Talk:Portuguese language

Why Mention This in the Introduction

Despite its status as a global language the international learning of Portuguese, and the schools which offer it as a subject, is smaller compared with more Euro-centric and smaller market languages such as German and Italian in addition to lacking official language status at the United Nations.

I would like this line to be removed for two reasons:

1. If you take out intuition, there are no reliable sources mentioned to back this claim.
2. It doesn't make sense to include this line in the opening paragraph.

If no objections are raised, I will remove it on the eighth day from now.

Sin un nomine (talk) 06:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. --Good Hope Phanta (talk) 18:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Removed the line. Sin un nomine (talk) 15:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Lexical Stress: Please do not edit examples

Anonymous editors keep deleting the phrases "in Brazilian Portuguese" and "in European Portuguese" from the section on lexical stress. Please stop it!

The remarks are important, as the pronunciation of the pairs of words differs between the two varieties of the language, and some of the pairs differ in more than just stress, in some of the dialects.

This kind of misguided "correction" happens so often that I'm not sure how to avoid the problem. FilipeS

BTW, I'm Brazilian and I don't pronounce "ouvi" as [o'vi].

The pronunciations given in the article are the most common. Obviously, it would be impractical to represent all different accents. FilipeS 15:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm brazilian too and I don't pronounce "ouvi" as [o'vi] too.

How do you pronounce it? FilipeS 13:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

incorrect BP pronunciation

the IPA for the "brazilian portuguese" pronunciation contains some inaccuracies:

• "idade", "sorte" etc. are affricated not palatalized. see Talk:Portuguese phonology.

Aren't they both affricated and palatalized? "sorte" (AFAIK) doesn't end with the sound that "nuts" (English) ends with, which would be [t] + affricate. Instead, it's [t] + affricate + palatal. Smith.chuck 04:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It is an affricate, namely [t̠ʃ]. This has been discussed here a few times before. SeeTalk: Portuguese phonology. FilipeS 07:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• i don't believe that low-mid vowels exist in pre-tonic syllables.
• i question the superscripted /j/ after non-final nasal /e/; what's this supposed to mean?

both the Collins Dictionario Pratico and The Romance Languages (Harris and Vincent) support all of the above. Benwing 06:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about the phonetic transcription of the excerpt from Camões' poem, at the bottom of the page? FilipeS

Manezês

Manezês Manezês is spoken in Florianópolis. They say it has a very close accent to the European one. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manez%C3%AAs

Thank you very much for the link. However, that article is in Portuguese! I'm not sure we should link to it here in the English language section of Wikipedia... FilipeS

I've added it to the Dialects entry. FilipeS

I've added pt:Manezês to Wikipedia:Translation into English#Portuguese-to-English. User:Angr 17:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I have taken a crack at translating it. --It's-is-not-a-genitive 16:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Guttural R

There was some controversy recently about the pronunciation of the initial R in European Portuguese. Wikipedian Richard George edited the uvular R IPA transcriptions into alveolar trills. I reverted his changes because I felt they were significant and inaccurate, and that he should have discussed them here in the Talk page first. Still, I suppose I could have made a bigger effort to make him see this, and "significant" is perhaps a subjective qualification.

Although an arbitration request has been issued by Richard George, and it's still underway, I felt it would be best for everyone if we sorted this out as soon as possible. Thus, I am presenting my evidence here, to be discussed. If convincing evidence to the contrary of my position is shown, I am willing to change my stance on this matter.

• First of all, I want to point out that the article, in its current version, does not deny that the alveolar trill is used in Portugal. On the contrary, by linking to the Guttural R page, it openly acknowledges the existence of that pronunciation.
• I argue, however, that the alveolar trill is not the most representative pronunciation of the Portuguese of Portugal; the guttural R (uvular, in this case) is. In favour of this position, I give the following sources and observations:

1. I am a native speaker, and most people I know use the guttural pronunciation, not the trill.
2. TV presenters in Portugal overwhelmingly use the guttural pronunciation. In the radio, the trill is a bit more common, but I would say the guttural R is still predominant.
3. This expert opinion (in Portuguese) states that the uvular pronunciation is the most common in the country today: "O r inicial, tal como o dobrado (rr) tem, de facto duas pronúncias, uma também apical, mas múltiplo, ou seja com mais toques, o que lhe dá o chamado som rolado, muito usado ainda sobretudo no Norte de Portugal, e o uvular, muito parecido com o r alemão, que é actualmente o mais usado."
4. Mateus, Maria Helena & d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000) The Phonology of Portuguese ISBN 0-19-823581-X, on page 5, describe the uvular pronunciation as the standard, although they also mention the trill, and they identify the former with "the standard dialects spoken in Lisbon and Coimbra, which are accepted in Portugal as a reference for teaching Portuguese as a second language and are the most heard on radio and television" (page 4). FilipeS

The uvular trill is the most common in my opinion. I'm european portuguese and I always use R and hear others use it too, not ʁ (I'm from Lisbon). I'd change the page but I may be wrong, maybe the uvular trill R is not the most common in europe but I doubt it.

Also no r is not an allophone. People don't pronounce it by accident, it happens to people that have trouble pronouncing R. Also common people can tell the difference between r and R. Anyway not an expert, phonetics is just a hobby for me so I might as well be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raydred (talk • contribs) 15:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we put a note pointing /r/ as alophone of /ʁ/? José San Martin 00:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I suppose we could change

"There is considerable dialectal variation in the value of the rhotic phonemes /?/ and /?/. See Guttural R in Portuguese, for details."

to

"There is considerable dialectal variation in the value of the phoneme /?/. In Europe and Africa, its most frequent realizations are the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] and the trill [r]. In Brazil, it is usually pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative [x], or as a voiceless glottal fricative [h]. See Guttural R in Portuguese, for details."

as is already at Portuguese phonology. That should avoid any misunderstandings. To be honest, the transcription of the initial rhotic of Portuguese is always going to be a complicated matter. /r/ is its traditional value, but using this would give the wrong idea about what is the most common pronunciation today, to foreigners. I like /ʁ/ because it still looks like an "R", although in absolute terms [x] and [h] are probably used my more speakers than either of the former two... FilipeS

• I am a native speaker of portuguese too. The trill is also used in the South of Portugal and in the lower classes of the major cities except Lisbon. The only people I know that pronounciate the other r (that sounds french to me) are mostly from Lisbon. So I think the trill r is still the predominant.Japf1 01:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

-Regarding the above discussion of the appearance of /ʁ/ relative to r / R ... If you're dealing with IPA transcription, we ought to try and come as close as possible to that which is a 'standard' pronunciation. /ʁ/ for 'reais'? Really? I am by no means a speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, but I've *only* heard it as [x] or [h]. In IPA, orthographic representation is not important; representation of the sounds produced by native speakers is paramount. Anyone expecting to interpret IPA transcription ought to be assumed to understand IPA, so deviation in orthography isn't really an issue. Maybe provide both as examples of allophones?

