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ThePortuguese language developed in the Western Iberian Peninsula fromLatin spoken byRoman soldiers and colonists starting in the 3rd century BC. Old Galician, also known asMedieval Portuguese, began to diverge from otherRomance languages after thefall of the Western Roman Empire and theGermanic invasions, also known asbarbarian invasions, in the 5th century, and started appearing in written documents around the 9th century. By the 13th century,Old Portuguese had its own literature and began to split into two languages. However, the debate of whether Galician and Portuguese are nowadays varieties of the same language, much like American English or British English, is still present. In all aspects—phonology,morphology,lexicon andsyntax—Portuguese is essentially the result of an organic evolution ofVulgar Latin with some influences from other languages, namely the nativeGallaecian andLusitanian languages spoken prior to the Roman domination.
Arriving on the Iberian Peninsula in 218 BC, theancient Romans brought with themLatin, from which all Romance languages descend. The language was spread by arriving Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous civilizations. Later, the inhabitants of the cities ofLusitania and the rest of Romanized Iberia were recognized as citizens of Rome.
Roman control of the western part of Hispania was not consolidated until the campaigns of Augustus in 26 BC. Although the western territories to the south of the Tagus River were conquered only after the victory of Licinius Crassus in the year 93 BC,[1] only an estimated four hundred words of the native languages[2] persist in modern Portuguese. After 200 years of wars, first with theCarthaginians in the Eastern part of the peninsula, and then with the local inhabitants, EmperorAugustus conquered the whole peninsula, which was namedHispania. He then divided it into threeprovinces:Hispania Tarraconensis,Hispania Baetica, andLusitania, the latter of which included most of modern Portugal. At the end of the 3rd century, EmperorDiocletian split Tarraconensis into three parts, creating the adjacent province ofGallaecia, which geographically enclosed the remaining part of Portugal, and modern-dayGalicia in the northwestern region of Spain.
Between AD 409 and 711, as the Roman Empire was collapsing, the Iberian Peninsula wasinvaded by Germanic tribes, mainlySuevi andVisigoths, who largely absorbed the Roman culture and language of the peninsula; however, since the Roman schools and administration were closed, the Vulgar Latin language of ordinary people was left free to evolve on its own and the uniformity of the language across the Iberian Peninsula broke down. In the north-western part of the peninsula (today's Northern Portugal and Galicia), Vulgar Latin began to develop local characteristics, becoming what linguists today call Galician-Portuguese. TheGermanic languages influencedGalician-Portuguese by introducing words often linked to the military likeguerra (war) orlaverca (lark), placenames such asResende, animals likeganso (goose),texugo (badger), human feelings such asorgulho (pride), verbs likebrigar (tofight), suffixes likereguengo (royal domain) and everyday objects such asfrasco (flask).
From 711, with theMoorish invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in theUmayyad conquest of theVisigothic Kingdom in Hispania,Arabic was adopted as the administrative language in the conquered regions. However, much of the population continued to speak the Latin-derived Romance dialects, now referred to collectively asAndalusi Romance by modern linguists, or asMozarabic popularly.[3] TheAlmohad conquest ofal-Andalus led to the emigration of Andalusi Christians (Mozarabs) from southern Iberia, speakers ofAndalusi Arabic and Romance, to the Christian north, especially to theTagus valley.[4]: 173–174 The main lasting effect of Arabic influence on Romance speech is lexical. Modern Portuguese has anywhere from 400 up to 800 words of Arabic origin,[5] especially relating to food, agriculture and the crafts, which have no cognates in other Romance languages except in Spanish from which, in fact, Portuguese borrowed many of its Arabic-derived words. The Arabic influence is also visible in place names, especially in the southern provinces, such as theAlgarve,Alfama andFátima.
| Excerpt of medieval Portuguese poetry[6] |
|---|
| Das que vejo |
| non desejo |
| outra senhor se vós non, |
| e desejo |
| tan sobejo, |
| mataria um leon, |
| senhor do meu coraçon: |
| fin roseta, |
| bela sobre toda fror, |
| fin roseta, |
| non me meta |
| en tal coita voss'amor! |
| João de Lobeira (1270?–1330?) |
The oldest surviving records containing writtenGalician-Portuguese are documents from the 9th century. In these official documents, bits of Galician-Portuguese found their way into texts that were written in Latin. Today, this phase is known as "Proto-Portuguese" simply because the earliest of these documents are from the formerCounty of Portugal, although Portuguese and Galician were still a single language. This period lasted until the 12th century.
