Is Portuguese Similar to Spanish? Your Ultimate Guide
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Seville, Spain
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☕️ Introduction
Whether you're learning for travel, professional goals, or reconnecting with your roots, understanding the similarities and differences between Portuguese and Spanish will make learning both languages a smoother and more enjoyable process.
Is Portuguese Similar to Spanish?
🔑 Portuguese and Spanish share many words due to their common roots in Romance languages. Despite this, they differ in pronunciation and, to a lesser extent, grammar.
Portuguese uses more varied sounds and is less phonetic than Spanish, meaning its pronunciation doesn’t always match its spelling as closely.
These contrasts reflect their unique historical development.
By taking you on a detailed tour of their histories, I'll not only show you the origins of their common features, but also the things that make Portuguese and Spanish unique - from vocabulary to pronunciation and grammar. I'll also share with you my experience learning both these languages.
By the end, you'll see both these wonderful languages in a new light that will enrich the rest of your learning journey.
🪴 Why Learn Languages?
Mural about the importance of solidarity, Quito, Ecuador
(Photo by the Author)
Society often funnels us down a career-path. Before we’ve had the chance to discover where our passions reside, we find ourselves scrambling from paycheck to paycheck on low or minimum wages. Worse still, the labour we provide either leaves us starved of inspiration, or in some cases even robs us of time to pursue our interests - all of which has damaging implications for our mental and physical health.
Learning a language can provide some relief, and even an escape, from these pressures. It can’t stop us worrying about bills or rent, but it can help us explore different cultures, connect with people from around the world, and find other lines of work. And if you’re already in a job you enjoy, then learning a language can be a wonderful way to supplement this.
Aside from potential career benefits, the process itself is rewarding, and a lot more fun than traditional methods have led us to believe. Far from being an unwelcome burden on our daily routines, learning a language can become an enjoyable distraction from life’s pressures.
As well as helping our immediate mental health, it is also thought to aid cognitive function, and could delay the symptoms of dementia.
Learning a language may even help us tackle the problems facing the world. If we can communicate with and learn from each other, we stand a better chance of organising against issues as global as climate breakdown.
🇧🇷 Reasons to Learn Portuguese
Connect with hundreds of millions of people
With almost 220 million speakers, Portuguese is the sixth most widely spoken mother tongue in the world, after ‘Mandarin’ Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Bengali. When second language speakers are included, it is still the ninth most widely spoken, with an estimated 250 million. Aside from Portugal, it is the official language in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as being a co-official language in Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. It is also spoken amongst emigrant communities throughout the world - particularly in Canada, England, France, Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, and Venezuela.
Explore the rich cultures of Portuguese-speaking countries
Although speaking a new language does not revolutionise how we see the world, the people and cultures it takes us to will. It’s almost like discovering the world again as a child, just in a different tongue. It refreshes the mind and can fill us with the impetus to experience different cultures and meet new people. This could be as conveniently as watching Brazilian telenovelas or reading a Raquel Ochoa novel in the evening. It could be an experience as spontaneous as chatting with people at a bar in Luanda, or before a football match in Belo Horizonte. It could even be a whole new life in Brazil or Portugal.
Learn other languages more easily
After learning any language, the prospect of learning others suddenly feels much more feasible, and with Portuguese being a Latin language, other languages from the same family become especially easier to learn, such as Galician, Spanish, Catalan, French, Occitan, Corsican, Italian, and Romanian. There’s also the indigenous languages of Brazil and other former colonies of Portugal, whose learning resources are often in Portuguese. By learning Portuguese, you'll therefore be able to learn more about the array of indigenous cultures and languages of Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Cape Verde.
Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil
(Photo by Milo Miloezger on Unsplash)
🇪🇸 Reasons to Learn Spanish
Connect with more than half a billion people
With almost 483 million speakers, Spanish is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. When second language speakers and learners are included, it is still the third most widely spoken, with 580 million hispanohablantes (Spanish speakers), or 7.6% of the global population. Though these figures are for 2019, it is estimated that by 2050, the 580 million will have risen to 756 million, and that by 2060, one in three estadounidenses (United Statesians) will speak Spanish. If you were to travel from Tijuana in Mexico to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina, you could cover its entire distance, 11,000 kilometres - or the equivalent of Lisbon to Tokyo - speaking only Spanish.
Explore the rich cultures of Spanish-speaking countries
This could be as conveniently as watching telenovelas or reading an Isobel Allende novel in the evening. It could be an experience as spontaneous as chatting with people at a bar in Seville, or before a football match in Buenos Aires. It could even be a whole new life in Mexico or Chile.
Learn other languages more easily
After learning any language, the prospect of learning others suddenly feels much more feasible, and with Spanish being a Latin language, other languages from the same family become especially easier to learn, such as Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, French, Occitan, Corsican, Italian, and Romanian. There’s also the indigenous languages of Latin America, whose learning resources are often in Spanish. Therefore, by learning Spanish, you’ll be able to learn more about languages such as Taíno, Nahuatl, Mayan, Quechua, Aymara, and Guaraní.
If you're learning Spanish by yourself, be sure to check out this article about learning Spanish without a tutor.
Havana, Cuba
(Photo by Alexander Kunze on Unsplash)
🏔️ Is Portuguese More Difficult to Learn Than Spanish?
Taking a journey down river in the Amazon rainforest, Ecuador
(Photo by the Author)
Both Portuguese and Spanish share a lot of common vocabulary with English, and neither are therefore particularly difficult for English speakers to learn in comparison to learning languages like Mandarin Chinese or Arabic - which have far fewer similarities with English.
Although Portuguese and Spanish are closely related languages, there are differences in pronunciation, and to a lesser extent grammar, that will determine whether you find Portuguese more difficult to learn than Spanish.
If you’re an English speaker or you’re familiar with nasal-sounding languages like French, you might find Portuguese pronunciation easier to learn than the more staccato rhythms of Spanish.
However, some learners find the highly phonetic spelling of Spanish more straightforward.
🔑 Neither Portuguese or Spanish is more difficult to learn than the other, as they’re closely related languages that share a lot of common vocabulary with English.
Whether you find Portuguese or Spanish is more difficult to learn will depend on whether you feel more at home with the simple phonetics of Spanish or the more complex but familiar sounds of Portuguese.
🛤️ Should You Learn Portuguese or Spanish?
Whether to learn Portuguese or Spanish depends on your goals and learning preferences.
☕️ Factors to Consider When Deciding Whether to Learn Portuguese or Spanish
If you envisage yourself working or traveling in a Spanish-speaking country, then it would make sense to learn Spanish, but if you don’t have any specific plans in mind, it’s worth considering the following factors :
Are you more interested in the cultures of Portuguese-speaking countries or Spanish-speaking countries?
Do you always find yourself looking for Mexican series on Netflix? Or have you recently been enjoying Brazilian films like Que Horas Ela Volta? and Central do Brasi? If you’re not sure whether you’d prefer to learn Portuguese or Spanish, think about whether you’d be more excited to be able to watch and understand the audio of films and series in Spanish or Portuguese. You can do the same for any novels you’ve come across written in Spanish or Portuguese. Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn more about the history of Chile? These are all factors worth considering, so let your own interests guide the way.
Do you have Portuguese or Spanish-speaking friends?
If you’re finding it hard to decide whether to learn Portuguese or Spanish, you can always let those around you guide your decision. If you have Spanish-speaking friends but don’t know anyone who speaks Portuguese, then perhaps it would be worth learning Spanish first so that you can talk with your friends in their first-language.
Are there Portuguese or Spanish-speaking communities in your area?
A common problem caused by our fast-paced, capitalist societies is that they steer us towards leading isolated lives that prioritise notions of ‘super-productivity’. Not only is this unhealthy from a physical standpoint, but it also draws us away from our communities. If there’s a Portuguese or Spanish-speaking community in your area, then learning that language would be a great way to reconnect, meet new people, and strengthen bonds in your local area.
☕️ Should You Learn Portuguese and Spanish Simultaneously?
Due to the close similarity between Portuguese and Spanish, I wouldn’t recommend starting to learn both these languages from scratch simultaneously, as it will just make things confusing. Keep the following considerations in mind :
For two closely related languages, it’s better to learn one to at least an intermediate level before you start learning the other
This way, you can avoid confusing the two during the early stages of the learning process, and can get the benefits of knowing a lot of the shared vocabulary when you eventually start learning the second of the two languages.
For languages that aren’t closely related, such as Portuguese and Japanese, it would be fine to start learning both at the same time, but be sure to keep them as separate as possible
For example, you could keep Portuguese to the mornings and Japanese to the evenings.
🔑 Although it’s possible to learn more than one language simultaneously, from personal experience I’ve found it to be less effective, as it can hold back your progress in both the languages you’re learning. As a general rule, try learning one language to at least an intermediate level first before you start learning the other.
☕️ Should You Learn Portuguese or Spanish First?
All that matters when deciding which language to learn first is your personal preference. Consider the factors mentioned above about culture, friends, and community, and apply this to your goals and interests.
Whether you choose to learn Portuguese or Spanish first, learning one will make learning the other a very quick process.
