Portuguese is a Romance language, descended from ancient Latin. From its beginnings in the region of Europe that became Portugal, the Portuguese language eventually spread to other parts of the globe - most notably to Brazil, where it took root and became the official language. Today, several centuries after the first Portuguese explorers set foot in South America, more than 180 million people speak Portuguese in Brazil, far more than the 10 million who speak it in Portugal.
While Brazilian Portuguese is not a separate language from European Portuguese, the two dialects do display noticeable differences. Over the years, Brazilian Portuguese has developed a number of distinct features that reflect its unique historical and cultural heritage. As a result, many people who plan to visit Brazil choose to study Brazilian Portuguese specifically.
The Brazilian Portuguese alphabet consists of the same 26 letters that are familiar to English speakers. However, the letters K, W, and Y are only used in foreign loan words, and the Brazilian pronunciation of many other letters is not the same as the English pronunciation. Vowel sounds, in particular, are very different from English, especially the nasalized vowels found in many Portuguese words. Nasalized vowels are indicated in Portuguese spelling by an 'm' or 'n' after the vowel, or by a tilde (~) over the vowel. Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation also differs noticeably from the pronunciation of European Portuguese, with clearer vowel sounds, stronger nasalization, and various other distinctions. However, Portuguese pronunciation differs from region to region in Brazil, depending on the settlement patterns of European immigrants.
Portuguese uses a number of diacritic marks with certain letters to indicate stress and various aspects of pronunciation, including à, á, â, ã, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, and ü. The last of these, ü, is not used in European Portuguese, only in Brazilian Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese also tends to use the circumflex accent more commonly than the European dialect does. There are a number of other spelling variations between the two dialects as well. Some correspond to differences in pronunciation, while others reflect spelling reforms that have taken place in one country but not the other. For example, Brazilian Portuguese spelling has retained silent consonants in a number of words even though the spelling of those words has been simplified in the European dialect.
The majority of all Portuguese words, whether Brazilian or European, are derived from Latin, and thus share common roots with vocabulary in Spanish, French, Italian, and other Romance languages. Most Portuguese words will be understood both in Brazil and in Portugal. However, over time, Brazilian Portuguese has picked up a substantial number of words from indigenous South American languages such as Tupi, Guarani, and others. Many of these terms represent the names of native plants, animals, and places. More foreign loanwords came from the various African languages spoken by the thousands of slaves imported into Brazil during its colonial period. While some of these indigenous and African words were passed back to European Portuguese, others remain unique to the Brazilian dialect and help give the language its local color.
It is also interesting to note that while Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese have both shown recent tendencies to borrow words from English and French, they often differ on which words they have absorbed and how those words have been adapted. English, in turn, has picked up various words from Portuguese, including some that are specifically of Brazilian origin, such as
samba,
tapioca,
petunia,
piranha,
cashew,
ipecac,
macaw, and
toucan.
Unlike English, Portuguese nouns have gender, meaning that every noun is considered to be either masculine or feminine. Portuguese adjectives come after the nouns they modify, and must match the gender and number of the noun. Portuguese verbs are conjugated to show person and tense. However, some of the verb forms commonly used in Brazilian Portuguese, such as the continuous verb forms, differ from those of European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese has also developed a different system for the placement of object pronouns. Similarly,
Brazilians have dropped the distinction between you-formal and you-familiar that exists in European Portuguese. The formal
você form of address is used for all occasions when speaking Portuguese in Brazil. It is also common to address someone in the third person in order to be polite.
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