The Portuguese language is one of the most essential spoken around the globe today. Not just is it the 6th most spoken language globally, but it also has a strong presence on almost all of the continents. Here are certain intriguing facts about this wonderful language.
The official language in 9 countries
It is a common perception that Portuguese is just spoken in Portugal and Brazil. Actually, it is the official language of nine separate countries: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé, and Principe. Furthermore, Portuguese is also, the official language of the Chinese autonomous territory of Macau.
Merely 5% of Portuguese speakers live in Portugal
Amazingly, with populous countries like Brazil and Mozambique having it as their official language, the majority of Portuguese speakers are not hailing from Portugal. However, the approximate proportions of Portuguese speakers outside of Portugal are quite big—just 1/20th of the world’s Lusophones actually live in the language’s home country.
Greatly influenced by Arabic
As the Islamic Moors from North Africa and the Middle East captured Portugal and Spain during the 8th century, a form of Arabic was the official language of the Iberian Peninsula until the Reconquista of the 13th century. As an outcome, the Portuguese language underwent a big influence from Arabic, and several words of Arabic origin remain in daily parlance, including azeitona (olive), garrafa (bottle), almofada (cushion), some of those to name.
Fastest growing European language globally behind English
Because of the huge numbers of Portuguese speakers around the globe (it is the 6th most spoken language worldwide) and its distribution across South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, Portuguese is growing rapidly and has the ability to be an “international communication language,” as per UNESCO.
Each verb has six separate endings
Arguably the biggest stumbling block for English speakers who are attempting to learn Portuguese is that each verb tense contains six separate conjugations for a range of pronouns. For example, the English verb “to write” has 2 conjugations in the present tense—I/you/we/they write, he/she/it writes. However, the equivalent verb in Portuguese will be conjugated like eu escrevo, tu escreves, ele/ela/você escreve, nós escrevemos, vós escreveis, elas/eles/vocês escrevem.
The longest Portuguese word has 29 letters
While English’s “antidisestablishmentarianism” contains 28 letters, Portuguese goes one step ahead with anticonstitucionalíssimamente, which stands for “in a very unconstitutional way.” It is the longest non-technical word within the Portuguese language, having 29 letters in total.
Till 2009 it had 23 letters
Till recently, the letters K, W, and Y were not part of the Portuguese language. In words like “kilogram,” Portuguese used to swap out the K for “qu-,” quilograma, while “W” and “Y” sounds were merely ever found in foreign proper nouns. In 2009, Portuguese-speaking countries around the globe got together to sign a new “Orthographic Agreement,” which standardized spelling form across multiple variations of Portuguese and introduced the letters K, W, and Y.