There is no standard pronunciation. Portuguese is pluricentric. The Portuguese standard is /ʁ/. In Brazil, no doubt it's different. Whatever -- there are four main different ways to pronounce this phoneme. But the article can't use all of them, all of the time, so it picked one, and uses that as a representative -- not a standard -- of the Portuguese "rr", which is often (though not everywhere) guttural. It doesn't make much difference which regional variant is used in the article, as long as it's consistent within itself, and (preferably) with other Portuguese language articles. This article clearly mentions that there is more than one way to pronounce it. FilipeS 12:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification, Filipe. Smith.chuck 04:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

-WRT the box on the right-hand side of the main article, it lists [poxtu'ges] as the Brazilian pronunciation. In the audio file that plays for the pronunciation, which is supposed to represent Brazilian Portuguese in the second pronunciation, it sure sounds to me like [portu'ges] not with the {IPA|[x]} at all. I'm not a native speaker, but I do detect an inconsistency there. Anyone care to comment? Smith.chuck 09:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If that is how the audio sounds (I'll confess in advance I haven't checked yet) it is probably because the person who recorded it is from Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina or Paraná. Using an alveolar trill in syllable coda is an exception in BP; you will hear [x], [h], [ɹ] or [χ] everywhere else in the country, including the most populous areas of the country (namely Minas Gerais, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro (state) and São Paulo (state). I think the pronunciation should either reflect the speech of the majority or include all the variants (that may be cumbersome). Macgreco 23:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I have listened to the file and indeed it doesn't sound like [x] - it actually sounded to me like an alveolar tap. See this [1] article on the various realizations - seven, plus a stigmatized [ś] and the caipira [ɹ] which is not cited - in Brazil. Macgreco 00:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The article focuses on the main variants of Portuguese. The caipira "r" is mentioned in the specialized articles Guttural R, Portuguese dialects, and Caipira. FilipeS 12:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I meant the pdf paper that I linked. Macgreco 23:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Vouch for this. Brazilian native, and our "rr" is definitely softer than the European one. Frmoraes 03:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

You can keep your vouches for yourself. Show me some sources. FilipeS 00:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Translation of excerpt from Os Lusíadas

The following change has been made, with the argument that there were translation errors:

For all the qualities she saw in them --> For all the qualities (s)he saw in her

And in their language, which when she imagines, --> And in the language, which when she imagines,

I am changing the verses back, because these are not errors:

1. In context, via clearly refers to Venus (she).
2. Gente (people) is feminine singular in Portuguese (her), but a plural in English (them).
3. "The language" is not good English. You must use the possessive, "their language"; it can't be omitted, as in Portuguese. FilipeS 22:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I went through the article rather quickly and didn't realize that all of those verses were from one contiguous passage; I thought they were a series of isolated stanzas. Taken in context, you are absolutely correct in reverting my edit. Dasondas 23:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, FilipeS, wouldn't you agree that "E na língua" should be translated to "And in the language" instead of "And in their language"? I think I'll change that one. Dasondas 23:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody have an opinion about possibly changing the translation of "estrela" from "star" to "destiny"? I think "destiny" would be a better fit here and would be a proper rendering of the Portuguese into English. Dasondas 00:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to go away for awhile, so I made the change suggested above. I think it reads a little bit better now. Let us (me) know if someone disagrees. Dasondas 00:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that "star" in this case is supposed to mean "good fortune", but I will check it in the literature before making any changes to the translation. FilipeS 10:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I considered "good fortune" as well and that might actually render a slightly better-sounding English. However I chose "destiny" because this passage is a description of a debate (or discusssion) between the gods about the future legacy of Lusitania, and in this sense I think that "destiny" is a more accurate English rendition of the sense of the dramatic action since "fortune" or even "luck" would imply a result do to chance or nature rather than by deistic assistance. I also changed "showed" to "displayed" to improve the flow of the translation. I think this helps also, but I'll readily concede that there are other possibilities that might be better yet. Dasondas 12:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)~

I've now found Lengdon White's translation from 2001, which is the only modern English translation I could find referenced anywhere (albeit my research was fairly cursory)> I didn't find his efforts particularly satisfying, by I repeat them here for discussion,

Against him spoke the lovely Venus

Favoring the people of Portugal

For her love of Roman virtue

She saw ressurected in them,

In their stout hearts, in their star

Which shone bright above Ceuta,

In the language which an inventive mind

Could mistake for Latin, passibly declined

I'm intrigued by his translation of "mostraram" into "shined". In the first place the number is confusing because "star" is singular and "mostraram" is plural. Clearly in White's translation it is only the star which is shining and not the hearts, so this appears to be one problem. The other is with the passive-voice rendering. This possibility had actually occured to me before finding White's translation, but I thought that Portuguese required the pronomial form of "mostrar" (e.g. "mostrar-se") in order to be translated as "shone" in the passive voice, although perhaps in the days of Camões White's rendering would have been fine. We are now quite far away from my areas of expertise, and it would be educational to hear a (much) more informed opinion on this point, such as that of FilipeS. Dasondas 12:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I like Mr. White's translation, actually! It does not stray much from the original, but flows very smoothly! I disagree that his translation implies that only the star "shone", as this verb is valid both for singular and plural. It can very well refer to the "star" and the "stout hearts" (the latter of which, by the way, is a nicer translation than the one the article has currently). Regarding the use of the passive, well, White has rephrased the metaphor a little bit. It's very difficult to keep everything the same when translating poetry. But I don't think it takes anything substantial away from the sense of the verses.

Going back to what we were discussing before, though, I have to say that I'm not entirely satisfied with your change of "star" to "destiny". The original poem has a metaphor -- why lose it in the translation? Keep it! I think the English word "star" has the connotation of "good fortune", too, like in Portuguese. What do you think? FilipeS 14:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I certainly agree that White's translation of this passage taken in its entirety is better than what we have now, and it wouldn't bother me at all if we just used his version. On second read, I can see how "stout hearts" might be shining as well "their star" as part of the metaphor -- although I think most readers of the English who are not already familiar with the original will only see a star shining without the hearts. On the other hand, I do agree that White has preserved the sense of the metaphor in his use of "star"; in the original translation that I found in the article I don't think that this metaphor was well-preserved -- that is actually what prompted me to attempt a change. The connotation certainly exists in English, as you point out, however IMO due to modern usage habits it is a weaker connotation these days than that in Portuguese. I also prefer White's rendering of "corrupçaõ", which was another difficult point in the translation that bothered me. I also agree that White flows very well and is more poetic, so upon further reading and after considering your comments I say, "Let's just use White instead". I do note with a (very) small amount of satisfaction that White at least agrees with me on "the language" instead of "their language" :) Anyhow, FilipeS, I am well aware of the enormous amount of excellent work that you have done on this article, and others similar, so at this point I will simply step aside on this point and let you do whatever you think is best with this passage. Thanks for engaging me on this; I enjoyed it. Dasondas 14:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind remarks! Even though I contributed substantially to the translation which is currently in the article, I would not mind if it were replaced with White's translation, which is better. However, we must be careful with copyright issues. Is it O.K. to copy White's translation to the article, if we cite him as the author?... FilipeS 17:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

According to WP:CITE there shouldn't be any problem using this material if it is cited properly. I have the information necessary to make a proper citation, but when I went back to the article to make the change I noticed that the only other footnote (titled "Note") appears to be an orphan insofar as it doesn't seem (unless I missed it) to have a direct referrent in the body of the article. Being a newcomer to this article, I'd prefer not to start making changes in footnote and reference formats, etc. On the other hand, if you have the time to track-back the existing note and let me know what is the correct referring sentence/paragraph in the main text, I will be happy to make the appropriate formatting adjustment to: a) preserve the existing note and include a working footnote superscript in the body of the article and b) incorporate White's translation of the Lusíadas passage with proper citation. Dasondas 14:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello again. I'm pretty sure the footnote had to do with the number of speakers of Portuguese. Most of that material has been moved to Geographic distribution of Portuguese, so the footnote may now have become obsolete. Still, I can't figure out where it was supposed to be in the other page... FilipeS 16:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I included White's translation. I put his name in the column header and gave a proper footnote reference at the end of the passage. I think it works, don't you? I also deleted the orphaned note. Dasondas 03:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It's fine — good job. :-) FilipeS 13:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, FilipeS. Dasondas 14:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dialects and classification

Please bring back the dialect maps and the spoken samples. They're wonderful illustrations of the article and hiding them in sub-articles does not make this article better. And the section is now effectively without any clear references.
The point of the section "Classification" seems to have been somewhat misinterpreted due to its previous title: "Classification and related langauges". The point is not to examine in detail how Portuguese relates to each of its linguistic neighbors, but to provide general information of its place among the Romance languages. Consider down-sizing this section since its size is not the least bit motivated. Portuguese is not unique enough in this instance to motivate such an excessive treatment. There should really be more focus on other sections.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

For a quick classification, see the template at the top of the article. I'm reverting your change to the section heading, as your version is less descriptive than the previous one. FilipeS 23:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The infobox is a minimalistic quickie of a reference chart, and not much else. It is by no means a satisfactory summary of anything. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages/Template#Classification for why you should consider trimming the section. A lot of the information about development from Latin, for example, would seem more at home in the history section.

