Distribution

BRAZIL, PORTUGAL, ANGOLA, MOZAMBIQUE, GUINEA-BISSAU, CAPE VERDE ISLANDS, SAN TOME E PRINCIPE, Goa, Damão, Diu, East Timor, Macau.

Introduction

Portuguese is a Romance language closely related to Spanish. Educated speakers of European Portuguese (henceforth EP) have little trouble understanding each other; this variety also serves as the model for the lingua franca of Goa, Macau and the former African colonies. The prestige dialect in Portugal is that of the educated classes from the Coimbra-Lisbon region. Portuguese is also the native language of approximately 97% of Brazilians. Despite its size, Brazil shows few major variations in dialect in comparison with most European countries. The prestige variety of Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP) is that of Rio de Janeiro. The contrasts between European and Brazilian Portuguese are very much greater than those between British, American or Australian varieties of English. The pronunciation of the two varieties is very different; there are numerous divergences of vocabulary (for example, EP has more words of Arabic origin than BP, which has borrowed an increasingly large number of words from Indian languages and American English); and there are some grammatical differences. Despite these points of contrast, the two varieties are mutually comprehensible.

Phonology

General

The English and Portuguese vowel systems are quite different. While English has twelve pure vowels, BP has nine (EP eight plus one schwa /ə/), all of which can be nasalised.