After teaching myself Spanish, I found learning Portuguese for the purpose of dissertation research to be a smooth process. This was particularly the case for learning to read Portuguese, as the abundance of shared vocabulary between the two languages made picking up the meaning of Portuguese texts a faster task than it would otherwise have been.
For more detail, I'd recommend this blog post and video about my journey learning Spanish.
🔑 Understanding the distinctions between Portuguese and Spanish early on can help you transition smoothly between the two languages, although it's worth emphasising that if you're familiar with one, then learning the other will feel relatively straightforward.
🔑 Resources for Learning Portuguese and Spanish
When deciding between two languages to learn, a common consideration is the availability of resources for learning those languages, as there are sometimes far more resources available for learning some languages than there are for others. Fortunately, with Portuguese and Spanish this doesn't need to be a consideration, as both languages have an abundance of resources available to help you learn them.
🇧🇷 Resources for Learning Portuguese
Resources for Learning Portuguese (eBook)
If you'd like to save yourself hours of time and effort finding and choosing from the huge array of Portuguese resources out there, then I'd recommend Resources for Learning Portuguese.
It provides links to more than one hundred online (mostly free) resources covering both Brazilian and European Portuguese, categorised and explained for your convenience.
Sunset over cliffs, flowers, and sea, Vale de Telhas, Portugal
(Photo by Jan vT on Unsplash)
🇪🇸 Resources for Learning Spanish
Resources for Learning Spanish (eBook)
If you’d like the same for learning Spanish, then I’d highly recommend Resources for Learning Spanish - which covers both Castilian Spanish (resources based in Spain) and resources from every Spanish-speaking country of Latin America.
Both of these eBooks are the perfect supplement for your journey learning Portuguese and Spanish, enabling you to focus on watching films, reading novels, learning new phrases, and having conversations in these languages.
Waterfalls in the forests of Minas Viejas, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
(Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash)
♻️ How Similar Are Portuguese and Spanish Vocabulary?
As Romance languages, Portuguese and Spanish have a significant amount of cognates (shared vocabulary).
In 1971, Jack Ulsh suggested the proportion of cognates between Portuguese and Spanish is higher than 85 per cent, whilst David Garrison (1979) put forward a slightly more conservative estimate of at least 80 per cent.
Whether you put more faith in the estimate of Ulsh or Garrison, it’s clear both from their research and the personal experience of Portuguese and Spanish speakers that the two languages have a lot of words in common.
♻️ Portuguese and Spanish Cognates
Below is a list of some of the most commonly used cognates between Portuguese and Spanish, including ajudar (Portuguese) and ayudar (Spanish), both of which mean ‘to help’.
♻️ nh and ñ in Portuguese and Spanish
Portuguese -nh usually corresponds to Spanish -ñ.
Below are some common examples :
♻️ ão and ón in Portuguese and Spanish
Portuguese words ending in -ão usually correspond to Spanish words ending in -ón.
Below are some common examples :
📜 The Origin of Almost Two-Thirds of the Words in the English Language
Nearly two-thirds of the words in the English language are thought to stem from French and Latin, with the pair contributing almost 30 percent each.
This stems from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, which ensured French - or at least, an older form of it - became the language of the ruling class.
The historical ties between French and the ruling classes of England have made learning Latin languages considerably easier for English speakers.
Though words like ‘propagation’ and ‘diffusion’ are uncommon in everyday speech, this is only because they are not from the tongues spoken by the common people of medieval England.
If in casual conversation someone voiced their concerns over the ‘propagation’ or ‘diffusion’ of something, we’d probably think of them as a bit haughty, or eccentric at best. Outside of scientific journals, we’d instead expect someone to voice their concerns over the ‘spread’ of something.
The same isn’t always true for the equivalents of words like ‘propagation’ and ‘diffusion’ in Latin languages. The words English has borrowed from Latin, and particularly French, have rarely been the sole domain of the French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese nobility.
Though they sound excessively formal in English, words like ‘propagation’ and ‘diffusion’ can be used to refer to the ‘spread’ of something in Latin languages.
For example, the French for ‘the spread of’ would be la propagation de, the Italian would be la diffusione di, the Spanish la propagación de, the Catalan la difusió de, and the Portuguese a propagação de.
This is worth remembering if you’re ever stuck for a word in conversation or writing. There’s a decent chance the melodramatic equivalents for colloquial English words will in fact be the appropriate term in a Romance language.
Of course, this is just a generalisation, but it may prove useful now and again.
♻️ Cognates in English, Portuguese, and Spanish
Portuguese and Spanish share a whole host of words with English, and some of the most common forms are the following :
These examples are merely illustrative, and far from exhaustive. The abundance of shared vocabulary between Portuguese, Spanish, and English will enable you to make faster progress than would be possible learning a language like Mandarin Chinese, where there are very few common words.
Although there are some famous books and methods that utilise an approach centred on the shared vocabulary of Portuguese and English or Spanish and English, it is not enough to learn these languages on its own. It is vital to use immersion, active learning, and practice to become fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, or indeed any language.
⚔️ False Cognates in Portuguese and Spanish
Although Portuguese and Spanish share at least 80 per cent of their vocabulary, there are some words that look similar but don’t actually have the same meaning.
These are known as ‘false cognates’ or ‘false friends’.
Some of the most common are the following :
⚔️ False Cognates Between English, Portuguese, and Spanish
Although English, Portuguese, and Spanish have a lot of shared vocabulary, there are exceptions.
Below are some examples :
🇧🇷 Portuguese
esquisito means ‘weird’ or ‘strange’, not ‘exquisite’, which is requintado
sensível means ‘sensitive’, not ‘sensible’, which is sensato
‘resistance’ becomes resistência, not ‘resistância'
🇪🇸 Spanish
éxito means ‘success’, not ‘exit’, which is salida
embarazada means ‘pregnant’, not ‘embarrassed’
‘resistance’ becomes resistencia
⚔️ Entirely Different Words in Portuguese and Spanish
Although the vast majority of Portuguese and Spanish words are cognates, there are still plenty of words that are completely different in each language.
Below are some examples of words that differ in Portuguese and Spanish :
💭 Pronunciation
🔑 The Key Difference Between Portuguese and Spanish Pronunciation
One of the most immediate differences learners note between Portuguese and Spanish is how each language sounds.
Portuguese is often described as having a ‘softer’ or more ‘nasal’ tone, while Spanish features a clearer, more staccato pronunciation.
For a quick audible introduction to these differences, I'd recommend watching this video comparing how words sound in Colombian Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
🧘 Is Portuguese Pronunciation Easier than Spanish Pronunciation?
These distinctions can initially make Spanish feel easier for beginners, but some English-speaking learners soon find that Portuguese pronunciation is more familiar.
This is because both Portuguese and English are far less phonetic than Spanish.
Learners familiar with French or other nasal-accented languages may also find Portuguese phonetics less challenging than sharper and highly phonetic sounds of Spanish.
However, which language's pronunciation you find easier will come down to your unique circumstances and preferences as a learner. For example, the nasal sound in the Portuguese word mãe (mother) can be tricky to replicate for some learners, especially those inexperienced with nasalized speech. Portuguese also has more speech sounds than Spanish, which means additional phonetic rules to learn.
Spanish, on the other hand, often feels more predictable. Nearly every word is pronounced exactly as it is written, reducing the effort required to master pronunciation. This clarity, combined with its straightforward vowel system, makes Spanish easier to understand for beginners.
But as noted above, some learners argue that Portuguese pronunciation becomes significantly easier once you get past these initial hurdles, particularly if you're familiar with English, French, or another nasal-heavy language.
For a more detailed look at some of these differences, the following video is a discussion of how the sounds of Portuguese and Spanish differ.
🥗 Regional Variation in Pronunciation and the Learning Process
In terms of pronunciation, Portuguese tends to be more challenging in the sense that it has greater regional variation than Spanish.
We'll look at this in more detail below, but it's worth noting here that regional variation probably doesn't need to be a key factor for you when deciding whether to learn Portuguese or Spanish, as you will likely focus on a particular variety of the language you're learning anyway.
For example, if you want to learn Brazilian Portuguese, you can focus on the standard form of Brazilian Portuguese and then learn about regional variations in Brazil or even European Portuguese later in the process.
For more on how to go about learning Portuguese or Spanish, I'd highly recommend the How to Learn Portuguese Guide and the How to Learn Spanish Guide.
📒 Summary of Grammar
Portuguese and Spanish share many grammar features, including gendered nouns and verb conjugation patterns. General sentence structure is also the same in both languages, with only subtle variations in certain situations.
🥒 Verb Conjugation
Portuguese and Spanish verbs usually conjugate in very similar ways.
We’ll look at the historical reasons for this in more detail below, but for now take a look at the almost identical way in which the verb comer (to eat) conjugates in both Portuguese and Spanish :
📖 Articles
Articles are similar in Portuguese and Spanish, with both following a gendered, masculine-feminine system.
📖 Indefinite Articles
Indefinite articles are also similar in Portuguese and Spanish, again with both following a gendered, masculine-feminine system.
