The official language of Portugal is Portuguese. Today it is one of the main languages ​​in the world, ranking sixth in terms of the number of native speakers (about 240 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America, it is spoken by almost the entire population of Brazil. It is also the official language in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor and Macau.

Portuguese is a Romance language. Despite the fact that it is very similar to Spanish, and these two languages ​​have 90% in common (in vocabulary and grammar), they are still completely different languages. The Portuguese are proud people and do not like it when foreigners from non-Spanish speaking countries speak this language in Portugal.

Given that many words can be spelled almost identically, pronunciation varies significantly. This is because Portuguese has several nasal diphthongs that other languages ​​do not have. Spanish is well understood, but it is not always the best language to use unless you are from a Spanish speaking country yourself.

It should also be mentioned that pronunciation in Portugal is significantly different from Brazilian pronunciation. The differences mainly lie in pronunciation. There are several vocabulary differences, so sometimes Brazilians have difficulty understanding a European Portuguese accent.

But the Portuguese have no problem understanding the Brazilian dialect, because the pop culture of this country (soap operas and pop music, for example) is very popular in Portugal.

English is spoken in many tourist areas, but by no means everywhere. Portuguese often watch American films with original English dubbing and subtitles in Portuguese. Therefore, many speak English quite well, and also due to the fact that English is studied in schools.

Main tourist languages ​​of Portugal

In the major tourist areas you will almost always find someone who speaks the major European languages. Hotel staff are required to speak English, even if only a little. French has almost disappeared as a second language.

German- and Spanish-speaking people are rare. About 32% of Portuguese can speak and understand English language, while 24% understand and speak French. Despite the fact that Spanish is well understood, only 9% of people can speak it fluently.

