Portuguese language

"Português" redirects here. For the cigarette brand, see Português (cigarette). For the gold coin, see Português (coin).

Portuguese
português
Pronunciation[puɾtuˈɣeʃ] / [poʁtuˈɡe(j)s]
Native toPortugal, Brazil, Lusophone Africa, and other locations in the Portuguese-speaking world
SpeakersL1: 236 million (2012–2022)[1]
L2: 27 million (2022)[1]
Total: 263.8 million[1]
Early forms
Manually coded Portuguese
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by
[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-1pt
ISO 639-2por
ISO 639-3por
Glottologport1283
Linguasphere51-AAA-a
  Countries or regions where Portuguese is the native language of the majority
  Countries and territories where Portuguese is an official or administrative language but not a majority native language
  Countries and territories where Portuguese is a cultural or secondary language
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Portuguese (endonym: português or língua portuguesa) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe,[6] and has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone (lusófono). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology.[7][8]

With approximately 236 million native speakers and 27 million second language speakers, Portuguese has approximately 263.8 million total speakers.[1] It is usually listed as the fifth-most spoken native language,[9] the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers[10] and the second-most spoken Romance language in the world, surpassed only by Spanish. Being the most widely spoken language in South America[11][12][13] and the most-spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere,[14][15][16] it is also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa,[17] and an official language of the European Union, Mercosul, the Organization of American States, the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations. In 1997, a comprehensive academic study ranked Portuguese as one of the 10 most influential languages in the world.[18][19]

  1. ^ a b c d Portuguese at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Continúan los actos del Día de la Lengua Portuguesa y la Cultura Lusófona" [Acts continue to mark Portuguese Language and Portuguese Culture Day]. Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. 10 May 2016. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  3. ^ Gutiérrez Bottaro, Silvia Etel (2014). "El portugués uruguayo y las marcas de la oralidad en la poesía del escritor uruguayo Agustín R. Bisio" [Uruguayan Portuguese and oral marks in the poetry of Uruguayan writer Agustín R. Bisio] (PDF). Abehache (in Spanish). 4 (6). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Historia lingüística del Uruguay". historiadelaslenguasenuruguay.edu.uy. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  5. ^ Fernández Aguerre, Tabaré; González Bruzzese, Mahira; Rodriguez Ingold, Cecilia (2017). Algunas notas teórico metodológicas sobre la relación entre regiones y aprendizajes en Uruguay [Some theoretical methodological notes on the relationship between regions and learning in Uruguay]. XVI Jornadas de Investigación : la excepcionalidad uruguaya en debate: ¿como el Uruguay no hay? (in Spanish). pp. 11–15. hdl:20.500.12008/10776. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  6. ^ "Estados-membros" [Member States]. Community of Portuguese Language Countries (in Portuguese). 7 February 2017. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  7. ^ "The Origin and Formation of The Portuguese Language". Judeo-Lusitanica. Duke University. Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  8. ^ Bittencourt de Oliveira, João. "Breves considerações sobre o legado das línguas célticas". filologia.org.br. Archived from the original on 21 June 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  9. ^ da Silva, Emmanuel (2015). "Socioliguistic Tensions in Toronoto". In Moita-Lopes, Luiz Paulo (ed.). Global Portuguese: Linguistic Ideologies in Late Modernity. New York: Routledge. p. 129. ISBN 978-1-31763-304-4.
  10. ^ "CIA World Factbook". Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  11. ^ "The Different Languages of South America". Latino Bridge. 7 November 2022. Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  12. ^ "2012 World Population Data Sheet Interactive Map - Population Reference Bureau". archive.wikiwix.com. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  13. ^ "La langue espagnole (présentation)". www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  14. ^ "Potencial Económico da Língua Portuguesa" (PDF). University of Coimbra. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  15. ^ "World Portuguese Language Day". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 17 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  16. ^ "20 Most Spoken Languages in the World in 2023". Berlitz Corporation. Archived from the original on 21 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  17. ^ "Top 11 Most Spoken Languages in Africa". Africa Facts. 18 October 2017. Archived from the original on 18 September 2021. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  18. ^ "The World's 10 most influential languages", George Weber, 1997, Language Today, "...includes besides many other languages, Bengali, English, French, German, Hindi/Urdu, Italian, Marathi, Panjabi, Persian, Brazilian (Portuguese), Russian, the Scandinavian languages, and Spanish." "Portuguese today means above all Brazilian."
  19. ^ Bernard Comrie, Encarta Encyclopedia (1998); George Weber, "Top Languages: The World's 10 Most Influential Languages", Language Today (Vol. 2, December 1997). Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2011-09-28.