🎧 Are Spanish and Portuguese Mutually Intelligible?
🔑 Due to significant differences in pronunciation, the spoken forms of Spanish and Portuguese are not usually mutually intelligible, but the written forms of the languages bear a close resemblance, and there’s usually at least some degree of mutual intelligibility for Portuguese and Spanish speakers when reading each other's languages.
Although Spanish and Portuguese are not mutually intelligible, the significant amount of shared vocabulary between the languages means that Portuguese and Spanish speakers would be able to learn the other language relatively quickly.
🎙️ Research into Listening Comprehension Between Portuguese and Spanish
General consensus seems to be that Portuguese speakers are able to understand more spoken Spanish than Spanish speakers are able to understand of spoken Portuguese.
Such anecdotes are supported by the research of Jensen (1989), who tested the listening comprehension of Portuguese and Spanish speakers from Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.
Jensen found that Portuguese speakers could understand more spoken Spanish than Spanish speakers could understand spoken Portuguese.
This is likely because of Portuguese phonology, which is widely held to be more complicated than Spanish phonology on account of the prevalence of nasalised vowels and assimilations in Portuguese (see the work of Mateus & d’Andrade, 2000). For example, where Spanish uses the term aunque (although), Portuguese uses embora - a fusion of em boa hora, which means ‘in good time’ (literally ‘in good hour’).
📚 Research into Reading Comprehension Between Portuguese and Spanish
In the year 2000, Eunice Ribeiro Henriques - Professor of Applied Linguistics at Universidade Estadual de Campinas in São Paulo, Brazil - published the findings of an experiment she’d conducted to test the mutual intelligibility of Portuguese and Spanish.
Her experiment - Intercompreensão de Texto Escrito por Falantes Nativos de Português e de Espanhol - tested the reading comprehension of 300 native speakers of Portuguese and 300 native speakers of Spanish. All were freshmen students from a variety of fields, and, crucially, none of them had ever studied the other language before.
Henriques found that in each of the groups there was a high level of comprehension, ranging from 58 to 94 per cent depending on the context and similarity of a given text.
📜 History
Understanding the history of Portuguese and Spanish reveals how historical processes and events shaped both their common features and their unique traits.
Both Portuguese and Spanish emerged from Vulgar Latin, which was spoken across the Roman Empire (although distinctions between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin - the 'proper' form spoken and written at the Roman Senate - are now thought to be far more blurred than was previously thought).
As the empire fragmented, regional variations of the language grew into the various Romance languages.
Key historical milestones:
Portuguese: Portuguese developed from Galician-Portuguese, an Ibero-Romance dialect that was influenced by Celtic pronunciation. Portuguese emerged with the growing prominence of Coimbra and Lisbon, before spreading widely as a result of the rise of the Portuguese Empire from the fifteenth century.
Spanish: Spanish became the dominant language of Spain during and after the Reconquista. The Castilian dialect evolved into modern Spanish, spreading widely due to Spain's colonial ventures in the Americas from the fifteenth century.
Whilst it's important to note that the categorisation of Vulgar Latin vs Classical Latin has been called into question by recent scholarship, it's still a useful enough introduction to thinking of the Latin language as having a dynamic form that was spoken across the Roman Empire but with regional nuances.
I'll therefore continue to refer to this as Vulgar Latin for the sake of simplicity and familiarity. Just be aware that if you dive deeper into the history, more subtle terminology will become apparent.
If you’re interested in exploring the history of Portuguese and Spanish further, the How to Learn Portuguese Guide contains a detailed section called ‘A Short History of Portuguese’.
The How to Learn Spanish Guide contains a detailed section called 'A Short History of Spanish'.
🌳 Ancient Iberia
Recent archaeological discoveries have found that ancestors of humans were living in Atapuerca, Spain, as early as 1.2 million years ago, and that the last Neanderthals inhabited the peninsula as recently as 60,000 BCE. By the time the Phoenicians settled in 800 BCE, the peninsula was mostly inhabited by Basques, Celts, and Iberians.
Camaleño, Cantabria, Spain
(Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash)
The Peoples of Ancient Iberia
The Basque language, Euskera, is still spoken today in the lands arcing the Bay of Biscay, and is believed to have evolved from a tongue spoken in Neolithic times. The Basques thus seem to be the first human settlers on the peninsula of which we have some sort of record (beyond cave paintings).
The Iberians are thought to have arrived from North Africa several thousand years before the Phoenicians, and were likely relatives of Berbers.
Both the Basques and the Iberians take their current names from the last of the three groups to arrive - the Celts. Migrating to the peninsula around 2000 BCE, the Celts dubbed the people they met in the north Vascos - from which derives the Portuguese name for Basques - bascos. They called the tribe living across the Ebro river Iberians, deriving from the Celtic word for river, bier, which eventually mutated into Ebro.
The land the Iberians inhabited includes present-day Catalonia, as well as much of the peninsula’s Mediterranean coast. Tartessian’s, or at least their descendants, inhabited the west of what is now Andalusia, whilst the rest of the peninsula, including much of the centre, northwest, and much of Portugal, was inhabited by Celts.
The term Lusófono (Lusophone), sometimes used to refer to speakers of Portuguese, comes from the name of the people who inhabited central Portugal, the Lusitanians, who are thought to predate the arrival of the Celts.
Proto-Indo-European
Trinity Gergeti Church, Kazbegi, Georgia
(Photo by Iman Gozal on Unsplash)
Languages are very often related, developing from common ancestors before being moulded by their environment and migration. Almost half the world’s population speak an Indo-European language, a family of languages thought to share a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, that may have emerged somewhere between Ukraine and Central Asia in Neolithic times (c. 7,000 BCE - 3,000 BCE).
The main branches of this family are Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Romance, as well as the less widely-spoken Celtic languages. Almost all of Europe speaks Indo-European languages, the most prominent exceptions being those who speak Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque.
The Basque Contribution to Portuguese and Spanish
Although Basque has given Portuguese and Spanish words as common as esquerda ('left' in Portuguese), izquierdo ('left' in Spanish), and the rolled rr of words like chaparro ('oak' in Spanish), it is not the cradle of the these languages.
The Celtic Contribution to Portuguese and Spanish
Neither are Celtic or Iberian, although they too have left their mark, bequeathing words that almost entirely relate to agriculture and material life. Celtic has given Portuguese and Spanish words as ubiquitous as camisa ('shirt' in both Portuguese and Spanish), cerveja ('beer' in Portuguese), cerveza ('beer' in Spanish), caminho ('way' in Portuguese), camino ('way' in Spanish), manteiga ('butter' in Portuguese), manteca ('butter' in Spanish), and perro ('dog' in Spanish).
Given the predominance of Celts in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, Celtic has also left Portuguese an array of names for settlements, mountains, and rivers. Braga (Bacara), Coimbra (Conimbriga), and Lagos (Laccobriga) are of Celtic origin, as well as the Serra do Larouco (Laraucus). The rivers Tâmega (Tamaca), Cávado (Catavus), Lima (Limia), Vouga (Vacua), and Mondego (Munda) also take their names from Celtic.
The Iberian Contribution to Portuguese and Spanish
Though the Iberians were the only group of the three to have a written language at the time of Phoenician settlement, virtually all trace of it has disappeared, and very little is thus known about it. However, the linguist Rafael Lapesa did the service of listing notable Spanish words that come from the peninsula’s first known civilisations - some of which presumably include Iberian.
Subtle variants of some of the words listed by Lapesa can be found in Portuguese and Spanish - such as touro ('bull' in Portuguese), toro ('bull' in Spanish), salmão ('salmon' in Portuguese), salmón ('salmon' in Spanish), and galápago ('turtle' in Spanish), to which the Galapagos Islands owe their current name.
Portuguese Words of Pre-Roman Origin
Though difficult to distinguish whether they came from Celts, Iberians, or Basques, researchers have found an array of Portuguese words to be of pre-Roman origin, including arroio (brook), barraca (tent), barranco (ravine), bezerro (calf), bico (beak), bruxa (witch), cabana (hut), cachorro (dog), cama (bed), duna (dune), garra (claw), gorra (cap), mato and moita (bush), morro (hill), pico (peak), sapo (frog), seara (harvest), várzea (floodplain), and veiga (vein).
🌊 Hispania
Playa de la Misericordia, Spain
(Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash)
The Roman Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula
The roots of Portuguese and Spanish arrived in the Iberian Peninsula on Roman galleys. By 201 BCE, and after over sixty years of intermittent wars, the Romans defeated the Carthaginians. The province of Hispania became the empire’s first overseas colony four years later.
'Archaisms' in Portuguese and Spanish
Rome did not conquer Gaul - modern day France - for another 150 years, and did not conquer Dacia - modern day Romania - for another 150 years after that. The Latin spoken in Rome at the time of these later conquests had thus changed from the Latin that first crossed to Hispania during the Punic Wars. As such, the Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan languages contain what linguists refer to as ‘archaisms’.
For example, the Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan words for ‘more’ are mais, más, and més respectively, whereas the French and Italian equivalents are plus and più. This is because, at the time of the Roman victory over Carthage, the Latin for ‘more’ was still magis, and had not yet become plus.