Portuguese belongs to the Ibero-Romance subgroup of the Romance group of the Indo-European language family. It is the second most spoken Romance language after Spanish. The total number of Portuguese speakers is about 240 million people, for 220 million of them it is native. According to various criteria, Portuguese ranks VI-VIII in terms of prevalence in the world. Portuguese speakers are called Lusophones- after the name of the Roman province of Lusitania, approximately corresponding to the territory of modern Portugal.
Portuguese serves as the official language Portugal (less than 5% of Lusophones live in this country), Brazil (80%), Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde (Cape Verde Islands), Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, East Timor (along with the Austronesian language tetum) and Macau/Macao (along with Chinese). In addition, hundreds of thousands of residents of France, Paraguay, South Africa, the USA and India (Goa region) speak Portuguese.
Portuguese writing built on the basis of the Latin alphabet, with a number of diacritics. The principle of “as you hear is how you spell” is observed less consistently in Portuguese than in Spanish, which is why Portuguese is somewhat more difficult to learn.
Exist two main varieties of Portuguese: European and Brazilian, as well as a number of creolized varieties in African and Asian countries, differing from each other phonetically, lexically, orthographically and, to a lesser extent, grammatically. In particular, in Brazil the letter combination ou is pronounced as o, the final -r and -l are often dropped; the combination lh is pronounced [l] in Portugal and [th] in Brazil. The ending -s in the plural of nouns and verbs is often omitted by Brazilians: they say as casa instead of as casas, nos havemo instead of nos havemos, and even nos came a fruta instead of nos comemos a fruta.
In 2008, a spelling reform was undertaken in Portugal with the aim of unifying the written language based on the Brazilian one. Television, especially Brazilian series popular in well-known circles, also brings the European version of Portuguese closer to the South American language.
In the former Portuguese colonies - Angola and Mozambique - there is a European version of the Portuguese language with an abundance of borrowings from African languages.
In Portugal there is a distinction dialects northern (provinces of Veira Entre Duro, Miranda) and southern (Extremadura, Alentejo and Algarve). In Brazil there are dialects of the north and south.
Features of the phonetic system(unlike the closely related Spanish language): the vowel phonemes [e], [o] and [a] differ in openness and closedness. There are nasal diphthongs that distinguish Portuguese from other Romance languages. The stress is strong with a sharp difference between stressed and unstressed syllables and reduction of vowels in unstressed positions, primarily at the end of the word (o is reduced in u, a in ə, e in i and a neutral sound until it disappears completely; because of this reduction, lusophones understand spoken Spanish better than Spanish-speaking people understand Portuguese). Consonants are pronounced differently depending on position and environment. S and z in the absolute outcome and before plosive consonants sound like [w] and [z], respectively, which gives Portuguese speech a specific phonetic coloring, especially considering the particularity of the morpheme s - an indicator of the plural of the name and the second person of the verb. R in the absolute outcome is weakened. L is pronounced firmly.
Compared to Spanish, Portuguese is more archaic.This is evidenced by: the initial f- (for example, in the word falar “to speak”), which in Spanish corresponds to h- (hablar); Latin diphthong au (preserved as ou) /for example, in the word ouro "gold"/, corresponding to Spanish o (oro). The diphthong ei, which originated in Latin words, ends in -arius, eria, for example materia -> madeira "wood" (in Spanish - madera). Latin short vowels were not diphthongized: compare Portuguese pé "foot" (Spanish pié) and Portuguese morto "dead" (Spanish muerto).
Portuguese retains the combination it, which comes from Latin ct, for example oito "eight" from Latin octo (Spanish ocho). The meaning and form of the Latin plusquaperfect remain in Portuguese, for example fabulaveram -> falara “I said (before)”.
One of the most significant innovations of the Portuguese language is the loss of the intervocalic -l-, which is preserved in most Romance languages. Thus, the Latin dolorem gives dôr in Portuguese, while in Spanish it remains dolor. The intervocalic -n- behaves in a similar way, which usually disappears, nasalizing the preceding vowel: manum turns into mão, lunam into lua.
Initial pl-, fl-, cl- in Portuguese become ch- [ш], which corresponds to Spanish ll. For example, the Latin words plorare, flammam and clavem become chorar, chama and chave in Portuguese.
Features of grammar. The naming system in Portuguese is similar to Spanish, the differences relate mainly to morphonology. Names starting with the nasal diphthong ão have three plural variants: - ãos, - ões, - ães. Nouns ending in -l lose it in the plural: sinal - sinais. Pronouns form fused forms (lhe + o = lho); The masculine definite article o, the feminine a merges with the prepositions a, de, por (a + o = ao, de + o = do, por + o = pelo, a + a = à).
Portuguese has a phenomenon unknown to other European languages ​​- the conjugated infinitive, for example: êle diz sermos pobres "he said that we are poor." It is widely used in the dependent position, along with the subjunctive mood: e preciso sabers ‘you need to know’. The construction of the infinitive, conjugated and unconjugated, with the preposition a is synonymous with the gerund. The form with the suffix -ra denotes the pre-past indicative (similar to varieties of Spanish in Latin America). Complex tenses are formed with the auxiliary verb ter. In the pre-past and future there are variant forms with haver. Complex The main way of denoting the past complete is the simple preterite; the perfect form is rarely used. The position of the verb pronoun is relatively free; preposition or postposition is determined by speech factors.
The first literary monument Portuguese dates back to 1189. This is a lyrical poem written by Payo Soares de Taveiros and addressed to Maria Paes Ribeiro, lover of Sancho I, the second king of Portugal. The first prose monuments (chronicles) date back to the 15th century. Portuguese words can be found in Latin texts from the 9th century.
The Portuguese language is a product of a symbiosis of the medieval Galician-Portuguese language and provincial Latin. Modern Galician (in Portuguese galego or português da Galiza, in Spanish gallego), spoken by 3-4 million inhabitants of the northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, is the most archaic dialect of Portuguese, and Galicia itself is considered the cradle of Portuguese language and literature .
IN history of literary Portuguese distinguish: the Portuguese-Galician period (XII - mid-XIV centuries), the heyday of troubadour poetry; the Old Portuguese period (mid-XIV - mid-XVI centuries), which is divided into the Early Old Portuguese period (mid-XIV - mid-XV centuries), from the first documentary monuments to the flowering of historical prose, the pinnacle of which was the work of the “father of Portuguese prose” Fernão Lopes, and the late Old Portuguese period (mid-XV - mid-XVI centuries), characterized by the appearance of the first grammars, literary works of various genres; modern period (from the middle of the 16th century, when the classic of Portuguese literature Luis de Camões wrote).
Modern Portuguese differs little from Old Portuguese; the main change is the loss of the initial l- in the article (lo, la, los, las became o, a, os, as) and the intervocalic -d- in the verb endings of the second person plural (-ais, -eis, -is instead -ades, -edes, ides).
Portuguese retains traces of the ancient Celtic language, as well as words from the languages ​​of pre-Roman colonists - Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian. There are signs of Germanic influence in the Portuguese language (V-VIII centuries), but most of all borrowings are from Arabic (VIII-XIII centuries) and Italian. Spanish, which was used for a long time in Portugal as a literary language, had a great influence on the Portuguese language. The Portuguese language did not escape French influence.
The discovery and development of vast overseas territories by the Portuguese left an imprint on the language. Numerous exotic words, primarily of Asian origin, penetrated into Portuguese, and through it into other European languages. Even some words of Latin origin entered into common European use from Portuguese (in the modified meaning that they acquired in Portuguese) - for example, “cobra”. Since the 19th century, there has been a struggle against borrowing, but rather sluggishly.

Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. It belongs to the Romance group of languages. Written Portuguese is based on the Latin alphabet. People who speak Portuguese are called Lusophones. After all, the Portuguese territories were previously called Lusitania. This term has quite old story, like the Portuguese language itself.

History of the Portuguese language

In ancient times, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by peoples whose history is practically unknown. Researchers believe that these tribes had African roots.

The north of Portugal was once inhabited by Lusitanians, Ligurians and Iberians. The Ligurian language was the basis from which Portuguese was then born.

In the 13th century BC, the northern tribes were conquered and absorbed by the Celts. Therefore, the modern language of Portugal also has Celtic roots.

Around 218 BC, the Romans captured the peninsula. They brought with them Latin, which was actively spread in the south. The northerners lived in greater isolation and managed to preserve their habits and customs.

During our era, 711 also became a difficult period for Portugal. The Iberian Peninsula was captured by the Arabs. The population was forced to learn Arabic. This is how the notorious Arabisms found their way into the language of the indigenous peoples of this state.

In the 9th century, the Romanesque dialect was almost completely formed in these lands. This process gave birth to the Old Portuguese language. Thus, in 1536, the first Portuguese charter, written by Fernan de Oliveiro, was born.

4 years after the publication of the grammar, another significant book appeared - “Dialogues about Language”. Its author was João de Barrosha. After this, the Romanesque dialect was transformed into the official language of the state.

Modernity of the Portuguese language

Today, Portuguese is rapidly approaching its Brazilian norm. Because there are differences between the same language in Portugal and Brazil.

Luis de Camoes did a lot to ensure that the grammar and spelling of Portuguese had uniform rules and norms. In his works he used ancient literature and Italian works of the Renaissance.

Features of the language

The contrast between open and closed phonemes is a feature of New Portuguese. Cervantes also called this language group “sweet language”, for its melody and melodiousness.

About 150 million people today speak Portuguese. Many of them use specific dialects. The absence of the intervocalic "l" sound distinguishes this language from all other Romance languages.

The first written monument of Portuguese dates back to 1189. It is a poem dedicated to Maria Paes Ribeiro, who was the lover of Sancho the First. The author of this work is Payo Soares de Taveiros.

Portuguese has many borrowings from Spanish, Arabic and Latin. There are words and expressions from the Asian language group. This diversity is explained simply: the Portuguese have always traveled a lot, maintained trade relations with other peoples, and their territories were repeatedly conquered.

Portugal is a country that has absorbed the best aspects of different cultures. A variety of tribes and peoples lived under its scorching sun in every era. All of them had a hand in the formation of the modern Portuguese language. This is probably why Portuguese is not only one of the most widespread, but also one of the most beautiful languages ​​in the world. It is also a popular and frequently chosen language to learn.

Portuguese (Portugês or Lingua Portuguesa) is one of the most widespread languages ​​on earth, the second (after Spanish) in terms of the number of speakers and speakers of Romance languages. Speakers of Portuguese are sometimes referred to as “Lusophones,” and their countries are collectively called Lusophonia (by analogy with Francophonie). His homeland - Portugal - is one of the small European countries, but Brazil speaks Portuguese (by the way, the most big country in the Catholic world), it is the official language of several countries in Africa (Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Principe, Sao Tome) and other parts of the world (East Timor, Macau). There are two main varieties of the language - the so-called continental (Portugal) and Brazilian. Apart from this, there are several creoles in African and Asian countries. Creolization of the language decreases significantly among the population with increasing education and an increase in the general cultural level; a certain decreolization occurs.

The areas of Spanish and Portuguese are adjacent (Europe) and, in addition, even overlap (South America). Strange as it may sound, the author of these lines has the opinion that Portuguese speakers understand the Spaniards better than Spanish speakers understand the Portuguese.

The earliest records in Portuguese (often called Proto-Portuguese by scholars) date back to the 9th century. The subsequent period of development of the language, called Old Portuguese, ends with the publication of the collection Cancioneiro Geral ("General Songbook") by García Rezende. Portugal in the Age of the Greats geographical discoveries becomes a powerful seafaring power, conquering colonies in the New World, Africa, Asia and the oceans. However, colonization often occurs in the form of assimilation with the local population. It is this part of the history of the Portuguese people that explains the fact that the language did not abandon its positions and was not supplanted by others in the former colonies. Moreover, it was Portuguese, for example in Mozambique, that became the language that united a population consisting of several nationalities with different native languages: Makuakua, Shangan (Tsonga), Swahili, Sena, Ndau, Makonde, Chopi, Zulu, etc. - into a single nation .

