Portuguese has undergone major evolutions to get to where it is now. It all started in the Iberian Peninsula. In the 1st millennium BC, the Iberian Peninsula was home to Lusitani, a Celtic tribe. The year 218 BC marked the arrival of the Romans who brought with them their culture, trade, and Latin language. After conquering the Western part of the Peninsula, the native language Lusitani started disappearing under the weight of the influential Latin. Portugal became an integral part of the Roman Empire after it was conquered. The collapsing of the Roman Empire brought with it a break down in cultural and linguistic uniformity within the region. Afterwards, Iberian Peninsula was invaded by people of Germanic origin who influenced the language mostly in military terms. The Moors also invaded the Peninsula and used their local language which is Arabic as the official language. However, Portuguese language continued to thrive and only adopted 900 hundred words after the Moors were overthrown (Williams, 9).
It is only until 9th century EC that Portuguese became a distinct language. Galicia which is currently a part of current Spain is home to the embryonic form of Portuguese. It was mainly used for poetry and songs. With Portugal attaining its independence in 1143 and the Moors leaving in 1249, Galician-Portuguese became the official spoken language and written language in Lusitania. In 1290 it replaced Latin then known as 'Vulgar language’ after the king’s decree. After the adoption in 1296 by the Royal Chancellery, Portuguese was used more in writing law and official documents rather than poetry. With the exploration age dawning time was ripe for Portuguese to travel overseas and abroad. With this movements, they brought with them new colonies in different continents. This triggered the use of Portuguese for administration purposes. It was widely associated with Catholic missionaries prompting the name Cristão in different places (Williams 15).
Apart from colonization, the spread of Portuguese was enhanced due to intermarriages. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese entered its current form after lexicologists defined its morphology and syntax. With time the Portuguese language spoken in both Brazil and Portugal have come to diverge. This is due to the fact that French influence on Portugal was immense in the eighteenth century, meanwhile, Brazilian Portuguese absorbed terms from other languages such as American Indian and African. Due to the onrush of new words, a commission consisting of all Portuguese speaking nations was formed in 1990. This was to help unify the language and help end confusion that occurred due to use of different words to mean the same thing (Williams, 28).
Portuguese is very similar to other Roman languages. Most of its lexicons, are classified into four word parts. It is a synthetic, fusional language. It distinguishes itself from other Romance language due to a number of grammatical features. For example, a future subjunctive tense, present perfect with an iterative sense, and an inflected infinitive. Every noun in the Portuguese language is considered to be either feminine or masculine. Adjectives appear after the nouns they modify, and must match the gender and the number of nouns. To demonstrate person and tense, verbs are conjugated in the Portuguese language. Verbs used in Brazilian Portuguese varies from the ones used in European Portuguese. Verb is very essential in the Portuguese grammar and its sentence structure. It is has more verbal inflections from classical Latin. Portuguese language in most occasions is pronounced precisely as it‘s spelled out. It has a very complex phonetic structure. This is simply because letters carries more than one pronunciation. The phonetic value of each letter is predictable from their situation within a word. This usually applies for all the constants ‘x’ excluded.
Portuguese language has a lot of interesting information. For example, it is understood that the Brazilian Portuguese is more accurate than the European Portuguese. This accuracy is in the form of pronunciations. Brazilians are more precise when it comes to pronouncing the words than their European counterparts. This is in spite of the fact that Portuguese language originated from Portugal and spread to Brazil. While replying, the word yes may be used for positive replies, but when used alone in certain cases, it may sound unnatural and impolite. There is no linear sequence of thoughts in written Portuguese. A topic sentence, can be placed anyhow within a sentence or a paragraph. Moreover, in written Portuguese, ideas are coordinated rather than subordinated. Indirect writing in Portuguese language may appear disorganized in the English language.
Works Cited
Williams, Edwin B.. From Latin to Portuguese; historical phonology and morphology of the Portuguese language.. 2d ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Print.