What modern scholars callGalician-Portuguese was originally the native language of the medievalKingdom of Galicia, which was founded in 910 and included the northern part of present-dayPortugal. It appears to have also been used regularly in other Christian kingdoms of theIberian Peninsula as the language forlyric song. It was employed by poets from throughout the non-Basque medieval Christian kingdoms of the peninsula; includingLeon,Castile,Aragon andCatalonia. It is also the language used in theCantigas de Santa Maria. These songs were traditionally attributed toAlfonso X, a Castilian king, though more recent work shows that they must have been composed in collaboration with many translators, poets and musicians.
Portugal was formally recognized as an independent kingdom in 1143 by theKingdom of León, into which Galicia was incorporated at the time, withAfonso Henriques as its first king. In 1290, KingDiniz created the first Portuguese university, in Coimbra (theEstudo Geral) and decreed that the language of the Portuguese, then simply called the "Vulgar language" (i.e.Vulgar Latin) should be used in preference toLatin and known as the "Portuguese language". In 1296, Portuguese was adopted by the royal chancellary and was used not only in poetry but also when writing law and in notaries. In the first period of "Old Portuguese" (from the 12th to 14th century), the language came gradually to be used in official documents. With the political separation of the County of Portugal from Galicia, Galician-Portuguese lost its unity and slowly became two increasingly distinct languages. This growing difference accelerated when the kingdom of León was united withCastile (13th century) and Galician was increasingly influenced byCastilian. Meanwhile, the southern variant of Galician-Portuguese became the modern Portuguese language within theKingdom of Portugal and its empire.
Portuguese is the second most spoken Romance language, behind Spanish, partially because of the large population of speakers in Brazil, where it is the national language.[9] There are many respects in which Brazilian Portuguese differs from European Portuguese in sound and structure.
Another notable difference is the presence of more audible vowels in Brazilian Portuguese.[10] Beyond this, the nuances of spoken versions of both language practices continue to evolve as generations of speakers age and the world continues to globalize, leading to changes in language practices internationally. Portuguese has been made an official language of Mozambique, Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, East Timor and Macao.[11]
The end of "Old Portuguese" was marked by the publication of theCancioneiro Geral byGarcia de Resende, in 1516.
"Modern Portuguese" developed from the early 16th century to the present. During theRenaissance, scholars and writers borrowed many words fromClassical Latin (learned words borrowed from Latin also came fromRenaissance Latin) andancient Greek, which increased the complexity of the Portugueselexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin and so they easily adopted Latin words into their writing (and eventually speech) in Portuguese.[citation needed] As with most other Europeanvernacular languages, the standardization of the Portuguese language was propelled by the development of theprinting press. In 1536,Fernão de Oliveira published hisGrammatica da lingoagem portuguesa in Lisbon, the firstPortuguese grammar.[12][13] The work of this heterodox Dominican priest, philologist and mariner was soon followed. In 1540,João de Barros crown officer published hisGramática da Língua Portuguesa along with moral dialogues and basics of the Catholic Church to help teaching young aristocrats.[13][14] This second work, illustrated with woodcuts, is considered the world's first printed illustratedtextbook.[14]
The second period of Old Portuguese covers the time from the 14th to the 16th centuries and is marked by the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries. Colonisers, traders and missionaries spread the Portuguese language to many regions inAfrica,Asia andThe Americas. Today most Portuguese speakers live in Brazil, the biggest former colony of Portugal. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become alingua franca in Asia and Africa, used for not only colonial administration and trade but also communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities. In Ceylon (modernSri Lanka), several kings became fluent speakers of Portuguese, and nobles often took Portuguese names. The spread of the language was helped by its association with theCatholicmissionary efforts, which led to its being calledCristão ("Christian") in many places. TheNippo Jisho, a Japanese–Portuguese dictionary written in 1603, was a product ofJesuit missionary activity inJapan. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century, despite the severe measures taken by theDutch to abolish it in Ceylon andIndonesia.
Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities inIndia,Sri Lanka,Malaysia andIndonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The language has largely changed in these communities and has evolved through the centuries into severalPortuguese creoles. Also, a considerable number of words of Portuguese origin are found inTetum, the national language ofEast Timor, such aslee "to read" (fromler),aprende "to learn" (fromaprender) andtenke "to have to" (fromtem que). Portuguese words entered the lexicons of many other languages, such aspan "bread" (frompão) inJapanese (seeJapanese words of Portuguese origin),sepatu "shoe" (fromsapato) inIndonesian,keju "cheese" (fromqueijo) inMalay andmeza "table" (frommesa) inSwahili. Due to the vast expanse of thePortuguese Empire, there are also numerous words that entered English (see:List of English words of Portuguese origin) such asalbino,baroque,mosquito,potato,savvy andzebra.
