Portuguese Language

WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE

“My homeland it the Portuguese Language”

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) - One of the most iconic Portuguese poets of all time)

 “The last flower of Lazio, uncultivated and beautiful”*

*The ‘last flower of Lazio’, refers to how Portuguese was the last of the latin languages to be born out of Vulgar Latin and that it originated out of the Italian region of Lazio (where modern day Rome is).

Olavo Bilac (1865 – 1918) - Brazilian journalist, short story writer, chronicler and poet, considered the main representative of Parnassianism in the country. He was a founding member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

“After all, it was not Pedro Álvares Cabral who discovered Brazil; Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese language.”

Paulo Bomfim (1926-2019) - Brazilian poet, member of the São Paulo Academy of Letters, known as The Prince of Brazilian Poets.

“From my language one can see the sea“

Vergílio Ferreira (1916-1996) – Portuguese writer

 “There is no Portuguese language, but rather languages in Portuguese.

José Saramago (1922-2010) - Portuguese novelist and man of letters who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

I come here to play in Portuguese, the language. Not the one that others flag up. But our language, the one we love and that makes us Mozambicans more Mozambican. (...)

Mia Couto (1955) - Mozambican writer. He won the Camões Prize in 2013, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2014.

This is a confession of love: I love the Portuguese language. It's not an easy language. It's not a malleable one. And because it hasn't been deeply worked by thought, its tendency is to lack subtlety and sometimes to react with a real kick against those who recklessly dare to transform it into a language of feeling and alertness. And of love. The Portuguese language is a real challenge for those who write. (…)

If I was mute and couldn't write either, and you asked me what language I wanted to speak, I'd say English, which is precise and beautiful. But since I wasn't born mute and could write, it became absolutely clear to me that I really wanted to write in Portuguese. I even wish I hadn't learned other languages: just so that my approach to Portuguese would be virgin and limpid. 

Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) - Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short story writer.

“Portuguese is Spanish* without bones" and "the sweet gracious language" (refering to Portuguese)

*Castilian Language in the original

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) – Spanish dramatist, poet, best known as the author of Don Quixote de La Mancha

"Cervantes said that Portuguese is Spanish without bones, then we can say that Spanish is hardened Portuguese.

         Miguel de Unamuno y Hugo (1864-1936) - Spanish philosopher, writer, social activist and a major figure of the '98 Generation.

"The Portuguese language is one of the best things the Portuguese left us"

Amílcar Lopes Cabral (1924-1973) - A Bissau-Guinean and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, political organizer, and diplomat. He was also a pan-Africanist and intellectual nationalist revolutionary poet. One of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders.

"(…) without forgetting that there was the Portuguese (language) of multiple tyrannies was the same Portuguese of various resistances s. The Portuguese of colonial oppression and the Portuguese of the national liberation struggle. (…) A strange contradiction and, at the same time, a superb privilege, (…) "a language that, having been that of the colonial system, was also the language in which peoples began to seek, think and say their identities." 

Manuel Alegre de Melo Duarte, GCL (born 12 May 1936) is a Portuguese poet and politician, member of the Socialist Party, and a candidate for the 2006 Portuguese presidential election. Alegre was awarded the Camões Prize in 2017.

I like being (ser) and being (estar)

Caetano Veloso (1942) - Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist, jocking about the characteristic of the Portuguese that has 2 verbs “to be” (excert from the song “Língua”)

PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD

Portuguese is currently the fifth most spoken language in the world and an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor. It is also used in Macau, territory under Portuguese administration until 1999, and in Goa.

FUNNY AND INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE

Did you know that…

Only 5% of Portuguese speakers live in Portugal?

Despite the fact of having the language named after him, Portugal is home to only % of Portuguese speaker.

Unsurprisingly, with populous countries such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique having it as their official language, the majority of Portuguese speakers are not from Portugal. However, the estimated proportions of Portuguese speakers outside of Portugal are quite astounding—only one-twentieth of the world’s Lusophones actually reside in the language’s home country. (source: https://brazilianexperience.com/portuguese-around-world/)

Portuguese is heavily influenced by Arabic (in the vocabulary)

As the Islamic Moors from North Africa and the Middle East conquered Portugal and Spain in the eighth century, a form of Arabic was the official language of the Iberian Peninsula until the Reconquista of the 13th century. As a result, the Portuguese language underwent a heavy influence from Arabic, and many words of Arabic origin remain in everyday parlance, including almofada (cushion), azeitona (olive), and garrafa (bottle). (source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/11-fascinating-facts-about-the-portuguese-language)

English has borrowed several Portuguese words

Although it is way more commum to detect the opposite phenomenon (specially starting from the late 20th century), i.e. to find Portuguese words borrowed from English, the Portuguese’s worldwide spread inevitably led to several of its words making their way into the English language. Examples are “embarrass” (coming from the Portuguese embaraçar, to tie in knots), “cobra,” and “fetish” (from feitiço, meaning a charm or sorcery). (source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/11-fascinating-facts-about-the-portuguese-language)

Each tense verb has six different endings

Arguably one of the biggest stumbling block for English speakers who are trying to learn Portuguese (or any Romance language) is that each tense verb has a different conjugations for each group of pronouns. However, I have to say that this problem is generally easily overcome in a relatively short time with some study and dedication on the part of the student. (source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/11-fascinating-facts-about-the-portuguese-language)

Portuguese has two verbs meaning “to be”

While English’s “to be” is universal, Portuguese has two different verbs for these situations: ser and estar. Ser is for permanent, unchanging examples, while estar is for temporary situations such as mood or weather.