For the same reasons, the Spanish and Portuguese words for ‘sand’ are arena and areia, but sable and sabbia in French and Italian. There are of course exceptions to these trends, highlighted by the fact the Catalan word for ‘sand’ is sorra, akin to French and Italian.
The Spread of Latin in Hispania
Basílica del Pilar, Plaza del Pilar, Zaragoza, Spain
(Photo by David Vives on Unsplash)
The Romans managed to impart Latin as the principle language of the peninsula, despite the fact they were warring with Iberians, Celts, and Basques for much of the two centuries it took to do so (it took until 19 BCE for the Romans to subdue the northern province of Cantabria). They did this through persuasion rather than force, incentivising the use of Latin for Iberian nobles with the benefits of city life.
They built cities throughout Hispania, the most famous of which are Augusta Emerita (Mérida), Hispalis (Seville), Italica (Itálica), Corduba (Córdoba), Toletum (Toledo), Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), Olisipo (Lisbon), Bracara Augusta (Braga), Scalabis (Santarém) and Salmantica (Salamanca).
These cities, as well as sea ports and mountain villages, were connected by highways, and the Romans’ display of sophistication seems to have been a crucial factor in persuading Iberian nobles to learn Latin.
Central to this was a policy of allowing nobles to run the administration of towns in exchange for their learning the language, and so all this combined to make it clear to the inhabitants of the peninsula that life would simply be easier and more prosperous if they learnt the tongue of the Roman invaders.
Over the centuries, Latin went from being the language of these nobles to the tongue of the whole peninsula - apart from, of course, the Basque Country. This Latin, native to Hispania, was the Latin that would go on to become Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish, as well making a significant contribution to what became Catalan.
🌅 The Development of Latin
Roman Aqueduct of Segovia, Spain
(Photo by Manuel López on Unsplash)
Vulgar Latin
One of the first famous speakers of this tongue (the form of Latin native to Hispania) was the emperor Hadrian (r. 117 - 138 CE), perhaps most well-known for the seventy-three mile wall he built across the neck of northern England.
Hailing from Itálica, near Seville, Hadrian’s first speech at the Roman senate was laughed at by the toga-clad snobs of the capital, who spoke Classical Latin, the complicated form of Latin that was difficult to learn and whose case system was ill-suited to the flowing speech of normal people. Hadrian, on the other hand, was speaking Vulgar Latin, the name linguists have given to the language spoken in all the Roman provinces.
Throughout the Roman Empire, Vulgar Latin prevailed as the lingua franca. Though there were many varieties of the language, they remained mutually comprehensible until the ninth century, long after the fall of Rome in 476 CE.
Changes to Vulgar Latin
An interesting feature of Vulgar Latin was that, despite its varieties, people throughout the distant provinces of the Roman Empire shaped it with common changes from Classical Latin.
The number of cases was reduced, and the ‘neuter’ gender was removed.
To facilitate the abandonment of the wearingly precise case system, an unspoken rule developed, whereby sentences were structured according to the subject, verb, object order found in Romance languages today, whilst articles and prepositions were added to make speech smoother still.
Changes to Pronunciation and Spelling in Vulgar Latin
Roman Theatre, Málaga, Spain
(Photo by Fernando Távora on Unsplash)
Another significant change came from the tendency of Vulgar Latin to fuse the long and short vowels of its Classical counterpart. To avoid the language losing some of its capacity for expression, speakers of Vulgar Latin made diphthongs from the five vowels of Latin (a, e, i, o, u - which was written as v). The legacy of this change is visible in Spanish today, as Latin words like tempus and porta became tiempo (time) and puerta (door).
Pronunciation drove many of these changes, and was central to the development of Spanish. The m at the end of words like numquam and lucem became soft, paving the way for the emergence of nunca (never) and luz (light). The tendency of Castilian Spanish to pronounce v as b began here, with Classical Latin words like taves becoming tabis (corruption) in Vulgar Latin.
The Addition of a Vowel to the Beginning of Words in Vulgar Latin
Speakers also started adding a vowel to the beginning of certain words, so that sperare and spiritus became the Portuguese and Spanish forms we see today - esperar (Spanish and Portuguese for 'to wait'), espírito (Portuguese for 'spirit'), and espíritu (Spanish for 'spirit').
The Fusion of Prepositions and Articles in Vulgar Latin
The people of Hispania also began fusing prepositions and articles. The Portuguese word depois (after) and the Spanish word después (after) come from de+post, whilst the Portuguese onde (where) and Spanish dónde (where) derive from unde.
The word ningulus was formed from singulus (one) and nullus (none), which is why the Portuguese and Spanish words for ‘nobody’ are ninguém and ninguno respectively.
Vulgar Latin's Logical Approach to Forming Adverbs
Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France
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A fortunate change introduced with Vulgar Latin was the abandonment of Classical Latin’s haphazard approach to forming adverbs. Although some adverbs formed simply - absolutus (complete) would be absolute - exceptions such as velox (rapid) becoming velociter made adverbs an unnecessary nuisance for speakers of Vulgar Latin.
As such, the process was standardised in Rome’s provinces with the suffix mens, which means ‘in a mind’. Speakers of Vulgar Latin thus formed the adverbs of absolutus and velox with this suffix, becoming absolumens and velocimens.
To this day, the majority of Romance languages use this Vulgar Latin structure - Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, and Italian use mente, whilst French, Catalan, and Occitan use ment. This is useful for English speakers wishing to learn Portuguese, Spanish, or indeed any of these languages.
For English words ending with -ly, the Portuguese or Spanish equivalent will usually end in -mente. For example, ‘normal’ happens to be the same in Portuguese and Spanish, normal, so ‘normally’ is normalmente. Likewise, the Portuguese and Spanish word for ‘quick’ or ‘fast’ is rápido, so ‘quickly’ is rapidamente in Portuguese and rápidamente in Spanish.
An important caveat to note is that the pronunciation of the suffix -mente differs fairly significantly in Portuguese and Spanish. More on this later, in the section on Pronunciation.
Changes to Verb Conjugation in Vulgar Latin
Verb conjugations were also simplified, leaving a legacy that lasts to this day. Frivolous pronunciation caused confusion between the future and conditional tenses, and so a common solution was found - adding the auxiliary verb habere (to have) after the main verb, which created the verb endings for the future and conditional tenses in all Latin languages.
The endings are thus the conjugation of habere minus the h, and so amara he, amara has, and amara ha, have become amarei, amarás, and amará (‘I will love’, ‘you will love’, ‘he /she will love’) in Portuguese. The same is true for Spanish, in which these became amaré, amarás, and amará (‘I will love’, ‘you will love’, ‘he /she will love’).
The Creation of Two Words for the Verb 'To Be' in Vulgar Latin
A change that can seem challenging for Portuguese and Spanish learners, though, was the Vulgar Latin creation of two words for the verb ‘to be’. Classical Latin had only esse, which became essere in Vulgar Latin. In Hispania, however, a second word for ‘to be’ emerged - stare, carrying the sense of ‘to stand’. This development is why Portuguese and Spanish have ser (to be, in essence) and estar (to be, in a state).
Though this can seem confusing when you start learning Portuguese or Spanish, it is nothing to worry about, and can be understood automatically through learning the language in context. There is no need to study it in isolation, akin to a grammar rule, but for some useful clarification, the following video is an excellent explanation of the different uses of ser and estar in Portuguese, whilst the following video is a great explanation of the different uses of ser and estar in Spanish.
Their uses depend on certain contexts, but it’s worth giving a quick example of one of the key differences. Your location is a state that can change, so estou aqui ('I’m here' in Portuguese) and estoy aquí ('I’m here' in Spanish) use estar. The place you were born, however, will never change, which is why sou de São Paulo (I’m from São Paulo) and soy de Madrid (I’m from Madrid) use ser.
There’s more to it, but don’t worry. Aside from a quick video for some clarification, the easiest approach for many will be to learn the different uses through the context of immersion. For example, over time you’ll realise automatically that estar is used for the continuous tense, such as estou lendo ('I’m reading' in Portuguese) and estoy leyendo ('I’m reading' in Spanish), to the point where you won’t even have to give any thought as to which form of ‘to be’ should be used in a situation.
The Emergence of Irregular Verbs in Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin also gifted today’s Latin languages irregular verbs. The most notable is probably the verb ‘to go’ - ir in both Portuguese and Spanish. Speakers of Vulgar Latin combined different verbs and conjugations, resulting in a disorderly mess for verbs like ir. The conjugation of this verb is taken from the respective conjugations of the two Latin verbs for ‘to go’ - ire and vadere.
As a result, the Portuguese and Spanish ir conjugates to the future tense with the model for ire (irei, irás, irá in Portuguese and iré, irás, irá in Spanish), but with that of vadere for the present tense (vou, vais, vai in Portuguese and voy, vas, va in Spanish). As with ser and estar, this is nothing to be concerned about. The conjugations can be learnt through the context of immersion and learning whole sentences.
