Origins

Same as all Romance languages, Portuguese was originated on the basis of Latin. It was based on vulgar Latin, the language of the soldiers that lived on the territory of today's Portugal and Spain. Along its development, Portuguese suffered the influence of Germanic tribes in the period of their migration and the collapse of the Roman Empire at the end of the 5th Century and into the 6th Century. Then, in the 8th Century, with the invasion of the Arabs, Portuguese and Spanish shared the strong impact of Arab culture and language. In the times of the great discoveries, the language 'travelled' all around the world, thus being influenced to some degree by African and other local languages.

Official Language

Portuguese is the official language of Portugal. Outside Europe, it’s the first official language for 8 more countries – Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, and others. As a second official language, Portuguese has been adopted in many countries along with Spanish, Chinese, French and English. It’s also one of the EU’s official languages.

Varieties

The most significant varieties of Portuguese are classified as the major branches of European, Brazilian and African Portuguese. African varieties of the language keep closer to its European version than Brazilian in many aspects. Still, due to the large geographical distribution, dialects can be considered the inner varieties of the language within any national border. The most-explored dialects are those in Portugal and Brazil.

Brief History

Portuguese was born thanks to vulgar Latin. The area of Iberia was first invaded by the Romans in 218 BC. In the 5th Century AD, Germanic tribes invaded all of Europe and caused the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Portuguese developed as an evolving mixture of vulgar Latin and the local languages. It suffered the influence of Germanic languages, but what affected it more was Arabic. In the 8th Century, the Moures invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Their presence left key marks on the culture and language of both Spain and Portugal.

Portugal was founded in the 12th Century by King Afonso Enriques. The language of that period was known as Portuguese-Galician. Portuguese was the vernacular language and the first written documents testify the use of many Latin phrases in official speech and writing. One of the greatest Kings of Portugal, Don Diniz, declared in 1290 that the ‘the language of the people’ is to become the language of the state, and officially known as Portuguese.

With the epoque of the Great Discoveries, Portuguese was carried across seas and continents. It was the lingua franca of sailors and merchants, from Africa to America and further.

The Renaissance brought more changes to the language. The status of Latin and ancient Greek was restored with the respect for antiquity. The language adopted new words directly from Latin or Greek, and its vocabulary was enriched with new terminology.

Did you know?

Portuguese is the 6th language in the world. It’s the most-spoken language in South America, though spoken only in Brazil. Some believe that Portuguese, and not modern Latin, is the closest living relative to Latin. It preserved some features of the mother tongue intact, though they evolved in one way or another in all of the Romance languages.