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Portuguese language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Portuguese
   Português
   Pronunciation: IPA: [puɾtu'geʃ] (European), [poɾtu'ges] (Brazilian)
   Spoken in: Angola, Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, and several other CPLP
   countries
   Total speakers: 220 Million people
   Ranking: 6
   Language family: Indo-European
     Italic
      Romance
       Italo-Western
       Western
         Gallo-Iberian
          Ibero-Romance
           West-Iberian
            Portuguese-Galician
            Portuguese
   Writing system: Latin alphabet ( Portuguese variant)
   Official status
   Official language of: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, European
   Union, Guinea Bissau, Chinese S.A.R. of Macau, Mozambique, Portugal,
   São Tomé and Príncipe
   Regulated by: International Portuguese Language Institute; CPLP
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: pt
   ISO 639-2: por
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: por
   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   Portuguese ( português , língua portuguesa) is a Romance language
   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 Tetum in East Timor.

   Portuguese is 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 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.

   Portuguese is often nicknamed The language of Camões, after the author
   of the Portuguese national epic The Lusiadas; The last flower of Latium
   ( Olavo Bilac); and The sweet language by Cervantes.

Geographic distribution

   Portuguese is the official language in Angola, Brazil, Portugal and São
   Tomé and Príncipe as first language, and the most widely used language
   in Mozambique. It is also one of the official languages of East Timor
   (with Tetum) and of the Chinese S.A.R. of Macau (with Chinese). It is
   widely spoken, but not official, in Andorra, Luxembourg, Namibia and
   Paraguay (in the latter country there were 112,520 native Portuguese
   speakers according to the 2002 census). 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, New Bedford, Cape Cod, Fall
   River, Honolulu, Houston, Newark, New York City, Orlando, Miami,
   Providence, Sacramento in the United States; Buenos Aires in Argentina,
   Uruguay, and in Japan. Other countries where speakers can be found
   include in Andorra, Belgium, Bermuda, Switzerland and some communities
   in India such as Goa. Portuguese is spoken by about 188 million people
   in South America, 17 million in Africa, 12 million in Europe, 2 million
   in North America and 610,000 in Asia.
   Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status.
   Enlarge
   Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status.

   The CPLP or Community of Portuguese Language 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. After Brazil signed into the economic market of Mercosul with
   other South America nations, such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay,
   there has been an increase in curiosity towards study of Portuguese
   language in those South American countries. The demographic weight of
   Brazil in the continent will continue to strengthen the presence of
   Portuguese language in the region.
   Estação da Luz, site of the museum in São Paulo, Brazil.
   Enlarge
   Estação da Luz, site of the museum in São Paulo, Brazil.

   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 centre 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 increased
   Chinese diplomatic and financial ties with the Portuguese speaking
   countries.

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

Dialects

   Portuguese is a pluricentric language. It has 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 phonology, especially the pronunciation of unstressed vowels,
   they resemble Brazilian Portuguese more than European Portuguese. They
   have not been studied as exhaustively as European and Brazilian
   Portuguese. In various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas,
   Portuguese creoles are spoken, but they are independent languages which
   should not be confused with Portuguese itself.

   Within the two major varieties of Portuguese, most differences between
   dialects concern pronunciation and vocabulary. Below are some examples:

          words for bus

                Angola & Mozambique: machimbombo
                Brazil: ônibus
                Portugal: autocarro

          slang terms for to go away

                Angola: bazar - from Kimbundu kubaza - to break, leave
                with rush
                Brazil: vazar - from Portuguese "to leak"
                Portugal: bazar - from Kimbundu kubaza - to break, leave
                with rush

          words for slum quarter

                Angola: musseque
                Brazil: favela
                Portugal: bairro de lata or ilha

   Between Brazilian Portuguese, particularly in its most informal
   varieties, and European Portuguese, there can be considerable
   differences in grammar, as well. The most prominent ones concern the
   placement of clitic pronouns, and the use of subject pronouns as
   objects in the third person. Non-standard inflections are also common
   in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese.