Is anything going to be done about the almost complete lack of citations, btw? I can't see this article making it through even the most ingratiating of FA-reviews in its current state.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You missed this part:

These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. However, try to stick to the format for the Infobox for each language.

FilipeS 20:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring guidelines usually assumes you have a good motivation for doing so. I don't see one.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

"Ignoring guidelines usually assumes you have a good motivation"... Really?! Which Wikipedia guideline says that? FilipeS 13:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to motivate my edits with detailed arguments and all you've done is revert and claimed that you don't have to motivate anything because the guidelines don't need to be followed. If you feel that an exception is necessary, you should motivate it.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't be so melodramatic. I actually implemented one of your most significant suggestions. You just can't please some people. FilipeS 20:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I object because I see it as a problem, not because I want to be placated. And, again, try not to forget to make the article verifiable. It's not up to current FA-standards and I don't want to see it demoted.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the dialects topic is wrong, concerning the dialects spoken in Portugal. In fact, there's no different portuguese dialects in Portugal mainland. All portuguese mainland regions use exactly the same spelling and the same grammar, being a slightly different accent the only noticeable change. I believe that a difference in accent is not enough to define a dialect - if so, ultimately, six billion different dialects were spoken on Earth: each human being speaks with his unique accent...
In conclusion, I suggest the deletion of the reference to Portugal's mainland dialects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.138.39.53 (talk) 14:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not wrong. Differences in pronunciation (in some cases accompanied by differences in vocabulary and grammar) are dialectal differences. FilipeS 21:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I object the term "Nortenho" to identify one of the Portuguese dialects. "Nortenho" means Northerner, and as we can see from the map, it is abusively used to identify one Northerner dialect of Portugal. (Alto-Minhoto and Transmontano are also "Nortenhos", as they are spoken in the North of Portugal.) The use of "Nortenho" to identify the dialect spoken in the Porto-Braga axis derives from a bias some people from that region have, which reserves to themselves that adjective. Linguistics never use the term "Nortenho" to identify that specific dialect, but to identify the whole family of dialects spoken in Northern Portugal; the specific dialect identified with number 9 in the map is called "Baixo-Minhoto-Duriense" ("Portuense", if refering to the specific dialect spoken around Porto), not "Nortenho" 213.13.230.99 (talk) 18:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Great Info! I am working on learning Portuguese. It's a very fascinating language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.239.232.35 (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Very Large Page

I archived the majority of the talk, because it was just to long and difficult to navigate. Now, this page is gigantic. Should it be separated into several smaller pages? It is really hard to navigate the page. I vote for this! Charlesblack 22:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean this Talk Page, or the main article? FilipeS 13:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Lei → Ella

I'm italian and I changed in the italian example lei into ella, beacause, although the first is far more used, lei is not correct, it means her, in function of object (e.g.: Quella è la mia amica, penso che conoscere lei o ragazze come lei potrebbe farti bene). The correct subject pronoun is ella or essa if referring to something unanimate (e.g.:Ella mi guardò male. L'aria è irrespirabile, essa è piena di fumo.) Giacomo Volli

Please stop trying to be cute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.141.23.15 (talk) 02:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Portuguese vs. Romanian

The sentences currently given as examples in Portuguese: Latin and other Romance languages also apper in Romanian language: Classification. Clearly, one of the versions was inspired by the other. I don't think it's very pleasant to have these same examples reused in the articles of two Romance languages; only one of the article should keep them, or at least they should be reduced in one of the articles. Does anyone remember which article was the first to use these examples? FilipeS 23:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a somewhat of a non-issue to me. In an encyclopedia with 1.6 million articles, some redundancy is unavoidable. As long as the examples are relevant to both articles, I can't see what the problem is. But if you want to insist on purging duplicate material, you can start by weeding out the classification section here, because it sure is bloated...

Peter ^Isotalo 19:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Opinion noted. Anyone else who can actually answer my question?... FilipeS 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Small rewrite in intro

I've eliminated the following from the intro:

Portuguese is often nicknamed The language of Camões, after the author of the Portuguese national epic The Lusiadas

As far as I know, this is only done in Portuguese. I don't think it's "often" called "the language of Camões" in English. FilipeS

It doesnt. And the quote above doesnt either. What it states is that portuguese is often nicknamed the language of Camões, and not that people in other languages (say, english) nickname it language of Camões.

LtDoc 18:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Since the text is in English, it can be interpreted either way. FilipeS (talk) 15:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Caipira and Sertanejo

Can someone explain what is the supposed difference between those two? Macgreco 23:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

It's the damn same thing.. sertanejo is supposed from Sertão the geographic region far from the coastline that is little inhabitated, and caipira is anything related with rural regions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ciao 90 (talk • contribs) 20:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

Not exactly the same thing, I should say. At least not in all of Brazil. "Caipira" is used much more to refer to people from rural areas in the Southeast, South and Center West regions in Brazil. They also use "sertanejo" in that sense. But, in other regions, "sertanejo" - although "sertão" means, in a strict sense, any countryland inside the territory, away from the coast - is more referred to the rural people who live in the semi-arid "sertão" from Northeast, while "caipiras" are the ones from other regions. 201.9.167.80 (talk) 08:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Ygor Coelho

GA Fail

Do not nominate an article when none of the objections on the FA review have been fixed. This article needs references and external links needs to be cut down. M3tal H3ad 07:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that was really harsh. The article has references, just not overly specified. If the FAR concerns had been addressed, we'd been talking FA status, and this is merely about GA status. Considering that the decision was made a mere 3 minutes (!) after the article was listed as a candidate it's difficult to believe that a serious review was made. I am going to relist the article quite soon unless more detailed and thorough criticism is provided.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Has references? It has 5 and TWO more sources tag (since January 2007) and (December 2006). Articles with more source tag are failed right away. What are you trying to say about GA? that any article can get it? its "mere" in comparison to FA?. You can't expect an article that was de-lsited as an FA for failing criteria 1a, 1c, 2b, 3, 4. The point is absolutely no effort has been made since the Featured article review

• • Unsourced claims - The CPLP or Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization consisting of the eight independent countries which have Portuguese as an official language.
  • Portuguese is with Spanish the fastest growing western language,
  • The Portuguese speaking African countries are expected to have a combined population of 83 million by 2050.
  • The language is also starting to gain popularity in Asia, mostly due to East Timor's boost in the number of speakers in the last five years,
  • Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence
  • The earliest surviving records of a distinctively Portuguese language are administrative documents of the 9th century,
  • Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived from Latin.
  • Between the 9th and the 15th centuries Portuguese acquired about 1000 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia.
  • Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages.
  • There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels and 19 consonants, though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes (Brazilian Portuguese has only 7 oral vowel phonemes)

If you want you can get a review Wikipedia:Good article review but i'm positive that GA reviewers will agree with me. So main the reasons are two unsourced tags, not enough sources, one sentence paragraphs, a one sentence section, too many external links and the fact that no effort has been made to improve the article per the Featured article review. Have a nice day! :) M3tal H3ad 10:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't need a review, I just noticed that you for some reason assumed that the FA requirements were more or less identical to the GA requirements, and it was obvious you needed to provide a wee bit more specific details instead of just going "what they said!".

