The Portuguese Language
History
Portuguese is a Romance language, as its origins date back to the 3rd century BC, when the Romans conquered Portugal and brought the Latin language to the region. With the fall of the Roman Empire, vulgar Latin evolved freely in what was called "Lusitanian Romance" and later, with the Arab domination of Portugal, the language was influenced by Arab, especially in vocabulary. In 1290 it was opened the first University of Portugal and the Portuguese language began to be officially used.
Despite Portugal being so small, Portuguese is the mother tongue of about 170 million people. This is due to Portugal long maritime tradition which had its Golden Age in the 16th century with the conquest of Brazil (where nowadays 154 million people speak Portuguese) and of some regions in Africa and Asia (5 million speakers). This great adventure resulted in an extremely rich travel literature and was responsible for the expansion of the national language.
Portuguese is a Romance language, as its origins date back to the 3rd century BC, when the Romans conquered Portugal and brought the Latin language to the region. With the fall of the Roman Empire, vulgar Latin evolved freely in what was called "Lusitanian Romance" and later, with the Arab domination of Portugal, the language was influenced by Arab, especially in vocabulary. In 1290 it was opened the first University of Portugal and the Portuguese language began to be officially used.
Despite Portugal being so small, Portuguese is the mother tongue of about 170 million people. This is due to Portugal long maritime tradition which had its Golden Age in the 16th century with the conquest of Brazil (where nowadays 154 million people speak Portuguese) and of some regions in Africa and Asia (5 million speakers). This great adventure resulted in an extremely rich travel literature and was responsible for the expansion of the national language.
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