Classification and related languages

   Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages,
   and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
     * Galician and the Fala, its closest relatives. See below.
     * Spanish, the major language closest to Portuguese. See also
       Differences between Spanish and Portuguese.
     * Mirandese, another West Iberian language spoken in Portugal.
     * Judeo-Portuguese and Judeo-Spanish, languages spoken by Sephardic
       Jews, which remained close to Portuguese and Spanish.

Latin and other Romance languages

   A distinctive feature of Portuguese is that it preserved the stressed
   vowels of Vulgar Latin, which other Romance languages diphthongized;
   cf. Fr. pierre, Sp. piedra, Port. pedra, from Lat. petra; or Sp. fuego,
   It. fuoco, Port. fogo, from Lat. focum. Another characteristic of early
   Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic l and n, sometimes followed by
   the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an
   epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. salire, tenere, catena, Sp.
   salir, tener, cadena, Port. sair, ter, cadeia.

   When the elided consonant was n, it often nasalized the preceding
   vowel: cf. Lat. manum, rana, bonum, Port. mão, rãa (now rã), bõo (now
   bom). This process was the source of most of the nasal diphthongs which
   are typical of Portuguese. In particular, the Latin endings -ane-,
   -anu- and -one- became -ão in most cases: cf. Lat. canem, germanum,
   rationem with Modern Port. cão, irmão, razão, and their plurals cães,
   irmãos, razões.

   See Portuguese Vocabulary: From Latin to Portuguese, for other sound
   changes.

   In spite of the obvious lexical and grammatical similarities between
   Portuguese and other Romance languages outside the West Iberian branch,
   it is not mutually 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)
          Ela fecha sempre a fiestra antes de cear. ( Galician)
          Ella cierra siempre la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish)
          Ella tanca sempre la finestra abans de sopar. ( Catalan)
          Lei chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare. ( Italian)
          Ea închide întotdeauna fereastra înainte de a cina. ( Romanian)
          Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de dîner/souper. (French)
          She always shuts the window before dining.

   Note that some of the lexical divergence above actually comes from
   different Romance languages using the same root word with different
   semantic values. Portuguese for example has the word fresta, which is a
   cognate of French fenêtre or Italian finestra and so on, but now means
   "slit" as opposed to "window." Likewise, Portuguese also has the word
   cear, a cognate of Italian cenare and Spanish cenar, but uses it in the
   sense of "to have a late supper", while the most frequent word meaning
   "to dine" is actually jantar (related to archaic Sp. yantar) due to
   semantic changes in the 19th Century.

   Galician has both fiestra (from medieval fẽestra which is the ultimate
   origin of standard Portuguese fresta), and the less frequently used
   xanela. Like the northern dialects of Portuguese, it still uses cear
   with its original meaning of "dining".

Galician and the Fala

   The closest language to Portuguese is Galician, spoken in the
   autonomous community of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at
   one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but
   since the political separation of Portugal from Galicia they have
   diverged somewhat, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary.
   Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still
   noticeably closer to Portuguese than to Spanish. In particular, it uses
   the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic
   pluperfect (see the section on the grammar of Portuguese, below).
   Mutual intelligibility is good between Galicians and northern
   Portuguese, but poorer between Galicians and speakers from central
   Portugal.

   The linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is
   controversial. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra, consider that they
   are still dialects of a common language, in spite of superficial
   differences in phonology and vocabulary. Others, such as Pilar Vázquez
   Cuesta, argue that they have become separate languages due to major
   differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent,
   morphology and syntax. The official position of the Galician Language
   Institute is that Galician and Portuguese should be considered
   independent languages. The standard orthography takes advantage of the
   divergent features of the phonology of Galician to emphasize its
   differences from Portuguese, insisting on a phonetic spelling, and
   rejecting for example Portuguese graphic conventions like the graphemes
   nh, lh, j in favour of ñ, ll, x. See also Reintegrationism.