Anyway, the article has 10 separate references, but only 5 footnotes. Footnote counting is not a constructive way of judging how well-referenced an article is. And I'm not going to comment on what the exact difference between an FA and a GA is, except that simply saying that FA standards not being met is the same thing as failing as a GA. I'm sure this is some prestige thing, but let's face it: GA have lesser demands than FAs, so requirements for individual articles need to have a minimum of specification.

But let's go through your demand for citations here.

• The CPLP – It's like asking for a reference of what the UN is. Or, for that matter, Slayer.
• 16th century appearance of pidgins – What are you questioning? The existence of pidgins or when they appeared? Both seem a bit too much like common knowledge, or at least not controversial.
• Most Portuguese words are of Latin origin – Portuguese is derived from Latin. It's technically a Latin dialect with a long history. What's the reason for questioning this statement?
• Number of vowels, consonants, etc. – There's a footnote at the end of the section that says "the reference applies to the entire section".

The other queries are more reasonable, but I think I proved my point about checklist type reviewing. Ignorance alone isn't a valid reason to demand a footnote. Am I correct in assuming that you have little or no knowledge or experience of either Portuguese or linguistics in general?

Peter ^Isotalo 13:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The dialect map is wrong

Is neccesary to change the map of the dialect of portuguese dialect in Portugal. The map included Olivenza and this city is Spain. Noviscum 17:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

No, OlivenÇa is a Portuguese City and territory by International Law and the Treaty of Wien, ruled sinse 1801 by Spain(ilegal ocupation). The Portuguese is also a language or dialect in Olivença. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.149.201 (talk) 15:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Derived from Pre-Roman languages?

Some of the words which are purportedly not derived from Latin look like they could be. Isn't abóbora derived from the Latin apoperes, cerveja from cerevísia, and saco from saccu? Corvokarasu 14:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but I think Latin cerevisia is of Celtic origin and saccu may be of Punic origin. Nevertheless, you do make a valid criticism... FilipeS (talk) 15:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a theory that pre-roman Lusitani spoke a language similar to the roman latin due to themselves being originally from the same region ... and who can claim the moral authoring of any of the latin common words ??? 89.214.178.128 (talk) 23:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Unique features section

This section says: "For instance, the meaning of Tenho tentado falar com ela may be closer to "I have been trying to talk to her" than to "I have tried to talk to her", depending on the context". I can't think of any possible case or context in which this sentence could have the second meaning shown. The "depending on the context" bit may have been added just to "be on the safe side", or the editor might have had another example in mind. I'll change it for now.

How well do you speak English? FilipeS 12:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Well enough, I think. If this was meant as an affirmation that "I have tried" can be used to denote an action that initiated in the past but continues in the present, please state so. An example would also be good (by the way, sorry for the late response). 201.1.18.48 08:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC) (That was me, forgot to log in. AoS1014 09:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

How about this, then? O tempo está óptimo. Tenho ido à praia todos os dias. "The weather is great. I've gone to the beach every day". This translation seems just as good to me, if not better, than "I've been going to the beach every day". Or consider Temos-nos falado todos os dias. Both "We've talked to each other every day" and "We've been talking to each other every day" seem like acceptable translations to me. FilipeS 17:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

"Tenho ido à praia todos os dias" implies that I expect to keep going to the beach in the near future (otherwise I'd say "fui à praia todos os dias"). Likewise, I'm reasonably sure (and this is where a native speaker might be needed to confirm either way) that "I have gone to the beach every day" implies something entirely in the past (as in, the vacation is already over). I do think "I have been going to the beach" is the correct translation. Same thing for the second example.

Something I thought that would be probably be good to add, though (so I can add something, not just criticize...) is that the verb "ter" + participle has this meaning only in the present indicative. In most other tenses it has the same meaning as would be expected in English (ter feito - to have done; tinha feito - had done, etc.), with the only exception, I think, of preterite indicative, in which it has no meaning/is never used. Thoughts? - AoS1014 13:02, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

What you are saying is that the meaning of the present perfect differs more between Portuguese and English than that of other perfect tenses. This is true, but it's not an exclusive of Portuguese and English. The same happens between Spanish and English, or Italian and English, or indeed Portuguese and Spanish... FilipeS 13:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, the sentence "Ouviu a última notícia?", while perfectly understandable (at least in BP), feels a bit incomplete (and is technically ambiguous). The most natural (and unambiguous) translation for "Have you heard the last news?" in BP would be "Você ouviu a última notíca?", while in EP it would normally be translated as "Ouviste a última notícia?" (also unambiguous). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AoS1014 (talk • contribs) 06:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

Neither sentence is "technically ambiguous" in context, which is how real people speak. And whether you include the pronoun or not makes no difference to the point being made, which is about the meaning of the verb. FilipeS 12:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I can concede this, it wasn't much of an issue. Just note I only said it because it sounded incomplete to me, and I like to think of myself as being a real person. 201.1.18.48 08:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Numbers of Speakers and Ranking

I'm going to add the encarta estimate to the ranking of native speakers. For reference here it is:

1. Mandarin (not estiamted by them but ranked 1 by all current estimates)
2. Arabic
3. Hindi
4. English
5. Spanish
6. Bengali
7. Portuguese

Android Mouse 20:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The moment you see different numbers in the introduction and the info box, you know something is wrong. After following up on all the cited references, I'm note sure how the 210-250 mil. came to be; only one private website mentioned them, without any references. In fact, most sources seem to be in agreement on 177 million speakers, and their most widely-cited primary source is the research project "Ethnologue" by SIL International, a formal UNICEF consultant. I omitted the figures for non-native speakers because I couldn't find references for the information. You're welcome to add it back with the proper citations. Binba (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Taken from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil": Population: 187,393,918. That alone is more than the 177 million stated. The number in the pt wiki is 230 million (aprox.), which makes much more sense. Why such difference? --CaioMarcos (talk) 04:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Brazilian is not portuguese

The brazilian is a evolution of the portuguese but the brazilian has his own ortography and is a different language right now.

The Brazilian Constitution says otherwise. FilipeS 15:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Art. 13. A língua portuguesa é o idioma oficial da República Federativa do Brasil.

You are an idiot, I´m quite surprised that a brazilian who knows at least how to write english, can say something like that.

Please refrain from personal attacks. That's a violation of Wikipedia policy. FilipeS 14:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is just plain stupid, maybe you are one of those who think that Portugal is Spain..., wait, if so, American English is a language on its own as well! Mascal4 20:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Origin of nasal diphthongs

I am deleting the following addition to the article (in boldface):

Nasal diphthongs occur mostly at the end of words. This is partly due to the origin of the nasalized vowel combinations, which in many cases are derived from latin letters such as m and n, which require nasalization when following a vowel in portuguese (i.e. the words "san" and "são" would be pronounced so similarly by most portuguese speakers as to eliminate a need for the former spelling, because the pronunciation is essentially the same). With the large number of latin words which terminate with the letters m or n following a vowel, it is a common occurrence to see such letters replaced in portugues by dipthongs that reflect the same phonology. The cases in which a nasal dipthong does not replace a terminus such as -an or -am are generally words in which a stress mark is required at a syllable other than the final syllable of the word.

