Portuguese (Português)

Portuguese is a Romance language spoken by about 240 million people
mainly in Brazil (Brasil) and Portugal, and also in Angola,
Mozambique (Moçambique), Cape Verde (Cabo Verde),
Guinea-Bissau (Guiné-Bissau), São Tomé e
Principe, East Timor (Timor-Leste) and Macau. There are also
communities of Portuguese speakers in the USA, Canada and a number of
other countries.

Portuguese is a descendent of Latin, which was brought to the Iberian
Peninsula by Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants from 218 BC. The earliest
records of a distinctly Portuguese language appear in administrative documents
dating from the 9th century AD. In 1290 King Denis decreed that Portuguese, then
simply called the “Vulgar language” should be known as the Portuguese language
and should be officially used.

A reformed Portuguese orthography (nova ortografia), in which
words were spelled more in accordance with their pronunciation, was
adopted is Portugal in 1916. A slightly modified form was adopted in
Brazil in 1943 and revised in 1970. A new orthography which aims to
unify the written Portuguese of all the lusophone countries was adopted
in Brazil in 2009. Dates have yet to be set for its adoption in the
other Portuguese-speaking countries