Brazil ranks one of the first places in the world in terms of the number of languages spoken. Its official language is the mother tongue of most of the inhabitants. Outside of Brazil, there is an opinion that a certain Brazilian language is spoken in the country.
Main language of Brazil
The main and official language of Brazil is Portuguese, which is recorded in Art. 13 of the Constitution of the State. Like some other languages, Portuguese has several language variants. Brazilian Portuguese is the most widely spoken in the world. It is spoken by over 190 million Brazilians.
A small part of the Brazilian population speaks the indigenous languages of their peoples, of which there are more than 170.
The Brazilian version has its own characteristics in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and use of idiomatic expressions. Although these features are quite profound, they are not sufficient to be considered fundamentally different from the basic structure of the Portuguese language. Therefore, it is impossible to speak about the presence of a separate Brazilian language.
There are several main dialects that are spoken in different regions of Brazil. The influence of the media, especially national television networks, helps to reduce linguistic differences.
The history of the development of the Portuguese language in Brazil
Several major events influenced the development of the main language of Brazil. Its territory was discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese, after which they began to form colonies. Along with Portuguese, the colonies actively used the Tupi language, which was spoken by the local population. Tupi was banned by royal decree in 1757, but it had already influenced Portuguese. The language includes numerous geographical names, names of local plants and animals.
In the period from 1549 to 1830. Millions of black slaves were resettled to Brazil, and Portuguese was replenished with new words from many African languages. Basically, these are words related to religion, cuisine, family relations.
After Brazil gained independence in 1822, immigrants from Europe and Asia rushed to the central and southern regions, carrying their culture and languages. In the twentieth century, the difference between Portuguese Brazilian and Portuguese European widened further due to the emergence of new technical words. As a result, in different variants of the language, the same words acquired different forms of pronunciation and spelling.
Spelling reform
During the twentieth century, several attempts were made to bring the vocabulary of the Portuguese language to uniform standards to avoid confusion arising from the use of different words to describe the same objects. As a result of lengthy preparatory work in 1990 in Lisbon, representatives of all Portuguese-speaking countries signed an international agreement on the reform of the spelling of the Portuguese language.
In Brazil, the Agreement officially entered into force in January 2009. Initially, a transitional period for its implementation was established until December 31, 2012, but was later extended by presidential decree for another 3 years.