While what is said is basically correct, it is explained in a language with some inaccuracies, and it seems inappropriate to focus so much on a particular detail, in a generic article like this. FilipeS 14:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Language Regulator

The International Portuguese Language Institute is not the official regulator of the Portuguese language as claimed in the article. In fact, most people don't even know the Cape Verde-based IILP even exists ! I don't know about Portugal, but, in Brazil at least, the Brazilian Literary Academy (Academia Brasileira de Letras, incorrectly translated in the Wikipedia as the "Brazilian Academy of Letters") is recognized as the official regulator of Brazilian Portuguese. Toeplitz 12:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Are large areas of Brazil Spanish speaking?

I am a little confused. According to the Spanish language map large sections of Brazil are Spanish speaking. If this is true you should change the Portuguese map and show the Spanish speaking areas. If it is not then please let the Spanish language page know.

This article is about Portuguese, not Spanish. In any event, the Spanish language page has already been alerted to that inaccuracy. FilipeS 17:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

That's right. They have been alerted but nothing has happened. More people need to let them know their map is bias. Please go to Talk: Spanish Language

Thanks

Someone needs to correct the map. FilipeS 04:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It would make sense that some areas of Brazil would have some Spanish speakers, as Brazil borders many Spanish-speaking countries; but are these areas actually dominantly Spanish-speaking as a whole? This statement seems a little ambiguous to me. But then again I'm not Brazilian, :-) so maybe someone else can clear this up. :-) learnportuguese (talk) 02:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard of any area of Brazil where people speak Spanish instead of Portuguese. Same for Portugal, it only borders Spain and yet none of its territory is Spanish speaking. Húsönd 02:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The map is entirely wrong for sure. In Brazil almost all the population speaks Portuguese. Those who don't, in general, speak Amerindian languages, Italian and German dialects or Japanese, with very small linguistic minorities of other languages. Not only there are few Spanish speakers, but also, in fact, Portuguese is the language that is spoken by thousands of people (Brazilian immigrants and native people) around the borders with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, not the opposite. This is a fact.201.9.167.80 (talk) 08:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Ygor Coelho

Yes. The map has already been corrected at the Commons, but some users permanently try to revert or upload other versions that basically make huge chunks of Brazil Spanish speaking areas (not to mention doing the same with the US, Canada, the Philippines, Morocco, Western Sahara, the Falklands!!!). It is a permant struggle... You can all participate in the discussions at Image:Map-Hispanophone World.png (the one used in this article) and Image:Map-Hispanophone World.PNG (a version where an user is trying to paint the "world" as Spanish speaking). Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 09:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Remark on fluminense deleted

I have deleted the following remark:

Due to a great number of italian descendents in this state, many words suffer some vocal changings: 'u' instead of 'o' and a 'i' instead of 'e'.

Not only is it unsourced, but I can't understand what the editor was trying to say with it. FilipeS 17:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

wrong link

In the article Portuguese dialects, the section with the Fluminense link, it links to the Fluminense Football team, not an article on the Fluminense dialect of Brazilian Portuguese.

learnportuguese 02:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. You could have posted in the talk page of Portuguese dialects. FilipeS 20:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"Spoken in"

The "spoken in" section of the infobox is too ambiguous. What criteria of inclusion should there be for listing countries there? If it's just countries with a large community of Portuguese speakers, then many are missing. If it's countries with a large percentage of population speaking the language, then many shouldn't be there. In Equatorial Guinea for instance, virtually nobody speaks the language despite it having been arbitrarily declared official. Húsönd 02:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's too broad. We should take a look at how it's done in other language articles, but in principle I think the table should list only the countries where the language is official. FilipeS (talk) 23:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Well the name of the section is quite clear, "spoken in" mean countries where there is evidence that a language is spoken. I see no evidence that portuguese is spoken in Guinea ecuatorial even if a political decision made it an official language.--Kimdime69 (talk) 11:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello guys! Just to give a help and avoid edition wars: this source at least does not report Portuguese as being spoken in E. G. Ten Islands (talk) 11:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

In fact the best website I know about geolinguistic (unfortunatly in french) state [2] that a portugues based creole (crioulo) is spoken in the island of Bioko and Annobon by 9000 people but there is not evidence at all that the portuguese language itself is spoken--Kimdime69 (talk) 11:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Vocabulary section

Here's what I'm thinking of doing: put the examples in this section into a single table (as follows), and move most of the text that is presently there to the Portuguese vocabulary main article. My argument is that, although the text is interesting and well written (and therefore worth moving to the other article), it really comes down to a series of examples which could be even more reader-friendly in a table. On the other hand, the Portuguese vocabulary article, which currently is just a list, would have some well-written text added to it.

However, I have a few doubts about this change, so I thought I'd ask for more opinions here in the Talk Page first. Please have your say. FilipeS (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Word	Meaning	Origin
abóbora	pumpkin		Celtiberian
bezerro	year-old calf
cerveja	beer		Celtic
saco	bag		Phoenician
cachorro	puppy/dog		Basque
espora	spur	*spaúra	Gothic
estaca	stake	*stakka
guerra	war	*wirro
aldeia	village	aldaya الضيعة	Arabic
alface	lettuce	alkhass الخس
armazém	warehouse	almahazan المخزن
azeite	olive oil	azzait زيت
Fátima	city in Portugal	Fāṭimah فاطمة
metical	Mozambican currency	miṭqāl مطقال
oxalá	hopefully	in shaʾ Allāh إن شاء الله
corja	rabble	kórchhu	Malay
chá	tea	chá	Chinese
catana	cutlass	katana	Japanese
batata	potato		Taino
abacaxi	pineapple	ibá cati	Tupi-Guarani
ananás		naná
tucano	toucan	tucan	Guarani
cafuné	head caress	kifumate	Kimbundu
caçula	youngest child	kusula
marimbondo	tropical wasp
bungular	to dance like a wizard	kubungula
castelhano	Castilian	castellano	Spanish
fiambre	wet-cured ham	fiambre
melena	hair lock	melena
bife	steak	beef	English
folclore	folklore	folklore
futebol	football	football

This is a good idea, although I would suggest removing "Fátima", for it stands out as the only proper name in the list. And I could suggest the inclusion of the word "esquerdo", from Basque "ezker". Húsönd 17:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, but I'm very hesitant. One one hand, I'm not entirely pleased with the current version, which feels a bit like a long stream of loanwords. But on the other hand at least there's a text to tie the examples together. Reducing it all to a table might look a bit... naked. More feedback is welcome. FilipeS (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems a good idea. A small correction is necessary, though. "Cachorro" in Portuguese stands only for "dog". It only means "puppy" in Castillian (Spanish). Ninguém (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Andorra?