   The Fala language is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken
   by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverdi du Fresnu,
   As Ellas and Sa Martín de Trebellu (autonomous community of
   Extremadura, near the border with Portugal).

Derived languages

   Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between
   Portuguese travelers and settlers, African slaves, and local
   populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts
   of Portuguese influence. As these pidgins became the mother tongue of
   succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole
   languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia and Africa until
   the 18th century.

   Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken
   today, by over 3 million people worldwide, especially people of partial
   Portuguese ancestry.

Influence on other languages

   Many languages have borrowed words from Portuguese, such as Indonesian,
   Malay, Konkani, Tetum, Xitsonga, Papiamentu, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá
   (spoken in northern Brazil - now extinct) and Sranang Tongo (spoken in
   Suriname). It left a strong influence on the língua brasílica, a
   Tupi-Guarani language which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until
   the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores
   Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers
   in the Tuan Ma ritual.

   The Japanese-Portuguese dictionary Nippo Jisho (1603) was the first
   dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit
   missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier
   Portuguese missionaries, the Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et
   Latinum (Annamite-Portuguese-Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes
   (1651) introduced quốc ngữ, the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which
   is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The
   Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language
   (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is
   "Mei".

   See also:
     * List of English words of Portuguese origin
     * Loan words in Indonesian
     * Japanese words from Portuguese
     * Borrowed words in Malay
     * Sinhala words of Portuguese origin
     * Loan words from Portuguese in Sri Lankan Tamil

History

   Arriving in the Iberian Peninsula in 218 BC, the Romans brought with
   them the Latin language, from which all Romance languages descend. In
   the 2nd century BC, southern Lusitania was already Romanized. Strabo, a
   1st century Greek geographer, remarks in his 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 the
   settlements of previous civilizations.

                                                  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?)

   Between 409 A.D. and 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western
   Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples (
   Migration Period). The newcomers, mainly Suevi and Visigoths, quickly
   adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the
   peninsula. After the Moorish invasion of 711, Arabic became the
   administrative language in the conquered regions, but most of the
   population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as
   Mozarabic. The influence exerted by Arabic on the Romance dialects
   spoken in the Christian kingdoms of the north was small, affecting
   mainly their lexicon.

   The earliest surviving records of a distinctively Portuguese language
   are administrative documents of the 9th century, still interspersed
   with many Latin phrases. Today this phase is known as Proto-Portuguese
   (between the 9th and the 12th century). Portugal was formally
   recognized as an independent nation by the Kingdom of Leon in 1143,
   with Afonso Henriques as king. 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 been the
   language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Iberia, much like
   Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadors. In 1290, king
   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 used
   officially.

   In the second period of Old Portuguese, from the 14th to the 16th
   century, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken 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. Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between
   Portuguese and local people, and by its association with Roman Catholic
   missionary efforts, which led to the formation of a creole called
   cristão ("Christian") in many parts of Asia. 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 the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of
   the Cancioneiro Geral de Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of
   Modern Portuguese, which spans from the 16th century to present day,
   were characterized by an increase in the number of erudite words
   borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek during the
   Renaissance, which greatly enriched the lexicon.

Vocabulary

   Almost 90% of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived from Latin.
   Nevertheless, thanks to the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula
   during the Middle Ages, and to the participation of Portugal in the Age
   of Discovery, it has adopted loanwords from all over the world.

   Very few Portuguese words can be traced to the 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; saco "bag", from Phoenician; and cachorro "dog, puppy", from
   Basque.

   In the 5th century the Iberian Peninsula (the former Roman region of
   Hispania) was conquered by the Suevi, Visigoths and Alans, 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
   *spaúra, *stakka, and *wirro, respectively.