Exceptions to 'Archaisms'
Another feature worth mentioning with regard to Vulgar Latin, and particularly Portuguese and Spanish, is that it did not always retain the ‘archaisms’ referred to by linguists. The Portuguese word irmão and the Spanish word hermano (brother) come from the Vulgar Latin germanus - which had replaced the previous incumbent, frater. French and Italian retained the Classical Latin term, which is why frère and fratello differ from the Portuguese and Spanish terms.
The Contribution of Classical Latin to Portuguese and Spanish
None of the above should detract from Classical Latin’s contribution to the Latin languages we see today. Classical Latin can shed light on social changes, as well as how people of the time viewed the world. For example, that ‘casa’ came to replace ‘domus’ (home) suggests increased ruralisation during the decline of the Roman Empire, as ‘casa’ had referred to a ‘hut’ or ‘rustic cottage’ during the classical period. Today, casa means ‘home’ or ‘house’ in both Portuguese and Spanish.
The word ‘pavilion’ comes from the Romans’ belief that military tents resembled the open wings of a butterfly. The Latin ‘papilio’ (butterfly), after being applied to military tents, produced the Portuguese and Spanish equivalents we see today - pavilhão ('pavilion' in Portuguese) and pabellón ('pavilion' in Spanish). Curiously, whilst French still calls a butterfly papillon, the Portuguese word is borboleta and the Spanish word is mariposa.
The Portuguese word peregrino (pilgrim) and the Spanish words peregrina (pilgrim - feminine) and peregrino (pilgrim - masculine) comes from the Latin ‘peregrinus’, originally referring to a ’foreigner’. That it came to be associated with pilgrims illuminates the growing number of foreign visitors to Rome in the centuries that followed its fall.
🌿 Lusitania and Gallaecia
Traba, Galicia, Spain
(Photo by Tino Rischawy on Unsplash)
Once Hispania officially became a Roman colony in 197 BCE, it was divided into two provinces - Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior. The former comprised what is now Andalusia and parts of southern Portugal, whilst the latter included the rest of the peninsula’s Mediterranean coast, Aragon and the Balearic Islands.
By 27 BCE, the remit of Hispania Citerior had been expanded to include the central plateau of the peninsula, as well as the northern provinces, and became known as Hispania Tarraconensis. In the same year, the province of Lusitania was established in what is now Portugal and parts of western Spain, including Extremadura.
By 14 BCE, the remainder of Hispania Ulterior had become Hispania Baetica. The province of Gallaecia (Galicia), part of Tarraconensis, was founded two centuries later, in 216 CE, with its capital in Braga.
There are various other historical processes - social, cultural, economic, political - to acknowledge in the development of the various Latin languages of the peninsula, but it could nevertheless be said that Catalan derives from the Vulgar Latin of Hispania Tarraconensis, whilst Portuguese derives from the Vulgar Latin of Galicia and Lusitania. Each province experienced romanisation in different ways (for more detail on this, see the history sections of the How to Learn Portuguese Guide and the How to Learn Spanish Guide).
🍀 The Influence of Celtic on Portuguese Pronunciation
Muxía, Fisterra, Galicia, Spain
(Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash)
The Celtic tongues spoken in the northwest of the peninsula were fundamental to traits found in Portuguese. For example, the influence of Celtic led to words like ‘clamare’ and ‘clave’ becoming chamar (to call) and chave (key).
The same happened to ‘macula’ and ‘plicare’, becoming malha (mesh) and chegar (to arrive). This process is referred to by linguists as palatalisation, which put most simply involves a certain change in pronunciation based on the position of the tongue.
The most illustrative example with regard to the influence of Celtic on Latin is the word ‘pluvia’ (rain). The palatalisation brought by Celtic transformed this into the Portuguese word chuva, whilst French, not as influenced by Celtic, has retained a form closer to its Latin ancestor - pluie.
This is further highlighted by the word’s fate in other Latin languages. Galician, which developed from the same language as Portuguese (Galician-Portuguese) until around the fourteenth century, also has the Celtic palatalisation, giving chuvia. Spanish has a subtle difference, beginning with ll (pronounced like the y in yoga), giving lluvia. Other Latin languages have forms closer to the original. Catalan has pluja, Occitan pluèja, Italian pioggia, and Romanian ploaie.
There are various reasons for these subtle changes - some of which are impossible to quantify or hold with certainty - but broadly speaking, the date of Roman colonisation and the provenance of the Roman colonisers were significant factors. For example, the prominence of these Celtic features of Galician and Portuguese is likely owed in part to the fact the northwest of the peninsula was one of the last regions to fall under Roman dominion.
Similarly, the fierce resistance of Lusitanians during the second century BCE will have contributed to the form of Latin that emerged in central Portugal.
Regardless of the various factors, the above is a reminder of the significance of the tongues that predated Latin in shaping the languages we see today.
👑 Ibero-Romance and the Contribution of the Visigoths
The Origin of the term 'Romance Languages' and the Ibero-Romance Dialects
The Romans lost Hispania in the early fifth century, but Vulgar Latin continued to thrive in the provinces of the decaying empire. By the eighth century, the lingua franca had developed into an array of dialects that are now referred to as Proto-Romances.
Though Visigoths took control of Hispania between the sixth and eighth centuries, the dominance of these dialects of Vulgar Latin increased, each thriving in its own distinct territory or province.
At the Council of Tours in 813, the gathered clergy were asked to speak in the rusticam romanam lenguam (rustic Roman tongue), thus highlighting the extent to which Vulgar Latin had diverged from Classical Latin. At the time, Roman was written as both Romanans and Romanz, which is why this family of languages and dialects are known as ‘Romance’ languages today.
Until around 1000, all the Ibero-Romance dialects (the Romance dialects of the Iberian Peninsula), as well as those of the south of France, were mutually intelligible.
Some of these dialects developed into regional languages - such as Galician - that are still spoken today, whilst two others became Portuguese and Spanish. In fact, Portuguese and Galician were considered the same language, Galician-Portuguese, before they began a divergence in the fourteenth century that has continued to this day.
Camino de Santiago, Spain
(Photo by Bianca Maria on Unsplash)
The Visigoths in Hispania
Though there was a Germanic contribution to the Portuguese and Spanish languages, the population imbalance of a few hundred thousand Visigoths to four million Hispanians meant they were unable to impart their language over the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula’s inhabitants, and the gothic language had effectively become extinct in Hispania by the seventh century.
The Germanic Origins of Certain Portuguese and Spanish Names
A host of common Portuguese and Spanish first names have gothic origins. Fernando comes from the mergence of frithu (peace) and nanth (audacity), whilst Gonçalo (Portuguese) and Gonzalo (Spanish) deride from Gundisalvus, the root of which is gunthis (‘strike’ - relating to war and fighting).
The name Hilda comes from hildus (fight) - which is luta in Portuguese - whilst Rodrigo stems from riks (power), whose Portuguese equivalent is poder. Names like Adolfo and Rodolfo derive from wulf (wolf), which in Portuguese is lobo. The name Deolinda is thought to stem from thiuda (people) and lind (snake), which in Portuguese are povo and serpente.
These names soon doubled as surnames to denote family ties. In much the same way that Gaelic names like Cormack also became McCormack (son of Cormack), and English names like Rob became Robson (son of Rob), Portuguese surnames developed with the suffixes -es and -iz.
For example, Álvaro became Álvares (son of Alvaro), Rodrigo became Rodrigues (son of Rodrigo), Mendo became Mendes (son of Mendo), Fernando became Fernandes (son of Fernando), Ramiro became Ramires (son of Ramiro), and Sancho became Sanches (son of Sancho). The same happened in Spanish, though with the suffix -ez.
The Contribution of Germanic to Portuguese and Spanish
Due to the nature of the Roman Empire, an array of Germanic words had entered Vulgar Latin before the Visigoths had even conquered the majority of Hispania in 507. Words such as suppa (soup) became soupe in French and sopa in Portuguese and Spanish. The same happened with bank (bench), becoming banc in French and banco in Portuguese and Spanish.
Other notable Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin are guerra ('war' in both Portuguese and Spanish), elmo ('helmet' in Portuguese) and yelmo ('helmet' in Spanish), espião ('spy' in Portuguese), fresco ('fresh' in Portuguese), and bandido ('bandit' in both Portuguese and Spanish), which derived from the Germanic term ban (prohibition).
Suebian Independence from the Visigoths and How This Influenced the Development of Vulgar Latin Dialects
The first Germanic tribes to invade Galicia were the Vandals and Suebi. The first to invade Lusitania in the wake of the Roman Empire’s disintegration were the Alans - a tribe of Iranian origin. The Suebi established a kingdom in Galicia and part of Lusitania, with its capital in Braga. This lasted about a hundred years, before being conquered by the Visigoths in 574.
Though the contribution of the Suebi’s Germanic tongue is hard to determine, it is certainly negligible. However, the century of Suebian independence from the Visigoths was important in allowing Galicia and northern Portugal another hundred years away from Visigothic influence, with some researchers believing this to be a key factor in allowing the pre-Roman Celtic tongues to further impact the development of the region’s Vulgar Latin dialects.
