History of the Portuguese Language: Where Did It Come From?

One of the world’s great historical languages, Portuguese punches above its weight when comparing its humble European origins in Portugal to the total number of worldwide speakers today. Portugal is a small country in Europe’s Iberian Peninsula (sharing the region with Spain). Yet its language is spoken by nearly 270 million people across the globe, ranking it firmly in the top 10 for total number of speakers.So how did this (at one time) small, relatively insular language end up becoming a dialect used in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres? Where did the Portuguese language come from? How and why did it spread so far? It all begins with Latin roots dating back to the Roman Empire.

The Origins of the Portuguese Language

The fascinating narrative of Portuguese language history is a tale steeped in legend with a rotating cast of explorers and emperors driven by imperial ambitions who ultimately spread the language thousands of miles from its humble Old World roots.

The Portuguese language’s history shares a common bond with the other Romance languages, such as Italian, French, and Spanish. The Roman Empire had spread in the first few centuries BC and AD to modern-day countries outside of Italy. And the Iberian Peninsula, with its temperate climate and extensive, port-friendly coastline, long piqued the interest of Roman emperors.

Eventually, the Romans conquered the entire Iberian Peninsula. The Emperor Augustus divided the land into different parts; present-day Portugal included the Roman provinces of Lusitania and Gallaecia, the latter of which eventually became the region known as Galicia.

But Roman influence gradually subsided as the empire fell. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” as the famous Aristotle quote goes. In the case of waning Roman influence, a new form of linguistics filled the vacuum left in Lusitania and Gallaecia, which was a key turning point in Portuguese language history. When the Romans left, Germanic tribes invaded Iberia – but the Latin and Roman legacy was still strong, and these tribes (mainly the Visigoths and Suevi) adopted distinct cultural remnants left behind, including the language. This is how Vulgar Latin (the predecessor of modern Portuguese) was born.In Northern Portugal, Vulgar Latin morphed into what’s known as Galician-Portuguese, or Old Portuguese. Here begins the origin of the Portuguese language’s modern roots. This spoken dialect formed the foundation of the current language. Old Portuguese was able to absorb different words from the Germanic tribes storming in from the north and also Arabic raiders (the Moors). Today, Portuguese has hundreds of words derived from those ancient Germanic and Arabic cultures. From the 9^th to 12^th centuries, Old Portuguese also developed a distinct written form.

Centuries-Long Growth and Expansion: How Old Portuguese became Modern Portuguese

While Old Portuguese continued to be used throughout modern-day Portugal, further external factors and continued internal language development led to the birth of Modern Portuguese. The history of the Portuguese language’s modern form can be traced back to the 1516 publication of the Cancioneiro Geral. Written by the Portuguese poet Garcia de Resende, this collection of songs by hundreds of noblemen contained important distinctions from Old Portuguese, largely as a result of the Renaissance.

Religious texts around this time also diverted from Old Portuguese, along with other books and pamphlets based on Catholic liturgy. This period also coincided with the Portuguese age of exploration, during which the small Iberian country became a worldwide empire thanks to explorers like Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and Bartolomeu Diaz. Portuguese language history was never the same.

Exploration and imperialism were the perfect catalysts to expand the Portuguese language well beyond the relatively small borders of the homeland. At the height of the Portuguese Empire in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the Portuguese language spread all over the world as soldiers, statesmen, diplomats, and conquistadors traveled to Africa, India, China, Japan, and large swaths of the Western Hemisphere.While Modern Portuguese was initially spoken in the new lands, different sub-cultures developed their own unique vocabulary, dialect, and pronunciation. Although, only one of those variants eventually gained global recognition as a distinct version of the language: Brazilian Portuguese.

From Iberia to Brazil: The Historic Legacy of the Portuguese Language

How influential is Portuguese today? While the origin of the Portuguese language went relatively unnoticed, today it’s a dominant language in South America with more than 200 million people speaking Portuguese in Brazil.

While the majority of Portuguese speakers are in Brazil, another 70 million people speak Portuguese as a first or second language in Portugal and parts of Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. After Spanish, Portuguese is the second most common tongue in Central and South America. And thanks to the remnants of the Portuguese Empire’s holdings in Africa, it is still one of the most commonly spoken languages on that continent.

Despite its dated history, Portuguese still has an enormous impact on the world today. It’s the official language in 10 countries and is commonly spoken in dozens of others as a second language. Portuguese is officially regulated, promoted, and preserved in three countries – Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique. And dozens of internal organizations use Portuguese as an official language, including the European Union, FIFA, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and the African Union.Considering where the Portuguese language came from and its incredible linguistic journey, it’s hard to find another language with such a fascinating story. Write your own chapter in Portuguese language history today. With the Pimsleur Method, you’ll be able to speak Portuguese conversationally in a matter of weeks.