   Between the 9th and the 15th centuries Portuguese acquired about 1000
   words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They 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 came also the
   grammatically peculiar word oxalá "God willing". The name of the
   Portuguese town of Fátima, where the Virgin Mary is said to have
   appeared, is originally the name of one of the daughters of Muhammad.

   Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led
   to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For
   instance, catana "cutlass" from Japanese katana; corja "rabble" from
   Malay kórchchu; and chá "tea" from Chinese chá.

   From South America came batata "potato", from Taino; ananás and
   abacaxi, from Tupi-Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati, respectively (two
   species of pineapple), and tucano " toucan" from Guarani tucan.

   From the 16th to the 19th century, the role of Portugal as intermediary
   in the Atlantic slave trade, with the establishment of large Portuguese
   colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese got several
   words of African and 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, for example, came kifumate → cafuné
   "head caress", kusula → caçula "youngest child", marimbondo "tropical
   wasp", and kubungula → bungular "to dance like a wizard".

   Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other
   European languages. For example, melena "hair lock", fiambre "wet-cured
   ham" (in contrast with presunto "dry-cured ham" from latin
   prae-exsuctus "dehydrated"), and castelhano "Castilian", from Spanish;
   colchete/crochê "bracket"/"crochet", paletó "jacket", batom "lipstick",
   and filé/filete "steak"/"slice" respectively, from French crochet,
   paletot, bâton, filet; macarrão "pasta"", piloto "pilot", carroça
   "carriage", and barraca "barrack", from Italian maccarone, pilotto,
   carrozza, barracca; and bife "steak", futebol, revólver, estoque,
   folclore, from English beef, football, revolver, stock, folklore.

Writing system

                                                CAPTION: Written varieties

                                   Portugal & Africa    Brazil translation
                                             anónimo   anônimo   anonymous
                                               facto      fato        fact
                                               ideia     idéia        idea
                                            direcção   direção   direction
                                              óptimo     ótimo   very good
                                           frequente freqüente    frequent
                                                 voo       vôo      flight

   Portuguese is written with the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the
   acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and
   the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other
   sound changes. Brazilian Portuguese also uses the diaeresis mark.
   Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters
   for collation purposes.

Brazilian vs. European spelling

   There are some differences between the orthographies of Brazil and
   other Portuguese language countries. One of the most pervasive is the
   use of acute accents in the European/African orthography in many words
   such as sinónimo, where the Brazilian orthography has a circumflex
   accent, sinônimo. Another important difference is that Brazilian
   spelling often lacks c or t before c, ç, or t, where the European
   orthography has them; for example, cf. Brazilian fato with European
   facto, "fact", or Brazilian objeto with European objecto, "object".
   Some of these spelling differences reflect differences in the
   pronunciation of the words, but others are merely graphic.

Phonology

   There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels and 19 consonants, though some
   varieties of the language have fewer phonemes (Brazilian Portuguese has
   only 7 oral vowel phonemes). There are also five nasal vowels, which
   some linguists regard as allophones of the oral vowels, ten oral
   diphthongs, and five nasal diphthongs.

Vowels

   Chart of monophthongs of the Portuguese of Lisbon
   Chart of monophthongs of the Portuguese of Lisbon

   To the seven vowels of Vulgar Latin, European Portuguese has added two
   near central vowels, one of which tends to be elided in rapid speech,
   like the e caduc of French. The high vowels /e o/ and the low vowels /ɛ
   ɔ/ are four distinct phonemes, and they alternate in various forms of
   apophony. Like Catalan, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast
   stressed syllables with unstressed syllables: isolated vowels tend to
   be raised, and in some cases centralized, when unstressed. Nasal
   diphthongs occur mostly at the end of words.