The Germanic Contribution to Days of the Week in Portuguese
A final Germanic contribution worth noting are the Portuguese days of the week. During the decades of Suebi and then Visigothic dominion over the northwest of the peninsula, pagan terminology for the days of the week came to be replaced by Christian names. The Christian names were adopted from Judaism, where Dominica (Sunday) was considered the first day of the week.
During the fourth century, Pope Silvestre made it obligatory to use this designation, starting with Dominica (Sunday), which could also be called feria prima. As such, Monday was feria secunda, Tuesday feria tercia, Wednesday feria quarta, Thursday feria quinta, Friday feria sexta, whilst Saturday could be called either feria septima or Sabbatum, after the Sabbath.
Despite the papal demand, the order was only carried out in the northwest of Iberia, becoming widespread in the region during the time of the Suebi and Visigoths. This is why Portuguese is the only language of Western Europe in which the Judeo-Christian nomenclature prevails, though it does now have a slightly different form, as domingo (Sunday), segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira, sexta-feira, and sábado.
🕌 The Contribution of Arabic to Portuguese and Spanish
Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque, Gibraltar
(Photo by Alexander Awerin on Unsplash)
The Berber Conquest of Hispania
Following the emergence of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century, Islam spread rapidly across the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. By the eighth century, Muslims had settled in Morocco, and soon set their sights upon the land visible from across the Mediterranean - Visigothic Hispania.
In April 711, a general named Tariq Ibn Ziyad sailed across the ten-mile strait separating Europe from Africa. The tall cliff Tariq and his five-hundred men landed at was then known as the Pillars of Hercules, but is now called Gibraltar, a name that comes from Jabal Tariq (Mount Tariq).
The Muslim forces took large swathes of the peninsula, one city at a time, making it all the way to Zaragoza in the north. By the end of the summer of 711 they were rulers of much of Iberia, and in 718 made Córdoba their capital. It is debated how much it was due to ambivalence towards the climate or fierce resistance from the inhabitants, but they never conquered the wet mountains of northern Spain, where a chain of small Christian kingdoms prevailed.
Though the Arabs were the driving force of Muslim expansion during this period, the conquerors were Berbers from North Africa, speaking Tamazight. Nevertheless, Arabic was the language of Islam, and so it was Arabic that would have a significant impact on Spanish and Portuguese.
The nomenclature of this can be somewhat chaotic. The Christians in Hispania called their conquerors Moriscos (Moors), mistakenly thinking they hailed from Mauritania.
For the sake of simplicity, I'll refer to them as Arabs from here. If you'd like to learn more about Tamazight, I'd recommend this page covering key information and resources for learning Amazigh languages.
Al-Andalus, Taifas, and the Reconquista
Map of the Reconquista
(Von Chocofrito - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46508562)
The Arabs named their new territory Al-Andalus. There are several theories as to where this name originates, but it’s sufficient to know that Andalusia, the southern region of modern day Spain, comes from the name the Arabs gave their new lands. Al-Andalus prospered until 1031, when it disintegrated following the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate. The single entity of Al-Andalus thus became twenty small kingdoms and principalities, known as taifas, who fought amongst each other constantly.
By the twelfth century, these small caliphates and emirates were finding it increasingly difficult to withstand the attacks of Christian crusaders from the north, having already lost Toledo in 1085. In 1492, the ‘Reconquista’ (reconquest) was completed, with the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella taking the final ember of Muslim resistance, the Emirate of Granada.
Scientific, Technological, and Cultural Achievements of Al-Andalus
Between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of Granada in 1492, the Arabs left an indelible mark on the peninsula.
The scientific, technological, and cultural developments they brought are too many to note here, but it’s at the very least worth knowing that, by 1000, Córdoba was the largest city of the Islamic world. Its population was half a million, twelve times that of Paris. It had seventy libraries, seven hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, and its streets were paved and lighted.
By the tenth century, scholars in Cordoba were working on algebra (álgebra in Portuguese and Spanish) - a name that comes from the Arabic al-jabr, meaning ‘reduction to the root’. The term was coined by the Persian scholar Al-Khwarizimi, whose name is also the origin of the Portuguese and Spanish words algoritmo (algorithm) and logaritmo (logarithm).
Many European languages have in fact borrowed words from Arabic (and therefore, in some instances, from Persian), with some of the most famous in English being chemistry, crimson, scarlet, and tariff.
Córdoba, Spain
(Photo by Jordi Vich Navarro on Unsplash)
The Arabic Contribution to Spanish
Like the Germanic rulers they’d toppled, the Arabs were always a minority in Iberia. However, the feats of Arab civilisation were so impressive as to be attractive to Hispanians, and the indelible mark the Arabs left on the peninsula therefore extended to its languages.
It is thought around 8 percent of Spanish words are Arabic in origin, an influence dwarfing that of the Visigoths. In fact, some even argue that, had the Umayyad caliphate not collapsed when it did, the language spoken in Spain today would be a form of Arabic containing lots of words from Vulgar Latin.
The Variety of Arabic Words and Expressions Found in Portuguese and Spanish
The Arabic word for olive, al-zeitun, is what gives Portuguese and Spanish their words for olive oil - azeite and aceite respectively. There’s also colours, where Arabic bequeathed Portuguese and Spanish words like azul (blue), anil ('indigo' in Portuguese) and añil ('indigo' in Spanish).
The popular expressions oxalá (I hope so), used as a casual interjection in the south of Portugal - and ojalá (I hope so), used as a casual interjection in Mexican Spanish - come from the Arabic wa sa llah (God willing).
Certain words for foods and plants have Arabic origins, a legacy of the skilled agronomy they brought to the peninsula. Arabic also gave Portuguese and Spanish words for an array of practical things and natural phenomena.
Notable Examples of Portuguese Words of Arabic Origin
açafrão (saffron)
alcachofra (artichoke)
alecrim (rosemary)
alface (lettuce)
alfazema (lavender)
arroz (rice)
limão (lemon)
jasmim (jasmine)
laranja (orange)
cenoura (carrot)
alcatifa (carpet)
almofada (pillow)
jarra (jar)
armazém (warehouse)
chafariz (fountain)
recife (reef)
Some of the Arabic words that entered Portuguese (and Spanish) are in fact of Persian origin, such as azul ('blue' in both Portuguese and Spanish), lacre ('sealing wax' in both Portuguese and Spanish), laca ('lacquer' in both Portuguese and Spanish), xaile ('shawl' in Portuguese), and chal ('shawl' in Spanish).
Notable Examples of Spanish Words of Arabic Origin
acequia (irrigation ditch)
arcaduz (pipe)
noria (waterwheel)
zanja (ditch)
arroz (rice)
limón (lemon)
jazmín (jasmine)
naranja (orange)
zanahoria (carrot)
barrio (district of a town)
aduana (customs)
alcalde (mayor)
The Retention of the Arabic Article al in Portuguese and Spanish
Alhambra, Granada, Spain
(Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash)
A defining feature of the Arabic words that entered Portuguese and Spanish was the retention of the Arabic article al. The Arabs also conquered Sicily, and for a time southern France, yet both French and Italian dropped the Arabic article from the words they borrowed - a tendency often shared by Catalan.
This is why the Arabic word for cotton, al-qutun, became algodão in Portuguese and algodón in Spanish, but cotó, coton, and cotone in Catalan, French, and Italian. The same happened with the Arabic word as-sukkar (sugar), which is açúcar in Portuguese, azúcar in Spanish, but sucre in both Catalan and French, as well as zucchero in Italian.
Arabic also gave Portuguese a host of place names, particularly those in the south of the country, beginning with -al, including Albufeira (meaning ‘the dam’ - a represa), Alcântara (‘the bridge’ - a ponte), Algarve, Almada (‘the mine’ - a mina), Almargem (‘the meadow’ - o prado), Alverca (‘the lagoon’ - a lagoa), and Alvor (‘the sea bream’ - o sargo).
This does not, however, mean that every word in Portuguese and Spanish beginning with al has an Arabic origin. Words such as alegre ('happy' in both Portuguese and Spanish), algo ('something' in both Portuguese and Spanish), and alma ('soul' in both Portuguese and Spanish), have nothing to do with Arabic.
Latin Words Adopted by Arabic and Then Portuguese and Spanish
Some of the Arabic words that made it into Portuguese were in fact Latin words that had been adopted by Arabic. The Portuguese word atum (tuna) and the Spanish word atún (tuna) stem from the Arabic al-tun, which had been borrowed from the Latin thunnus.
Arabic's Popularity and Role in Shaping the Phonetic Method of Spelling in Spanish
Alcazar de Sevilla, Mairena del Alcor, Spain
(Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash)
Spanish is comfortably the most phonetic of all Latin languages, including Italian. This is partly due to Arabic’s influence, bestowing a systematic and highly phonetic method of spelling.
Indeed, Ibero-Romance dialects were even being written with the Arabic script during this period. In Toledo, King Fernando III, who reigned from 1217 to 1252, had to force his scribes to write contracts in Castilian, as they still preferred Arabic, despite having won the city from the Arabs almost 150 years prior.