Is Portuguese spoken in Andorra? I ask for 2 reasons: first the country is out of alphabetical order in the infobox, second it's not on the map of Portuguese-speaking areas 129.67.125.194 (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Portuguese is spoken by a considerably large community of Portuguese immigrants in Andorra. However, Andorra should not be listed there, along with the countries where Portuguese is an official language. Removed now. Húsönd 17:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Need help

Please, I need to know the meaning of two words I always hear Jose Mojica Marins say in his films. I don't have subtitles. They are pronounced: 1. "fo-say, or po-say" 2. "fee-o-mee!" Thank you. Mike P (talk) 00:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, if the movie was Brazilian, then I guess the second word could well be "filme", which means "movie". As for the first one, not that easy. But maaaaybe the word you heard was the very common "você", meaning "you". Húsönd 11:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

ThanksMike P (talk) 16:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The first one might be "fosse", which is a present subjunctive form of ser (to be), often translated as "were". Tvindy (talk) 04:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

IPA for "Português" in BP

It says "discuss on talk before changing", so here goes. The article currently gives three realizations for "português" in BP: (1) [portu'ges] (2) [portu'geis] (3) [pohtu'geiʃ]

I have no objection to (3). However, (1) and (2) both indicate an alveolar trill for the "r", which is not a widely-heard realization in BP. In BP a "r" following a vowel, but preceding a consonant (other than "r"), can be realized as either

• [ɾ]
• the realization of the /ʁ/ phoneme, which in BP is most commonly [χ] or [h]

Thus we have three possibilities: [ɾ], [χ] or [h], for the "r" of "português". Another question is to what extent choices in the realization of the "r" correlate with the choice between [s] and [ʃ] for the written "s" at the end of the word. In any case it's clear that there are many possible realizations, and that the currently displayed realizations don't do a very good job of displaying them to the reader. Grover cleveland (talk) 08:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The Brasilian dialect where ends with the voiceless postalveolar fricative consonant [ʃ] is the carioca dialect, where voiced uvular fricative is pronunced as with the voiceless uvular (or velar) fricative (χ (uvular) or x (velar)). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luizdl (talk • contribs) 01:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The "r" (in syllable ending) caipira is alveolar approximant, and can be checked searching for "r puxado" (pulled r) on Google--Luizdl (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea

This discussion is most relevant for this article, as it will definitely affect it if it becomes clear that Portuguese is not an official language of Equatorial Guinea. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Húsönd 13:36, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Actual number of speakers of Portuguese

I'm sorry, but the information on the number of speakers of Portuguese is wrong now and must updated. The source given is the one of Ethnologue, whose account shows 163,153,389 people for Brazil, where almost the entire population (certainly >99%) speak Portuguese as their mother tongue. However, now in 2008, the Brazilian population is, according to the official statistics bureau of Brazil (IBGE), about 188 million. So, lnly in Brazil, there'd be about 185 million native speakers of Portuguese, and then we include 10 million from Portugal and another couple of millions in other countries. 189.13.12.96 (talk) 21:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Number of words in the language?

How many words are officially in the language? I know there isn't real way to get an exact number but according to accepted sources you can get a rough ball park figure. English, for example, is recorded in dictionaries and some have 600,000+ words (some over 750,000 - http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JohnnyLing.shtml), is there something comparable in Portuguese? Maybe they have a committee like German that decides how many are acceptable? --Billy Nair (talk) 05:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's an official count, or even official words. It would be a terrible task to determine, even if roughly, the number of words in Portuguese. Should the complex conjugation of verbs, for instance, be included in the count? If so, every single verb would produce tens of separate words. Also, the Portuguese diminutive and augmentative declension system makes it possible for a speaker to create a word that does not officially exist but whose meaning is promptly understood by other speakers, just as if it were a regular Portuguese word. Húsönd 14:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Error in EP IPA example

In the EP IPA example all "<L>s" are written as dark (velarized) Ls, but AFAIK only coda Ls are velarized in EP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.180.209.104 (talk) 20:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

According to Mateus and D'Andrade, the "l" is always at least slightly velarized in European Portuguese, though this is especially so in the coda. FilipeS (talk) 15:44, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Very outdated number of speakers

There must be a reasonably update data for the number of speakers of Portuguese. Both references given in the article are extremely outdated, with data that refer to the populations in the 1990's. It's simply impossible that Portuguese has only 177 to 191 million native speakers, since Brazil alone has now (2008) 190 million inhabitants. Since the overwhelming majority (~99%) of the Brazilians speak Portuguese and there are still some dozens of speakers of Portuguese outside Brazil (10 million Portugal alone), the actual number of speakers, in updated numbers, would range from 210 TO 220 MILLION SPEAKERS. Now we must find references to this. As for the estimated number itself, I'm totally sure about it. YgorCoelho (talk) 00:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Very outdated number of speakers II

I fixed the average of Portuguese speakers according to the version in Portuguese of this article,

"A língua portuguesa, com mais de 215 milhões de falantes nativos, é a quinta língua mais falada no mundo e a terceira mais falada no mundo ocidental" (Portuguese, with more than 215 million of native speakers, is the fifth most spoke language in the world and the third in the West).

"O português é falado por cerca de 187 milhões de pessoas na América do Sul, 16 milhões de africanos, 12 milhões de europeus, dois milhões na América do Norte e 330 mil na Ásia" (Portuguese is spoken by about 187 million in the South America, 16 million in the Africa, 12 million in the Europe, 2 million in the North América and 330.000 in the Asia)

but there's someone that insists on put outdated and wrong datas. I don't know if that one is trustworthy but I am sure that it is more veracious. As it was said "(...) Since the overwhelming majority (~99% [or ~188 million]) of the Brazilians speak Portuguese and there are still some dozens of speakers of Portuguese outside Brazil (10 million Portugal alone) (...)". So THE ROUGH MINIMUM AVERAGE OF PORTUGUESE SPEAKERS SHOULD BE BIGGER THAN 200 MILLION OF PEOPLE. Lordofmidgard (talk) 23:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

It's about what reliable sources say, not what we think the total number of speakers should be. Kman543210 (talk) 01:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, but you must agree having a source isn't enough when that source is clearly wrong/outdated. What was true 10 years ago isn't necessarily true now, especially if we're dealing with quantities. Brazil alone has an officially estimated 190 million inhabitants, of which about 99% (again, estimates from almost all sources) are Portuguese speakers, how could Portuguese have less than 200 million speakers? So, if the outdated source is now a wrong information, I'm sure there will be a more update source that will be closer to the real number of speakers. All the recent (2008) sources I found estimate 230-240 million speakers: http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/9689/1/ AND http://gulfstreamblues.cafebabel.com/en/post/2008/06/03/Portugal-Changes-its-Language.189.13.54.119 (talk) 11:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Very outdated number of speakers III

This is simply absurdous!

Brazil alone has ca. 193 million inhabitants, more than 99% of which being native speakers of Portuguese! Portugal has over 10 million inhabitants, practically all of which speak Portuguese, not to mention the other 8 countries and regions where Portuguese is an official language. It is therefore impossible for the Portuguese language to sum less than 203 million native speakers.

You guys have got to be joking to state such nonsense!

Ethnologue must not be a serious research institution.

Popotão (talk) 09:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It may be 'absurdous' but the RS rules apply. The problem is to find an official poll or published study to cite. HammerFilmFan (talk) 02:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

Intervocalic ɲ

The article says in the Consonants section:

"In many parts of Brazil and Angola, intervocalic /ɲ/ is pronounced as a nasalized palatal approximant [j̃] which nasalizes the preceding vowel, so that for instance /ˈniɲu/ is pronounced [ˈnĩj̃u]."

Can someone please write which word it is? I suppose that it's ninho, but it would better to clarify it.

It would also do good to provide examples and proper sources for the other phonological phenomena. This is not to say that they are wrong, but that a reference would be very helpful for people like myself who want to study the deeper linguistic phenomena of the language.

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

An official language of the UN

I marked the section "Movement to make Portuguese an official language of the UN" as "This section may contain original research".

