and the royal entourage took refuge in Brazil in 1808 (when Napoleon
Bonaparte invaded Portugal), his presence helped to reapproximate the
Portuguese spoken in the cities to the Portuguese of Portugal.
After Brazilian independence in 1822, Brazilian Portuguese became
influenced by Europeans who had migrated to the central and southern
parts of the
country. This is the reason one finds in those areas variations in
pronunciation and a few superficial lexical changes. These changes
reflect the nationalities
settling in each area.
In the 20th century, the split between the Portuguese and Brazilian
variants of Portuguese heightened as the result of new words for
technological innovations. This happened because Portuguese lacked
a uniform procedure
for adopting such words. Certain words took different forms in different
countries. For example: in Portugal one hears comboio, and in Brazil
one hears trem, both meaning train. Autocarro in Portugal is the
same thing as ônibus in Brazil, both meaning bus. At the
beginning of this century, the nationalism and the individualism
of the Romantic movement
began promoting the creation of a language norm based on the Brazilian
version of the Portuguese language. In 1922, the Modernists reintroduced
this argument, promoting a need to break with traditional Portuguese
models and to adopt the Brazilian speech pattern. This opening by
the Modernists led to the successful adoption of the Brazilian
norm in literature.
Dialects:
Zonas dialetais brasileiras
The common Brazilian speech is more consistent throughout the country than what is spoken in Portugal. This surprises many people, considering that Brazil is such a large country. Comparing the various Brazilian dialects with those of the Portuguese spoken in Portugal leads us to conclude that they are fusions of different inflectional forms of the mother tongue. Almost all the regional traits or characteristics of the standard Portuguese in Portugal are present either in the standard Brazilian Portuguese or in some dialect in Brazil.
Because there is a lack of complete scientific data describing the differences between various regional dialects spoken in Brazil, we cannot classify them in the manner that the dialects of continental Portuguese were classified. There is a proposal for classifying the Brazilian differences along pronunciation lines, a methodology that is similar to the one used to classify European Portuguese. This method is based on vowel pronunciation (for example, pEgar (to take) can be pronounced with an open or closed "e") and speech cadence. According to this proposal, it is possible to distinguish two groups of Brazilian dialects: those of the North and those of the South. In the dialect of the North, one can also distinguish two varieties: the Amazonan and the Northeastern. In the South, we find four varieties: the Bahian, Fluminense, Mineira and the Sulina