When scholars began to shape what would become Spanish’s modern form in the thirteenth century, Arabic was thus hugely influential on the peninsula, and so it seems certain the simplicity of Spanish in comparison to some of its modern counterparts is in part owed to the scholarly significance of Arabic during this key period in the formation of the Spanish language. Spain’s capital, Madrid, even takes its name from the Arabic al-magrit (the Spring), whilst the La Mancha region to its south is derived from al-mansha, meaning ‘wilderness’ or ‘dry land’.
Arabic's Contribution to Portuguese
Albufeira (Arabic : Al Buhera), Portugal
(Photo by Nick Kane on Unsplash)
Arabic’s influence on Galician-Portuguese, though still substantial, was not as significant as it was on Spanish.
The northern reaches of Iberia remained the domain of small Christian kingdoms, Galicia being recaptured by the Kingdom of Asturias in 740, before northern Portugal was also regained in the ninth century. As such, Arabic influence was far stronger south of the river Tagus, and particularly towards the Algarve.
Researchers disagree over the weight of Arabic’s lexical contribution to Portuguese. Adolfo Coelho argues there are 400 Portugues words of Arabic origin, Antenor Nascentes 600, and Carolina Michaëlis 1000.
Though Joseph-Maria Piel estimated that around an eighth of Portuguese vocabulary stems from Arabic, José Pedro Machado has offered the useful clarification that many of these were introduced centuries later, through Portuguese conquests in North Africa during the fifteenth century.
Whatever the exact figure may be, recent Portuguese dictionaries have compiled around 500,000 words. Whether it be more like 500 or 1000 words, it’s thus clear that Arabic makes up only a small fraction of the Portuguese lexicon - though still significantly more than Visigothic, for example.
The Reconquista, however, ensured Arabic remained nothing more than a significant contributor to the peninsula’s languages.
🇵🇹 The Emergence of Portugal
Lighthouse at Cabo Espichel, Portugal
(Photo by Noelephants Flying on Unsplash)
Though Galicia and northern Portugal were initially part of the Kingdom of Asturias (which became the Kingdom of León in 924), the twelfth century saw the northwest of the peninsula develop a political map closer to what is seen today.
In 1139, the County of Portugal broke from León to form its own kingdom, and just eight years later King Alfonso I of Portugal had taken Lisbon from the Taifa of Badajoz.
Portugal’s break from León helped cement the divergence of literary Galician-Portuguese in the fourteenth century, as both Galicia and Portugal no longer belonged to the same overarching political domain (León).
Portugal bore a striking resemblance to its current shape by 1249, after the capture of Faro, whilst a series of treaties with the kings of León and Castile prevented Portuguese expansion eastwards.
🍃 The Development of Galician-Portuguese
Río Miño, Galicia, Spain
(Photo by Alejandro Piñero Amerio on Unsplash)
During this period, Galician-Portuguese began to take a shape similar to the Portuguese, and of course Galician, we see today.
Syncope in Galician-Portuguese
A feature of the Romance languages developing on the peninsula was a phenomenon known as syncope, which is essentially when written words lose letters that no longer reflect the sounds made when people pronounce the word.
This occurred in Galician-Portuguese. For example, the Latin word ‘ego’ became ‘eo’ and then eu (I), ‘credere’ became creer (to believe), and ‘credo’ therefore became creo (I believe). Elsewhere, ‘pede’ became ‘pee’, resulting in the form we see today - pé (foot) - whilst ‘cena’ became ‘cea’, eventually developing into ceia (supper). Other notable examples include ‘diabolu’, mutating into diabo (devil), whilst ‘populu’, after first becoming ‘pouoo’, developed into povo (people).
The Continued Role of Palatalisation in Galician-Portuguese
Sun shining on a green field in Galicia, Spain
(Photo by Juan Gomez on Unsplash)
Palatalisation continued to play a role in the development of Galician-Portuguese, producing the forms seen in Portuguese today. For example, ’basiu’ became beijo (kiss), ‘hodie’ became hoje (today), ‘passione’ became paixão (passion), ‘caseu’ became queso (cheese), and ‘quassiare’ became queixar (to complain). The verb baixar, which today most commonly means ‘to download’, also means ‘to lower’, stemming from ‘bassiare’.
The Development of Articles in Galician-Portuguese
Both Portuguese and Galician articles began to take their present shape during this period, losing the letter l, and thus leaving the forms we see today - a and o (‘the’ singular - feminine and masculine), as and os (‘the’ plural - feminine and masculine).
The Possible Celtic or Lusitanian Origins of the Portuguese Words Mãe (mother) and Pai (father)
Although common consensus assumes the Portuguese words mãe (mother) and pai (father) are from the Latin ‘mater’ and ‘pater’, José Barbosa Machado argues the trends in the phonetic development of Galician-Portuguese wouldn’t lend to such a transition. Instead, he suggests the terms must be from the Indo-European languages that predated Latin’s arrival - be it Celtic or Lusitanian.
The Influence of French and Occitan
Carcassonne, south of France
(Photo by Alain Bonnardeaux on Unsplash)
Galician-Portuguese also welcomed words from other languages during this period.
French influence was significant in the Reconquista, leading to the entry of words like barão (baron) and dama (lady). The prominence of southern France’s troubadours made Occitan a language of prestige in courts throughout Western Europe, leading to the adoption of words such as trovão (thunder) and trovador (troubadour).
These words also entered what became Spanish, giving barón (baron), dama (lady), trueno (thunder), trovadora ('troubadour' feminine), and trovador ('troubadour' masculine).
The Divergence of Galician-Portuguese
During the fourteenth century, Galician-Portuguese began the divergence that has given the world Galician and Portuguese today.
The decisive factor was the permanent transfer of the royal chancellory to Lisbon, thereby shifting the cultural and political centre of the Kingdom of Portugal. This accentuated the social, cultural, and political separation enshrined by Portugal’s break from León in 1139, and by the middle of the fourteenth century, literary works in Galician-Portuguese had virtually ceased to be written.
Despite this divergence, Galician and Portuguese remain mutually intelligible today. If you’re interested in learning more, the following video by the Langfocus YouTube channel is a great starting point, comparing Galician with European Portuguese.
The 'Lisbon-Coimbra' Axis and the Development of Portuguese
Coimbra, Portugal
(Photo by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash)
The Portuguese of the capital and the surrounding regions soon became the linguistic norm of the language. By the sixteenth century, grammars were being published in the capital, and their content was based on the Portuguese of central and southern Portugal.
Both Fernão Oliveira’s Grammatica de Lingoagem [sic.] Portuguesa (1536) and João de Barros’s Grammatica da Lingua Portuguesa (1540) were published in the capital, and thus reflected the Portuguese language as it was written and spoken in Lisbon.
As well as the previous transfer of royal power to Lisbon, this was also the result of the cultural prestige enjoyed by monasteries like Alcobaça and Santa Cruz of Coimbra. The French linguist Paul Teyssier has called this the ‘Lisbon-Coimbra’ axis, in part created by the transfer of the Estudo Gerais from Lisbon to Coimbra in 1537. The linguistic standards of modern Portuguese have thus emanated from the region between Lisbon and Coimbra, shaped by those writing in both cities.
Though this theory makes sense, it’s worth remembering the Portuguese that developed in this region stemmed from a mix of Galician-Portuguese and Mozarabic, with the former having been brought southwards by the Reconquista.
For more detail on all of the above, I'd recommend the history sections of the How to Learn Portuguese Guide and the How to Learn Spanish Guide.
🇵🇹 The Rise of Portugal
Alfama, Lisbon, Portugal
(Photo by Liam McKay on Unsplash)
The Consolidation of the Kingdom of Portugal
The following two centuries saw Portugal secure and expand its territory. The battle of Aljubarrota in 1385 established João I’s monarchy against competing claims from Castile, confirmed by a peace treaty in 1411.
The Rise of the Portuguese Empire
Regatta on the Tagus, Lisbon, Portugal
(Photo by Eduardo Goody on Unsplash)
This laid the foundations for Portuguese colonialism in the fifteenth century. In 1415, Portugal took Ceuta in present-day Morocco, before colonising the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores between 1425 and 1427. By 1482, the Portuguese had reached Angola, and first rounded the Cape of Good Hope six years later. Portuguese soldiers, merchants, and navigators first saw the west coast of India in 1498, and Brazil two years later, expanding a maritime empire that would last for almost six centuries, spanning South America, Africa, and Asia.
The Empire officially ended with the Portuguese handover of Macau to China in 1999. This era also saw the rise of the Portuguese language, influenced by new vocabulary from exploration, conquest, and global trade.
The Role of the Printing Press in Shaping Literacy and Standardisation
The printing press came late to Portugal but eventually spurred literacy and standardisation. Early printed works, mostly translations, set the stage for grammatical rules.
By the mid-1500s, nasal diphthong endings of nouns in the singular and plural had become standardised, with the establishment of -ão and -ãe in the singular, and -ãos, -ães, and -ões in the plural.
Such forms are common today, and can be seen in words like condição (condition) and condições (conditions), geração (generation) and gerações (generations), as well as manifestação (demonstration) and manifestações (demonstrations).