In bothmorphology andsyntax, Portuguese represents an organic transformation ofLatin without the direct intervention of any foreign language. The sounds, grammatical forms, and syntactical types, with a few exceptions, are derived from Latin, and almost 80% of its vocabulary is still derived from the language of Rome. Some of the changes began during theEmpire, others took place later. A few words remained virtually unchanged, likecarro,taberna ("tavern"), or even returned to a form close to the original, such ascoxa ("thigh") – in this case, however, only the spelling looks identical: Latin ⟨x⟩ and Portuguese ⟨x⟩ designate two completely different sounds,[ks] and[ʃ] respectively. LearnedLatinisms were formed in the late Middle Ages, due to the use ofChurch Latin by theCatholic Church, and during theRenaissance, whenClassical antiquity in general, andLiterary Latin in particular, enjoyed great prestige. Thus, for example, Latinaurum, which had originatedouro ("gold") anddourado ("golden"), was re-introduced as the adjectiveáureo ("golden"). In the same way,locālem ("place"), which had evolved tolugar, was later reintroduced as the more eruditelocal. Many eruditeGreek andLatin words and combining elements were also introduced or reintroduced in this way. Because of this, many of these words are still familiar to Portuguese speakers.
Galician-Portuguese (from 11th to 16th centuries) had seven oral vowels/a,e,ɛ,i,o,ɔ,u/ (like in most Romance languages) and five nasal vowels/ã,ẽ,ĩ,õ,ũ/. The vowels/e–ɛ,o–ɔ/ were raised to/e,o/ in unstressed syllables, even in final syllables (like in modern Spanish); e.g.vento/vẽto/,quente[ˈkẽte]. However, the/a–ɐ/ distribution (including/ɐ̃/) is still dubious and under discussion; some either stating that these two vowels were allophones and in complementary distribution (like in Spanish and Modern Galician, only treated as/a/),Alemanha, manhã/ale'maɲa,ma'ɲã/; or stating they were not allophones and under distribution like in European Portuguese nowadays,Alemanha, manhã/ɐle'mɐɲɐ,mɐ'ɲɐ̃/.[15]
Around the 16th century, according toFernão de Oliveira'sGrammatica da lingoagem portuguesa, in Chapter VIII,/a/ and/ɐ/ would already be considered as different phonemes. As a result, the vowel phonology would consist about an 8-oral-vowel system/ɐ,a,e,ɛ,i,o,ɔ,u/ and a 5-nasal-vowel system/ɐ̃,ẽ,ĩ,õ,ũ/; possibly resulting that/ɐ–a,e–ɛ,o–ɔ/ would be raised to/ɐ,e,o/ in unstressed syllables (even in final syllables).[16] Prosodic change in the Classical to Modern pronunciations of Portuguese has been studied through a statistical analysis in evolution of written texts in the 16th and 17th centuries.[17]
From the 16th century to now, Brazilian and European varieties started evolving separately, resulting in meaningful differences regarding vowel phonology. Brazilian Portuguese conserves the 8-oral-vowel system, but European and African varieties innovated by creating a 9th new vowel:/ɨ/, generally used when "e" is unstressed.
Palatalization of voiceless stops—the consonants[k] and[t] assimilated with the high vowels[e] and[i], and with the semivowel[j].
A more ancient evolution was
Palatalization of liquids and nasals—the consonants[l] and[n] assimilated with the semivowel[j], producing the palatals lh[ʎ] and nh[ɲ]:
Voicing—some consonants did not disappear but rather evolved with voiceless stops becoming voiced stops and voiced stops becoming voiced fricatives in certain positions, a common type ofsound change:
Lenition—consonant clusters, especially long (geminate) consonants, were simplified:
Phoneme /b/ evolved as [v]. The/v/ phoneme was generally derived either (1) from an allophone of Latin/b/ between vowels or (2) from the Latin phoneme corresponding to the letter ⟨v⟩ (pronounced[w] in Classical Latin, but laterfortified to the status of africative consonant in Vulgar Latin).
Elision—the consonants[l] and[n] ofVulgar Latin were deleted between vowels, after which sometimes the vowels around them coalesced, or an epenthetic semivowel was introduced between them. Original geminates[ll],[nn] persisted, later becoming single[l],[n].
