Portal:Language/Language of the month/December 2005

Portuguese () is a Romance language predominantly spoken in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Macao special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Many linguists consider that Portuguese and Galician (the native language of Galicia, Spain) are actually varieties of the same language, but with Galician being strongly influenced by Spanish. It should be noted, however, that the government of Galicia considers Galician to be a separate language. With more than 200 million native speakers, Portuguese is one of the few languages spoken in such widely-distributed parts of the world, and is the fifth or sixth most-spoken first language in the world. Because Brazil, with 184 million inhabitants, constitutes about 51% of South America's population, Portuguese is the most widely spoken language in South America and it is also one of the key languages in Africa. Learn more...