Consonants

   CAPTION: Consonant phonemes of Portuguese

   Bilabial Labio-
   dental Dental Alveolar Post-
   alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular
                            Plosives p b t d k g
                                Nasals m n ɲ
                         Fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ ʁ
                                  Flaps ɾ
                                Laterals l ʎ

   The consonant inventory of Portuguese is fairly conservative. The
   medieval affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ merged with the fricatives
   /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, respectively, but not with each other, and there
   were no other significant changes to the consonant phonemes since then.
   However, some remarkable dialectal variants and allophones have
   appeared, among which:
     * In many regions of Brazil, /t/ and /d/ have the affricate
       allophones [tʃ] and [dʒ], respectively, before /i/. ( Quebec French
       has a similar phenomenon, with alveolar affricates instead of
       postalveolars.)

     * At the end of a syllable, the phoneme /l/ has the velarized
       allophone [ɫ] in European Portuguese, like in the Received
       Pronunciation of English. Brazilian Portuguese has the allophone
       [w] instead ( L-vocalization).

     * In many parts of Brazil and Angola, /ɲ/ is pronounced as a nasal
       glide [j̃] that nasalizes the preceding vowel, so that for instance
       /'niɲu/ is pronounced ['nĩj̃u].

     * There is considerable dialectal variation in the value of the
       rhotic phonemes /ɾ/ and /ʁ/. See Guttural R in Portuguese, for
       details.

     * In most of Brazil, the alveolar sibilants /s/ and /z/ occur in
       complementary distribution at the end of syllables, depending on
       whether the consonant that follows is voiceless or voiced, as in
       English. But in most of Portugal and parts of Brazil sibilants at
       the end of syllables are postalveolar, /ʃ/ before voiceless
       consonants, and /ʒ/ before voiced consonants. (In Judeo-Spanish,
       /s/ is often replaced with /ʃ/ at the end of syllables, too.)

Stress

   Primary stress may fall on any of the three final syllables of a word,
   but mostly on the last two. 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, a
   diphthong, or a close vowel. The orthography of Portuguese takes
   advantage of this correlation to minimize the number of diacritics.

   Due to the phonetic changes that often affect unstressed vowels, pure
   lexical stress is less common in Portuguese than in related languages
   like Spanish, but there is still a significant number of examples of
   it:

          dúvida /ˈduvidɐ/ "doubt" (noun) vs. duvida /duˈvidɐ/ "he doubts"
          falaram /faˈlaɾɐ̃ũ/ "they spoke" vs. falarão /falaˈɾɐ̃ũ/ "they
          will speak" (Brazilian pronunciation)
          ouve /'ovi/ "he hears" vs. ouvi /o'vi/ "I heard" (Brazilian
          pronunciation)
          túnel /'tunɛl/ "tunnel" vs. tonel /tu'nɛl/ "wine cask" (European
          pronunciation)

Prosody

   Tone is not lexically significant in Portuguese, but phrase- and
   sentence-level tone 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

Indo-European characteristics

   It is a synthetic, fusional, nominative-accusative language.

Romance characteristics

   Nouns, adjectives and articles are only moderately inflected (though
   moreso than in English). There are two grammatical genders, masculine
   and feminine, and two grammatical numbers, singular and plural. Case
   marking on nouns has been completely lost, though a trace of it
   survives in the personal pronouns.

   Verbs are highly inflected, normally having over 50 different forms.
   There are numerous periphrastic verbal constructions, as well. There
   are three tenses, past, present and future; three moods, indicative,
   subjunctive, and imperative; and three aspects, imperfect, perfective,
   and progressive (perfective and progressive forms are mostly
   periphrastic). It has a conditional form distinct from the subjunctive,
   and two verbs "to be". It is a null-subject language. Typical word
   order is SVO, though it is generally less strict than in English.

Galician-Portuguese characteristics

     * The future subjunctive tense, which was developed by medieval West
       Iberian Romance, but has now fallen into disuse in Spanish, is
       still used in vernacular Portuguese. It appears in dependent
       clauses that denote a condition which must be fulfilled in the
       future, so that the independent clause will occur. Other languages
       normally employ the present tense under the same circumstances:

          Se for eleito presidente, mudarei a lei. [future subjunctive]
          If I am elected president, I will change the law.