The "factors [that] detract from this campaign" which the article provides seem to be guesses. One could as well write that two Romance languages are already official in the UN and there's no need to make a third one official.

If i am wrong, please correct me by clarifying the sources. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! I would appreciate your help...

Sorry, but I'm new in Wikipedia and, while actualizing information in this article, I accidentally clicked outside of the main box and the paragraphs automatically disorganized (looks like some kind of Wiki"bug"!), along with some references.

Even though I was able to actualize info, the page is still quite confuse and I wasn't able to fix it because I didn't know the original disposition of the paragraphs nor the codepage configuration...

There must be no major problem, since the paragraphs apparently just mixed themselves, mantaining the written order. So, for the good of the Freedom of Information Wikipedia provides the world, please help fixing it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.106.197.54 (talk) 18:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It has already been undone. In the future, when you realize your edit didn't work well, just click "undo" over it on the article's history. Húsönd 23:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible mistake in BP IPA code

I think the codification of the first 'e' from the brazillian way of speakinking 'gente' may be wrong. I have never heard anyone saying it like a '~e'. Instead I would codify it like "e + that 'n' with the long front foot with translates into english -ing" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.18.91.208 (talk) 02:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Dialects

The "Dialects" section is heavily unsourced.

The only source given in the text is the Instituto Camões.

Now, reading the texts at the Instituto Camões website, we see that it does not endorse the idea that there are ten different dialects in Portugal; on the contrary, it only distinguishes three different dialects; galego in Spain, and septentrional Portuguese and center-meridional Portuguese in Portugal.

Besides, there is no reference that supports the idea of different dialects in Brazil.

All those ideas seem to be POV and unscientifical. Ninguém (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact, even the way references are cited is biased.

For instance, a link is given to the Instituto Camões as a reference for "Audio samples of the dialects from outside Europe". But in reading the page it points to, we see that it only talks about "Portuguese outside Europe - Audio Samples". Ninguém (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Official speaking countries

Equatorial-Guinea has Portuguese as an official language, do not believe me? go check it out... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gomes89 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've checked on the official website of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and the only languages available to read on the site are Spanish and English. You cannot assume that just because it is written on the Equatorial Guinea wikipedia page it is an accurate information. Check out http://guinea-equatorial.com/

Putting Guinea Equatorial to the list of official speaking places would be the same as adding Goa, Daman and Diu to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Correctman (talk • contribs) 21:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Question

Did you notice that Portuguese language sounded almost Spanish-like to you? Because there are several words that is a lot like Spanish, the rest of them are Portuguese, don't you think? JMBZ-12 (talk) 22:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what is your point exactly? Spanish is very close to Portuguese, but the way they sound is quite different, to the point that most Spaniards do not understand a word of Portuguese. The Ogre (talk) 11:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Time is not a portuguese word

futebol, revólver, estoque, folclore, time from English beef, football, revolver, stock, folklore, and team.

"Equipa" = "Team" and "Inventário" or "Acções" = "Stock" in Portuguese. In European Portuguese time does not exist and estoque is a cane sword, only Brazilian Portuguese uses time and estoque as described. For that reason I think it should not be part of the borrowed words from other countries. There is no other word in Portuguese for chá or catana, only those words should be considered as borrowed.

However, if your going to leave like that I suggest adding "esporte" = "sport", which is "desporto" in European Portuguese. "Esporte" seems to be in some newer European Portuguese dictionaries however its use is rare if not null.

"only Brazilian Portuguese uses time and estoque as described"... Well, the "only" that you mentioned represents more than 90% of the portuguese speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.214.216.67 (talk) 02:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

IPA for "Português" in BP - again

To present all the dialectal varieties for "Português" in BP is RIDICULOUS!! The main "formal" variety should be presented and that is it. Otherwise, I shouldn't someone present all the dialectal varieties for "Português" in Euro-Pt? Come on... The Ogre (talk) 17:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't have many ideas, but, the most populous states are São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, perhaps we should present only the Paulistano and Carioca. Luizdl (talk) 00:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

A better place to discuss this is at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Portuguese. What applies here should apply everywhere. Plus, we're still trying to figure the best way to deal with Portuguese dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It perhaps should be more formal if removing the "diphthongization" of "e", although it really is very common, it is considered a mispronunciation among the Brazilians.Luizdl (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The dypthongization of "e" isn't considered a mispronunciation among most Brazilians, but only a dialectal variation. As for the "formal", there is not such a thing in Brazil, so it's impossible to choose the "formal accent" if there is no standard version of Brazilian Portuguese. The Paulista and Carioca dialects never got to become standard, even if their respective speakers are numerous and economically more powerful (even TV Globo and other TV stations use a softened, "neutralized" version of either Paulista or Carioca accent). Besides, Carioca dialect isn't the 2nd most spoken dialect: actually, after the Paulista accent, the most numerous must be Nordestino or Mineiro dialect, each of them with about 20 million speakers. It's difficult to set a unique form of representing the Brazilian pronunciation of "português" because this particular word deals with some major factors of dialectal variation in Brazil (the /r/ sound, the final /s/, the final /e/ or /ej/. And it's difficult to say accurately which dialects are more numerous: São Paulo, for example, has two dialects (Paulista and Caipira), and there is no census that shows how many speakers each of them has.201.9.237.202 (talk) 22:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

But the pronunciation of the Portuguese word português on this article is just a trivia, this article is not about phonetics, but if you want, insert the [j] between parenthesis instead of add another transcription. --Luizdl (talk) 02:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Challenges

I don't get this part on the article, it sounds like the personal opinion of someone, and it's a bit biased.

"For example, English, French, Arabic and Spanish are each official languages of multiple states and of over half of the world's countries. In contrast, four out of every five speakers of the Portuguese-speaking world live in just one country: Brazil." And Russian is pretty much only spoken in Russia and Chinese in China, what gives?

"In addition to Brazil, Portuguese is the official language in only 7 other sovereign states; however, English is official in 53 states, French in 29 states, Arabic in 25 states, and Spanish in 20 states." Russian is only official language in 4 states, Chinese in 3.

What is said about the Portuguese in the last paragraph could be said about the French.

The official languages of the UN were decided not based on number of speakers or their geographical distribution but cause they are the official language of the security council member states, plus the Arab cause of the middle east.Strumf (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction of text in a reference --Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 01:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I can't out how to fix text within a reference. Reference 5 says "Somos 6000 billion milhões de falantes". It should read "Somos 6000 billion 240 milhões de falantes" --Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 01:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

fixed. For you fix wrong texts in references, you has to click in the arrow at the left side for you can see in what part of the article that reference is being used, and then fix it there.--Luizdl (talk) 02:03, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

unsupported claims

Under "official language" in the info box, I removed countries with Portuguese-speaking minorities, since that's irrelevant. Also the following:

Obligatory learning in

Uruguay
Argentina
Venezuela
Zambia
Congo
Senegal
Namibia
Swaziland
Côte d'Ivoire
South Africa

If you follow the refs, you'll see that they're mostly proposals to add Portuguese electives in the schools. Only in the first two would Portuguese be required, and even there they are only decrees to be implemented at some future date. I wouldn't mind the first two so much if we had refs that this plan was actually implemented, but under English should we list every country with obligatory English in 2ary school? — kwami (talk) 07:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Mangled text.