Catholicism brought into the language a large number of Latinisms, the language acquired borrowings from French and Italian, and the influence of Spanish, especially in South America, is a quite obvious fact. By the end of the last century, the influence of Anglicisms and Americanisms became noticeable (especially in professional argot - for example, computers and programming, mechanics, technology, etc.).

“Portuguese” Portuguese (PP, that is, continental Portuguese) is very beautiful in sound and is characterized by the reduction of the ends of words. In the language, the use of pronouns (I, you, we, he, they) is standardly omitted, because the conjugation of the verb clearly indicates person and number. The language is characterized by the hardening of intervocalic consonants (for example, the word casa - house sounds more like “kaza” with the reduction and muffling of the last vowel and the soft and weakly open first a), a peculiar system in the reading of some consonants (for example, the Latin x can be read and like “z”, and like “s”, and like “sh”, and even like “zh”). There are two genders in the language - masculine and feminine, with adjectives dependently acquiring the same gender and number as those generating the corresponding pairs of nouns. I would like to note the presence of rather strict grammatical requirements and conditions for the composition of sentences.

“Brazilian” Portuguese (BP) is distinguished by replacing the pronunciation of the “w” sound of the letter s at the end of a word with an explicit “s”, and a special pronunciation of d and t before the vowels e and i (thus, the word dia is read almost like “jia”). Not only some words also differ (a classic example: in PP “train” - comboio, while in BP - trem, most likely from the Anglo-American train) and the formation of verb forms of the continuous present tense (estar a + verbo no infinitivo in PP and estando + verbo infinitivo in BP), but also (at least until the most recent language reforms) the pronunciation and spelling of a significant number of words (facto in PP and fato in BP).

Speaking about the Brazilian version of the Portuguese language and the influence of the social environment on it, one cannot help but mention two obvious facts: samba and football, a kind of business cards this wonderful country. Here is one small observation from the author. About 25 years ago, I had the opportunity to listen to several football matches on the radio in order to become familiar (and hopefully master) the speech flow of “Brazilian” Portuguese. The match was usually conducted by two commentators with a simply crazy rate of fire: exhausted (that is, in literally lost air in the lungs) one was immediately picked up by the other. It was something unforgettable! Is it worth noting that when asked about the most famous football player in the world, the tongue involuntarily pronounces the name Pele...

It is impossible to imagine Brazil and its history without samba and the enormous contribution of Brazilians to world jazz standards (for example, bossa nova). Without wishing to burden the reader's attention with a listing of a huge number of Brazilian performers, I would still like to note that without mastering Brazilian musical culture, and especially samba tests, general concept you can't get information about the country.

Good and enough full reviews Portuguese and Brazilian literature can be found, for example, in the Russian-language part of Wikipedia.org. When talking about modern literature in Portuguese, it is impossible to ignore the name of the great Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. Let us also note Paulo Coelho (this is a more accurate transcription of Paulo Coelho in Russian), another famous writer from Brazil (and, note, the best-selling author in Portuguese now).

Additional Information:

For lovers of the Portuguese language and Brazilian TV series, carnivals and travel, it will be very interesting to know In which countries do they speak Portuguese? .

“Captain obvious” - Portugal. The main country where this language was historically formed and, accordingly, it was from here that its spread throughout the world began. Portuguese is one of the most widely used European languages. Speakers of this language are often called “ Lusophones ”, but do not confuse this concept with “ losers”, because Portuguese-speaking people are very proud of this “title”. The name comes from the Roman province of Lusitania, roughly corresponding to the territory of modern Portugal.

Of course in Brazil also use this language and, in fact, the lion’s share of Portuguese speakers live in this country, and that’s more than 200 million people! Brazilian and European versions of the language have their differences not so much in grammatical structures, as in pronunciation and spelling of words. Since in last years The process of globalization has accelerated, and Brazil occupies a key position in the South American market, and is gaining momentum in the global market, it is the Brazilian version of Portuguese that is becoming increasingly popular.

In which countries is Portuguese spoken, besides these two widely known to the public? Residents of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Macau and East Timor also speak Portuguese. It so happened historically that Portuguese came to the territories of these states and took root for a long time since the times of colonization.

So we got acquainted with information about which countries speak Portuguese. But even if you live in Russia or other CIS countries, knowing the Portuguese language will allow you to reach a completely different - higher quality level of your life and career.