          Quando você for mais velho, vai entender. [future subjunctive]
          When you are older, you will understand.

     * Personal infinitive: it is possible for an infinitive verb to agree
       with its subject in person and number, often showing who is
       supposed to perform a certain act; cf. É melhor voltares "It is
       better [for you] to go back.", É melhor voltarmos "It is better
       [for us] to go back." Perhaps for this reason, infinitive clauses
       replace subjunctive clauses more often in Portuguese than in other
       Romance languages.

Unique features

   The Portuguese present perfect has an iterative sense which is unique
   among the Romance languages. It denotes an action or a series of
   actions which began in the past and are expected to keep repeating in
   the future. For instance, the meaning of Tenho tentado falar com ela
   may be closer to "I have been trying to talk to her" than to "I have
   tried to talk to her", depending on the context. On the other hand, the
   correct translation of the question "Have you heard the latest news?"
   is not *Tem ouvido a última notícia?, but Ouviu a última notícia?,
   since no repetition is implied.

Examples

   Excerpt from « The Lusiads» (I, 33)

   Original IPA ( EP pronunciation) IPA ( BP pronunciation) Translation
   (by Landeg White)
   Sustentava contra ele Vénus bela, suʃtẽˈtavɐ ˈkõtɾɐ ˈelɨ ˈvɛnuʒ ˈbɛlɐ
   sustẽʲˈtava ˈkõtɾa ˈeli ˈvẽnus ˈbɛla Against him spoke the lovely Venus
   Afeiçoada à gente Lusitana, ɐfɐi̯su̯ˈaða ˈʒẽtɨ luziˈtɐnɐ afeisoˈada a
   ˈʒẽʲtʲi luziˈtɜ̃na Favoring the people of Portugal,
   Por quantas qualidades via nela puɾ ˈku̯ɐ̃tɐʃ ku̯ɐliˈðaðɨʒ ˈviɐ ˈnɛlɐ
   pux ˈkwɜ̃tas kwaliˈdadʲis ˈvia ˈnɛla For her love of Roman virtue
   Da antiga tão amada sua Romana; dãˈtigɐ tɐ̃ũ ̯ ɐˈmaðɐ ˈsuɐ ʁuˈmɐnɐ da
   ˈɜ̃tʲiga tɜ̃w̃ aˈmada ˈsua xõˈmɜ̃na She saw resurrected in them;
   Nos fortes corações, na grande estrela, nuʃ ˈfɔɾtɨʃ kuɾɐˈsõĩ ̯ʃ nɐ
   ˈgɾɐ̃dɨʃˈtɾelɐ nus ˈfɔxtʲis kɔɾaˈsõj̃s, na gɾɜ̃dʲi esˈtɾela In their
   stout hearts, in the star
   Que mostraram na terra Tingitana, kɨ muʃˈtɾaɾɐ̃ũ ̯ nɐ ˈtɛʁɐ tĩʒiˈtɐnɐ
   ki mɔsˈtɾaɾɜ̃w̃ na ˈtɛxa tʲĩʲʒiˈtɜ̃na Which shone bright above Ceuta,
   E na língua, na qual quando imagina, i nɐ ˈlĩgu̯ɐ nɐ ku̯aɫ
   ˈku̯ɐ̃du̯imɐˈʒinɐ i na ˈlĩgwa, na kwaw ˈkwɜ̃du imaˈʒĩna In the language
   which an inventive mind
   Com pouca corrupção crê que é a Latina. kõ ˈpokɐ kuʁupˈsɐ̃ũ ̯ kɾe ki̯ɛ
   ɐ lɐˈtinɐ kõ ˈpowka koxupˈsɜ̃w̃ kɾe ki ɛ a laˈtʲĩna Could mistake for
   Latin, passably declined.

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