Both markup and visible text are still mangled in many places. Example: The paragraph starting "Like other languages". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.222.207 (talk) 01:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

São Paulo's dialect

The true "paulistano dialect", with Guttural R in similarity to French /ʁ/, the /r/, is today obsolete. While on television, and other forms of media, the dialect of journalists and actors of São Paulo is represented as so much close to mine - I am from Rio de Janeiro - when I visited the city I found people just using Caipira, without Ieísmo and other characteristics of the "official" Caipira dialect, but was Caipira. When interviewing people of lower and middle classes on TV, they also use something close to Caipira. But we have too a dialect among people from poor communities of São Paulo, where they speak in a way very different from the Caipira, you may notice that in almost all the national songs of hip-hop, they speak with "closed voice", remember me European Portuguese.

Anyway, I would not say so São Paulo people use the same dialect that in Marília, Ribeirão Preto and Uberaba, actually São Paulo city have different dialects, but how they use the [longer than] R guttural changed much over the decades. What represents how São Paulo actually speaks 'Português' today generally is [poɹtuɡeˈ(j)s] and not [poɾtuɡeˈ(j)s] (last is really from São Paulo?). But in ancient paulistano dialect, the true, 'Português' is [portuɡeˈ(j)s]. And I, in my capacity to meet the multicultural reality of São Paulo, felt it important to consider both at the top of the article. Lguipontes (talk) 05:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

At Rede Record and Rede Bandeirantes I listem the [ɾ] in syllable coda, and sometimes I also listen this one here in São José dos Campos, a city of São Paulo state which is not part of the Greater São Paulo, although here it is possible to find many different types of coda R and the most common in my city is the [ɹ]. In the city of São Paulo it's the opposite, the [ɹ] also happen but [ɾ] is the most common. Perhaps you think the coda R you listen at São Paulo media is similar to that of your dialect because some times it's pronounced voiceless, essentially when it is in word final, but in some words it's generally voiced and clearer to notice as in 'por que', essentially when it's followed by another voiced consonant as in 'arma'.--Luizdl (talk) 04:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the word Português in Portuguese of Portugal

The pronunciation of the word Português in Portuguese of Portugal is incorrect, on the audio the speaker gives emphasys on the E (like Portugués) instead of the correct more closed pronunciation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.80.36.110 (talk) 11:59, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Polemics about the number of Portuguese speakers

See sections Very outdated number of speakers I, II and III of this discussion page.

Very outdated number of speakers IV

Hi, according to each Country's Governemnt Official Webpages these are the numbers:
> Population of Angola 12,000,000 (official information)

 Embassy of Angola in Portugal http://www.embaixadadeangola.org/

> Population of Brazil 190,732,694 (official information, Census 2010)

 Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/presidencia/noticias/noticia_visualiza.php?id_noticia=1766&id_pagina=1

> Population of Cape Verde 434,263 (official estim.)

 Government of Cape Verde http://www.governo.cv/

> Population of Guinea-Bissau 1,520,830 (official information)

 National Statistics Institute http://www.stat-guinebissau.com/

> Population of Macau 549,500 (official information)

 Government of the Special Administrative Region of Macau http://www.dsec.gov.mo/PredefinedReport.aspx?ReportID=1&Lang=pt-PT

> Population of Mozambique 20,366,795 (official information, 2007)

 Government of Mozambique http://www.portaldogoverno.gov.mz/Mozambique

> Population of Portugal 10,617,000 (official information, 2007)

 Government of Portugal http://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/GC18/Portugal/Pages/Portugal.aspx

> Population of São Tomé and Prince 169,000 (official information, 2005 UN)

 Government of São Tomé and Prince http://www.gov.st/content.php?intMenuID=60

> Population of East Timor 924,642 (official information)

 Government of East Timor http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=91&lang=pt

This makes an oficial total population of 237,314,724 people living in the countries and jurisditions of Portuguese oficial language. Then, according to information picked on the internet, including wikipedia articles:
100% of Portuguese speak Portuguese as mother language: 10,617,000
99% of Brazilians speak Portuguese as mother language, and 100% speak it as mother and second language: 188,825,367 and 190,732,694
30% to 40% of Angolans speak Portuguese as mother language, and 60% to 70% speak it as mother and second language: 3,600,000 and 8,400,000
6% to 9% of Mozambicans speak Portuguese as mother language, and 40% speak it as mother and second language: 1,222,007 and 8,146,718
So, this makes about 204,264,374 native speakers to about 217,896,412 total speakers counting only Portugal's, Brazil's, Angola's and Mozambique's populations. Out stayed Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Prince, Macau, Goa, Daman and Diu and the lusophone diaspora (lusophone immigrants and communities, wich can go from 5 to 10 million people or more?), because there is no complete reliable information about native and total speakers from these countries, although some data is known, like 95% of São Tomé and Prince speaking Portuguese.
So, at least (in rough numbers) 210 million people speak Portuguese worldwide as a mother language, and at least 225 million speak it worldwide as a mother and second language.
Do you think this information is good enough to be put in the article in wikipedia?
79.168.157.188 (talk) 17:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC) Italic text

Blanket removal of unsourced information

This is about Sin un nomine's recent removal of 3,602 bytes of information. While I understand Wikipedia is supposed to be "verifiable" and there was a 3-months old "citation needed" warning, could Sin un nomine have at least tried to get some sources?

I have started reverting (and sourcing!) but appreciate any help!--Pignoof (talk) 09:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Portuguese as an official language of the United Nations - removed

For a long time this article had a section titled "Portuguese as an official language of the United Nations". It cited very few sources, most of which were dead links. The only non-dead-link source was to a news article saying that a petition has been signed by 5,900 people and is going to be sent to several important people. The rest of the section was point-of-view and original research. Today i removed it. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 10:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Brazilian Pronunciation in Examples of different pronunciation

What Brazilian pronunciation is this supposed to be? I see /h/ for <r> as if it were são paulo, but then I also see /puɾ ˈkwɐ̃tɐs/ for <por quantas>, which is pretty seriously off for SP (/puɾ 'kwantɐs/ or even very-slightly nasal vowel in <por>). --— robbie ^{page talk} 12:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I did not understand what you meant. Is your doubt with /r/? Is it with nasal vowels?--Luizdl (talk) 23:55, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

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The origins of Portuguese

In th beginning of the article it's said that "Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in Northern Portugal and spread, with the Reconquista, to Southern Portugal". It is not a complete information, because the language was born in ancient Galicia (which covered both present Galicia and Northern Portugal). Here you are some quotations about it:

-"Portuguese is the literary language of Portugal, its possessions and Brazil. It is based, originally, in the dialect of Galicia (northwest corner of the Peninsula), an area which has always remained connected to the Astur-Leonese crown (and, later, Castilian) and now belongs to the field of Spanish written language. The Galician border march in the south, along the mouth of the Douro, which in 1095 became independent as county (kingdom from 1139) of Portugal, had already taken in the mid XII century the reconquest of Portugal until the current southern border, and spread by these border territories the Galician dialect, which was used in the Middle Ages in the lyric also in the Castilian-speaking territory."

(LAUSBERG, Heinrich, Linguística românica, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, 1981). The translation is mine.

-"The Galician-Portuguese language began to be spoken in a region covering Galicia and northern Portugal."

(MIRA MATEUS, Helena, e outras, Gramática da língua portuguesa, Caminho, Lisboa, 2003. The translation is mine.

-"Portuguese, as we have already seen, developed as a concomitant of the southward movement of speakers of Galician, with which as a result it still has the closest of affinities." "Galician, from which Portuguese ultimately derives (...)"

(HARRIS, Martin e VINCENT, Nigel, The Romance Languages, Croom Helm, Beckenham, 1988)

For any doubt about this item, please see the map of the extension of Iberian languages through the centuries, here in the article. Susomoinhos (talk) 15:41, 19 September 2011 (UTC)