Portuguese language
Portuguese is spoken in: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Timor-Leste,
Guinea Bissau, Chinese S.A.R. of Macau, Mozambique, Portugal and São
Tomé and Príncipe.
Total speakers: Native: 210 million
Total: 230 million
Language family: Indo-European
Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now
Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized
Celts about 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th
centuries as Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire
(1415–1999) which spanned from Brazil in the Americas to Goa in India
and Macau in China. During that time, many creole languages based on
Portuguese also appeared around the world, especially in Africa, Asia
and the Caribbean.
Today it is one of the world's major languages, ranked sixth according to number of native speakers (over 200 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America (183 million, over 51% of the continent's population), and also a major lingua franca in Africa. It is the official language of nine countries (see the table on the right), being co-official with Spanish and French in Equatorial Guinea, with Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau, and with Tetum in Timor-Leste.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet language", while Brazilian writer Olavo Bilac poetically described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela: "the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful".
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