In medievalGalician-Portuguese,/m/ and/n/ between vowels or at the end of a syllable became the velar nasal phoneme/ŋ/, leading to regressive nasalization of the preceding vowel as a secondary phonetic effect.[20] This consonant was then at a later stage lost or modified in Portuguese, although it was retained inGalician in some words (e.g. modernunha (/uŋa/) identical in pronunciation to medievalhũa).
This change produced one of the most striking phonological differences between Portuguese and Spanish. The history of nasal vowels in hiatus with a previous or following vowel is complex, depending on the identity of the two vowels and the position of the stress.
1. If the vowels were near each other, they collapsed into a single vowel (nasal or oral, according to the nasality of the stressed vowel):
2. Otherwise, if the second vowel was more closed, the result was usually a nasal diphthong:
3. If the second vowel was more open, or as open, nasalization was lost:
4. If the first vowel was[i], however, nasalization evolved to apalatal nasal consonant, inserted between the two vowels:
Progressivenasalization—The spread of nasalization forward from a nasal consonant, especially[m].
Epenthesis—the insertion of a sound to break up a sequence of vowels:
Examples such as the former two have been used by some authors to argue that the digraphnh was a nasal approximant in medieval Portuguese, and thus its pronunciation[j̃] in most dialects of Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe is the original one.[21]
Dissimilation—Modification of a sound by the influence of neighboring sounds; similar became different over time.
1. Between vowels:
2. Between consonants:
Metathesis—a sound change that alters the order of phonemes in a word. Semi-vowel metathesis:
Consonant metathesis in[l] and[ɾ]:
Vowel metathesis:
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Old Portuguese had seven sibilants:lamino-alveolar affricates/ts/ (⟨c⟩ before ⟨e/i⟩, ⟨ç⟩ elsewhere) and/dz/ (⟨z⟩);apico-alveolar fricatives/s/ (⟨s⟩, or ⟨ss⟩ between vowels) and/z/ (⟨s⟩ between vowels);palato-alveolar fricatives/ʃ/ (⟨x⟩) and/ʒ/, earlier/dʒ/ (⟨j⟩, also ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e/i⟩); andpalato-alveolar affricate/tʃ/ (⟨ch⟩). This system was identical to the system ofOld Spanish, and Portuguese followed the same path as Old Spanish in deaffricating the sibilants/ts/ and/dz/ into lamino-alveolar fricatives that still remained distinct from the apico-alveolar consonants. This produced a system of six fricatives and one affricate, which is still maintained in parts Minho region and northeast Portuguese province ofTrás-os-Montes and in the adjacentMirandese language; but in most places, these seven sounds have been reduced to four.
Everywhere except in the above-mentioned parts of Trás-os-Montes, the lamino-alveolar and apico-alveolar fricatives merged. (This appears to have happened no earlier than the seventeenth century, on the evidence of the spelling system used byAlexandre de Rhodes to representMiddle Vietnamese). In parts of northern Portugal andGalicia, they became apico-alveolars (as in the central and northern peninsular Spanish pronunciation of/s/). In most of Brazil, they became lamino-alveolar consonants (as in the English pronunciation of/s/ and/z/). In central and southern Portugal (and inRio de Janeiro and surrounding areas, due to the relocation of the Portuguese nobility in the early 1800s), they merged as lamino-alveolars before vowels, but as palato-alveolar/ʃʒ/ elsewhere. Meanwhile,/tʃ/ eventually lost its affrication and merged with/ʃ/, although/tʃ/ is maintained throughout Trás-os-Montes and parts of Minho region.
| Old Portuguese | Modern Portuguese | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Orthography | Pronunciation | Orthography | Pronunciation |
| ⟨j⟩ or soft⟨g⟩ | /dʒ/ →/ʒ/ | ⟨g⟩ before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩; ⟨j⟩ elsewhere | /ʒ/ |
| ⟨g⟩ before⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩;⟨j⟩ elsewhere | /ʒ/ | ||
| ⟨z⟩ | /d͡z̪/ →/z̪/ | ⟨z⟩ | /z̪/ |
| intervocalic⟨s⟩ | /z̺/ | intervocalic ⟨s⟩ | |
| ⟨ch⟩ | /t͡ʃ/ | ⟨ch⟩ | /ʃ/ |
| ⟨x⟩ | /ʃ/ | ⟨x⟩ | |
| ⟨c⟩ before⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩;⟨ç⟩ before⟨a⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨u⟩ | /t͡s̪/ | ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩; ⟨ç⟩ or⟨s⟩ before ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨u⟩ | /s̪/ |
| ⟨s⟩ in syllable onset or coda;⟨ss⟩ between vowels | /s̺/ | ⟨s⟩ in syllable onset or coda; ⟨ss⟩ between vowels | |
It appears that the sound written ⟨v⟩ was at one point during the medieval period pronounced as avoiced bilabial fricative[β]. Subsequently, it either changed into a labiodental fricative[v] (as in central and southern Portugal, and hence in Brazil), or merged into/b/ (as in northern Portugal and Galicia, similarly to modern Spanish). Also similarly to modern Spanish, the voiced stops/bdɡ/ eventually became pronounced as fricatives[βðɣ] between vowels and after consonants, other than in the clusters/nd//ld//nɡ//mb/ (the nasals were presumably still pronounced in these clusters, rather than simply reflected as a nasal vowel). However, this change happened after the colonization of Brazil, and never affectedBrazilian Portuguese.
