The Portuguese language is the last flower of Latium, wild and beautiful and yes indeed is one of the world's major languages, ranked sixth according to number of native speakers (over 223 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America (188 million, over 51% of the continent's population), and also one of the major linguae francae in Africa (Angola, Cape Verde, São Tome e Principe, Mozambique, Guine-Bissau and still a . It is the official language of eight countries (the five african countries that I've just stated and surely Brazil, Portugal and East Timor that joined the community in 2002 after regaining independence from Indonesia.), and co-official with Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau "Portuguese and Chinese are the two official languages".
However, Goa is India's smallest state in terms of area and the fourth smallest in terms of population and as the History proved ((Portuguese merchants "Vasco da Gama) first landed in Goa in the 15th century, and annexed it soon after. The Portuguese colony existed for about 450 years (one of the longest held colonial possessions in the world), until it was taken over by India in 1961 - and portuguese is well spoken as well as one the natives from that region.
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Portuguese: Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (abbreviated to CPLP) is a forum for friendship among lusophone (Portuguese-language-speaking) nations where Portuguese is an official language. The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 223 million people located across the globe. The CPLP nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 km², which is larger than Canada!
In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers.
Brazilian vs. European (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau,Mozambique, São Tomé e Principe)
"Spelling reforms of Portuguese"
There are some minor differences between the orthographies of Brazil and other Portuguese language countries. One of the most pervasive is the use of acute accents in the European/African/Asian orthography in many words such as sinónimo, where the Brazilian orthography has a circumflex accent, sinônimo. Another important difference is that Brazilian spelling often lacks c or p before c, ç, or t, where the European orthography has them; for example, cf. Brazilian fato with European facto, "fact", or Brazilian objeto with European objecto, "object". Some of these spelling differences reflect differences in the pronunciation of the words, but others are merely graphic.
***Someone stated "Jacyra Thu May 11, 2006 9:48 am GMT
««Brazilians in Canada speak the Brazilian dialect and they don't understand the Lusitanian dialect.»»" This is unknowingly untrue - False statement! Don't tell me that North American cannot communicate with the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! :-)
It is widely spoken, but not official, in Andorra, Luxembourg, Namibia and Paraguay (in the latter country there were 112,520 native Portuguese speakers according to the 2002 census), and in the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. There is also a statistically significant Portuguese-speaking community (approximately 10,000 people) in Jersey and Canada.
PS- Some Galicians want the autonomous region of Galicia in Spain to take part in this union, because their language, Galician, is closely related to Portuguese (in fact many consider one to be a dialect of the other). The two languages have a common origin in Galicia and northern Portugal.
Obrigado...
Atenciosamente grato,
Roberto
However, Goa is India's smallest state in terms of area and the fourth smallest in terms of population and as the History proved ((Portuguese merchants "Vasco da Gama) first landed in Goa in the 15th century, and annexed it soon after. The Portuguese colony existed for about 450 years (one of the longest held colonial possessions in the world), until it was taken over by India in 1961 - and portuguese is well spoken as well as one the natives from that region.
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Portuguese: Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (abbreviated to CPLP) is a forum for friendship among lusophone (Portuguese-language-speaking) nations where Portuguese is an official language. The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 223 million people located across the globe. The CPLP nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 km², which is larger than Canada!
In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers.
Brazilian vs. European (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau,Mozambique, São Tomé e Principe)
"Spelling reforms of Portuguese"
There are some minor differences between the orthographies of Brazil and other Portuguese language countries. One of the most pervasive is the use of acute accents in the European/African/Asian orthography in many words such as sinónimo, where the Brazilian orthography has a circumflex accent, sinônimo. Another important difference is that Brazilian spelling often lacks c or p before c, ç, or t, where the European orthography has them; for example, cf. Brazilian fato with European facto, "fact", or Brazilian objeto with European objecto, "object". Some of these spelling differences reflect differences in the pronunciation of the words, but others are merely graphic.
***Someone stated "Jacyra Thu May 11, 2006 9:48 am GMT
««Brazilians in Canada speak the Brazilian dialect and they don't understand the Lusitanian dialect.»»" This is unknowingly untrue - False statement! Don't tell me that North American cannot communicate with the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! :-)
It is widely spoken, but not official, in Andorra, Luxembourg, Namibia and Paraguay (in the latter country there were 112,520 native Portuguese speakers according to the 2002 census), and in the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. There is also a statistically significant Portuguese-speaking community (approximately 10,000 people) in Jersey and Canada.
PS- Some Galicians want the autonomous region of Galicia in Spain to take part in this union, because their language, Galician, is closely related to Portuguese (in fact many consider one to be a dialect of the other). The two languages have a common origin in Galicia and northern Portugal.
Obrigado...
Atenciosamente grato,
Roberto