(source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/11-fascinating-facts-about-the-portuguese-language)  (VER https://thesoundsofportuguese.com/blog/the-portuguese-language/)

The cradle of Portuguese is Galicia, in Northwest Spain / Portugal

The roots of the Portuguese language as a distinct languagre from other Latin languages go back to the currently autonomous community of Galicia, in the north of Portugal and the northwest of Spain. Their language, Galician, was a mix of local dialects and common Latin, and around the 14th century, Portuguese emerged as a descendant language. Even today, speakers of Portuguese and Galician have no trouble understanding one another.

(source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/articles/11-fascinating-facts-about-the-portuguese-language)

Portuguese sounds like Russian!

If you speak Russian, you may have had the experience of overhearing Portuguese speakers in the street and confusing their language with Russian. If so, you are not alone, as this type of confusion is common for many Russians and speakers of other Slavic languages. As we have seen from the history of the Portuguese language, there aren’t any roots – that historians have recorded – linking the two languages. So, this type of mix-up is perplexing for many. 

Some experts have explained this by highlighting that both Russian and Portuguese are stress-timed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIFh2OmjwUw&list=PLK69N0H1t7Q7jZQCOGqJyg8t3gGfT55uz&index=2&t=11s) languages, which makes their intonation sound very similar, but only in rhythm. A stress-timed language involves uttering stressed syllables at approximately regular intervals. Unstressed syllables therefore take a shorter time to be said, so that they adjust to this rhythm. Stress and rhythm are independent elements from words and their meaning, and they can be similar from language to language, even when the lexicon is entirely different. 

The fact that Portuguese and Russian follow this same melodic pattern can confuse native speakers of both languages. There are other similarities, such as the frequent use of the “sh” sound, which can also be the cause of this confusion between such distant languages. 

(souce: https://renaissance-translations.com/8-fun-facts-about-the-portuguese-language/)

The Portuguese Alphabet Changed in 2009

When you start learning and speaking Portuguese (regardless of whether you’re learning the language of Brazil or Portugal), you’ll notice that the Portuguese language uses the same alphabet as English. There are 26 letters, ranging from A to Z. However, back when Portuguese was made the official language of Portugal, this wasn’t the case.

Not so long ago, there were only 23 letters – letters K, W, and Y were missing, as you won’t find these letters in exclusively Portuguese words. They were added to the official alphabet in 2009 to help with foreign loanwords added to the Portuguese culture from other languages. Examples include “software” and “yoga,” which many Portuguese-speaking people use as part of daily conversations.

(souce: https://renaissance-translations.com/8-fun-facts-about-the-portuguese-language/)

Portuguese is absolutely not affraid of double (and sometime even triple) negative

Double negative is a perfectly acceptable construction in Portuguese. The negatives don’t cancel each other out, but instead reinforce each other. In English, we use the word “any” instead, so that “I do not want none” becomes “I do not want any“.

Distinctive features of Portuguese

The Sounds of Portuguese

Portuguese, with its ten vowels and five vowels, possesses a distinct and rhythmic sound. Moreover, the language utilizes a combination of nasal vowels and diphthongs, creating a vibrant soundscape that sets it apart from other Romance languages.
Unlike some Romance languages (or even English, from the point of view of a foreigner), Portuguese pronunciation remains relatively similar to its spelling, making it easier for learners to grasp the spoken word. This melodic quality is further accentuated by the language’s stress patterns, which contribute to its overall musicality.

Vouwels and their sounds

Whilst Portugueses alphabet has only five vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u) , European Portuguese (in its Lisbon variant) has in total 14 nasal sounds: 5 nasal vowels [Ã], [é], [í], [õ], [ú] and 9 oral vowels [a], [A], [È], [ e], [E], [i], [ó], [o], [u]. Other Romance languages ​​such as Sapnish have only 5 oral vowels ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]).

Personal Infinitive

Personal Infinitive: a strange though useful verbal tense that exists only in Portuguese (among Romance Languages).

Portuguese vs Spanish

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European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese

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BRIEF HISTORY OS THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE

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SOME OF THE GREAT PORTUGUESE-SPEAKER WRITERS

(pôr bandeirinha do país antes do nome)