Final unstressed/a/ was subsequently raised to/ɐ/. Final/o/ was eventually raised to/u/ in both Portugal and Brazil, but independently. Final unstressed/e/ was likewise raised to/i/ in Brazil, but shifted to/ɨ/ in Portugal. In parts of Portugal (but not in Brazil), these changes have come to affect almost all unstressed instances of/a//o//e/; but not/ou/ (which now appears as/o/ in some parts of the country), nor the former sequences/aa//ee//oo/ (which now appear as/a//ɛ//ɔ/ respectively), nor in syllables closed by stop consonants (e.g. insecção "section",optar "to choose"). Hence in Portugalpesar "to weigh"/pɨˈzaɾ/ butpregar "to preach"/prɛˈɡaɾ/ (formerpreegar <praedicāre);morar "to live"/muˈɾaɾ/, butcorado "blushing"/kɔˈɾadu/ (formercoorado <colōrātum),roubar "to rob"/ʁoˈbaɾ/. (In Brazil these appear as/peˈzaɾ/,/preˈɡaɾ/,/moˈɾaɾ/,/koˈɾadu/,/hoˈbaɾ/.) Recently in Rio de Janeiro (and rapidly spreading to other parts of Brazil),/t/ and/d/ have been affricated to/tᶴ/ and/dᶾ/ before/i/, including/i/ from unstressed/e/.
Old Portuguese had a large number of occurrences of hiatus (two vowels next to each other with no consonant in between), as a result of the loss of Latin/lndɡ/ between vowels. In the transition to modern Portuguese, these were resolved in a complex but largely regular fashion, either remaining, compressing into a single vowel, turning into a diphthong, or gaining an epenthetic consonant such as/v/ or/ɲ/; see above.
Portuguese traditionally had two alveolar rhotic consonants: a flap/ɾ/ and trill/r/, as in Spanish. In many areas of Portugal the trill/r/ has passed into a uvular fricative/ʁ/. In most parts of Brazil, however,/r/ has become anunvoiced fricative/x/ (variously[xχh]), and all instances of/ɾ/ not preceding a vowel have been likewise affected. (When final, this sound is sometimes not pronounced at all.)
/l/ at the end of a syllable became heavilyvelarized/ɫ/ in Portuguese. This still remains in Portugal, but in Brazil has progressed further, merging into/w/.
Romance speakers from all over the peninsula, had they been asked, would have identified their spoken tongue as ladino, certainly not as leonés, navarro, or any other variety. All shades of Hispano-Romance share many linguistic features; only Castilian was anomalous, and in its eventual expansion southward it ruptured a fundamental unity of speech. East, west, and south of Castile, in both Islamic and Christian lands, the most characteristic traits of HispanoRomance recur. Were it not for the historical accident of Castilian expansion, Spanish would sound very different today, and its contrasts with Portuguese and Catalan would stand out in less sharp relief... Andalusi Romance, virtually untouched by outside linguistic influences in the first centuries of its history, may have been doomed from the moment in 1085 when Alfonso VI and his Castilian troops entered Toledo. The dialect of Castile had been forged in the northern mountains, where Basque speakers had never been subjugated and the veneer of Latinization was thin, and many of its features were anomalous within Hispano-Romance. Yet Castile proved as vigorous and expansionist in language as it was in politics and arms. Like an advancing wedge, the kingdom and its language pressed into Arab-held territory. The neighboring kingdoms were also marching southward: Galicia moved down the Atlantic coast, conquering what was to become Portugal, and the Catalan speakers of the northeast expanded along the Mediterranean and across to the Balearic Islands. But Castile encroached on the territory to its west and east, gaining particularly at the expense of León and Navarre, so that the "wedge" soon became a bulge. Within it Castilian, once an isolated minor dialect, came to be the tongue of the whole central peninsula.
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