This book grew out of an overview of Portuguese designed for undergraduate seniors and graduates with varying levels of familiarity with the language and little or no training in grammar or linguistics. Some of these students were native or semi-native speakers, while others had learned the language through formal study rather than residence in a Portuguese-speaking country. As a group, they were typical of students interested in studying language as a means of communication and literary expression rather than an end in itself, and curious to learn something about the structure and use of Portuguese without going too deep into its formal analysis under any one of the linguistic theories available. Presenting the language to those students in a systematic but interesting way turned out to be a challenging and rewarding experience. Patterned on that course, this book has been organized around several key topics seen from a linguistic viewpoint rather different from the prescriptive approach usually found in grammar manuals. Owing to its general character, Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction introduces only a handful of the language's main aspects, leaving out several otherwise important topics and a number of details that should be taken up at a more advanced level.

This book is divided into eight chapters, the first of which, “Portuguese in the world,” surveys the external history of the language, that is the facts surrounding its development and spread beyond its original territory.