Other examples include mão (hand) and mãos (hands), as well as pão (bread) and pães (breads), whilst the most common example of -ãe is the word mãe (mother).
Another development relevant to current Portuguese was the disappearance of adverbs like ‘entonce’, ‘entonces’, and ‘estonce’, replaced by the form that remains today, então (then). Similarly, ‘aca’ became aqui (here), ‘aco’ became aí (there), ‘ala’ became ali (there), ‘alo’ became cá (here), and ‘hi’ became lá (there).
🇪🇸 The Kingdom of Castile and the Rise of Spanish
Toledo, Spain
Photo by Wei Hunag on Unsplash
Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula
Following the Umayyad conquest of much of Spain, Asturias and Navarre became the two powerful Christian kingdoms of the peninsula, nestled in the cold mountains of the north.
Both of these kingdoms defended their territories fiercely, aided by wet, mountainous environments that discouraged invaders. In fact, the first victory of the Reconquista was fought in the Asturian town of Covadonga, in either 718 or 722 - depending on which source is believed.
Portugal and Léon began as counties of Asturias, before eventually emerging as their own kingdoms. Navarre, which was largely the home of the Basques, went on to produce the separate kingdom of Aragón. Further east, Catalonia was still at this point a buffer kingdom of France, used as protection from Muslim Spain.
The Origins of Castile
None of these kingdoms spoke the dialect that would go on to become Spanish. This honour went to the kingdom of Castile.
What is most striking about the starring role of Castile in the development of Spanish is that it started out as nothing more than a few outposts built by Asturias and Navarre around the year 800.
Contrary to common misconception, Castile does not take its name from the castles that were eventually built there. In the Latin vernacular, castellum, in fact, meant ‘hill fort’.
It was this relative obscurity, and the strong influence of Navarre, that gave the Ibero-Romance dialect of Castile - Old Castilian - a feature that continues to distinguish Spanish from other Latin languages today.
The Possible Contribution of Old Basque to Castilian
Navarre, Basque Country, Spain
Photo by Cecilia Rodríguez Suárez on Unsplash
Linguists believe the Basque language, spoken in Navarre, could explain one of the most distinctive features of Old Castilian, and therefore of Spanish.
The Basque language is not a Latin language. In fact, it is not even an Indo-European language. As such, it was fundamentally different from the Ibero-Romance dialects developing on the peninsula at the time.
Old Basque did not have an f sound, and it is thought this influenced the disappearance of f at the beginning of hundreds of words in Old Castilian, which transformed it into h.
This is why the Spanish for ‘son’ is hijo, whilst Portuguese, French, Catalan, and Italian have filho, fils, fill, and figlio, in keeping with the original Latin word, filius.
This trend is noticeable among hundreds of Spanish words today. The Latin word fumus (oven), is four in French, forn in Catalan, and forno in both Italian and Portuguese, whilst in Spanish it is horno.
Likewise, fames (hunger) became faim in French, fam in Catalan, fame in Italian, and fome in Portuguese, but is hambre in Spanish.
One of the most common verbs in any language, facere (to do), became faire in French, fer in Catalan, fare in Italian, and fazer in Portuguese, yet in Spanish it’s hacer.
A final example, which perhaps supports the theory in demonstrating the ubiquity of the rule, is the word for ‘ant’, which in Latin is formica. It became fourmi in French, formica in Italian, and formiga in Catalan and Portuguese. In Spanish, however, it is hormiga.
How Occitan Dialects Could Support the Theory of Old Basque's Contribution to Castilian
I noticed a spelling variation in regional Occitan dialects whilst reading Assimil’s L’Occitan book
(Photo by the Author)
Though I don’t know if it will be related, I came across something else that might support this theory.
There are various dialects of Occitan spoken in the south of France, and for all of them bar one, the verb ‘to celebrate’ is festejar, from the Latin noun festum (feast). However, in the Gascon dialect, spoken between the triangle of the Pyrenees, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Garonne river in southwest France, the verb is hestejar.
Just as with Old Castilian, the Gascon dialect of Occitan appears to have transformed the f of Latin into h. Like Castile, Gascony has shared lands with the Basque Country (Euskadi), and so the Gascon dialect of Occitan may well have been influenced by the Basque language in the same way Old Castilian seems to have been.
The Rise of Castile
Castile became an independent kingdom in the eleventh century, and, influenced by French religious zeal (español comes from how the French referred to Hispanians), rose to prominence as the leading kingdom of the Reconquista against the taifas of Al-Andalus.
The (Later) Rise of Castilian Under Alfonso X (r. 1252-1284)
Santo Domingo de Silos, Burgos, Spain
(Photo by Walter Frehner on Unsplash)
In the eleventh century, the Castilian dialect of Ibero-Romance had not even been deemed fit for writing down, and court poetry was reserved for Aragonese, Galician-Portuguese, and Mozarabic - the Romance dialect that developed in Andalusia under Muslim rule.
It would eventually become a respected tongue through the efforts of King Alfonso X (r. 1252-1284).
By the time Alfonso X ascended the throne in 1252, the borders of Aragon and Portugal were more or less in place, and only the Emirate of Granada remained of the taifas. Vast swathes of central Iberia were now in the possession of Castile, and Alfonso knew he needed something to unite its inhabitants, who were Christians and Jews without a common religion or tongue.
Though his reign was unsuccessful in unifying the new lands under Castile’s banner, Alfonso was successful in galvanising the Castilian language, and his codification of the Siete Partidas (Seven Parts) remained a foundation of the Spanish legal system until the nineteenth century.
From Toledo, which was then known as la cabeza de Europa (the head of Europe), Alfonso supervised, and even took part in, the translation of renowned Latin, Greek, and Arabic works into Castilian. The works translated covered an array of subjects, including astronomy, magic, and law.
The scholars produced the Libro de los juegos (Book of Games), in whose pages was a description of ajedrez, a Persian game that came to be known as chess in English. The game was novel to thirteenth century Europe, and the Libro de los juegos noted moves like jaque mate (checkmate), which stemmed from the Arabic shâh mâtâ - ‘kill the shah’.
Other feats of Alfonso’s reign were his writing of Estoria de España and the Crónica General, histories of Spain and the world respectively. As well as greatly enhancing the readership and prestige of Castilian, these works also demonstrate how much weight the French notion of ‘España’ had gathered by the middle of the thirteenth century.
The Standardisation of Castilian Under Alfonso X
Frías, Burgos, Spain
(Photo by Jesus Tapia on Unsplash)
The other seminal achievement of Alfonso’s efforts to enhance Castilian came with his standardisation of the language. He was the first medieval European king to acknowledge the need of vernacular languages for rules, standardising the grammar and spelling of Castilian three centuries before similar steps had been taken for Italian and French.
This was done by weight of example, rather than through the creation of a dictionary or book of grammar. The sheer tenacity with which Alfonso edited the array of works being translated into Castilian ensured each volume met strict, common standards for spelling and grammar.
Though there were still some phonetic discrepancies with Latin spelling, it was to nowhere near the same extent as with French and English, where scholars fulfilling similar roles could not help but flaunt their knowledge of Latin in favour of rendering the spelling of words more phonetically viable.
Castile did not have the same problem of pretention, as Arabic had been as prestigious as Latin on the peninsula, and many of the scholars at Toledo were Jewish, who of course felt no compulsion to hold Latin in any higher esteem than Hebrew or Arabic.
Although there were still some spelling confusions, Alfonso’s reign helped shape the Spanish language towards the way it looks today, bringing the majority of spellings in line with Castilian pronunciation.
Although the work of Alfonso X and the Toledo scholars helped to standardise Castilian, the process was far from finished. Two centuries later, Castilian had surpassed many other of the peninsula’s dialects in prestige (such as Leonese), and was even starting to become a language of poetry.
The Key Factor in Shaping the Relative Simplicity of Spanish Pronunciation
Sunset over Alhambra, Granada, Spain
(Photo by Alexander Psiuk on Unsplash)
During this period, the seminal cause for the simplicity of Spanish pronunciation occurred. The Reconquista, and the conquests made by Castile, brought together lots of people with different dialects. To communicate with each other more easily, they simplified their way of speaking. Along with the influence of Arabic, this explains the relative simplicity of Spanish compared to other Latin languages, which are less phonetic.
The Role of the Printing Press in Furthering Standardisation
After 1450, Castilian literary production soared, and paired with the advent of the printing press in Spain in 1472, made clear there were still inconsistencies in need of clarification.
During this period, the plural pronouns nos (we) and vos (you) began to morph with the ending otros (others), resulting in their current forms, nosotros and vosotros.
The current formal forms of ‘you’, ustedes (plural) and usted (singular), emerged during this period, as contractions of uuestra mercedes (your graces).
The suffix -illo multiplied into -ito and -cito, giving diminutives the form we see today, with words like poco (little) becoming poquito (a tiny bit), and despacio (slow) becoming despacito (slowly). In fact, Costa Ricans are sometimes known as ‘Ticos’, as they tend to use -tico instead of -ito or -cito, turning diminutives like hermanito (little brother) into hermanitico. The -illo suffix remains, with words such as pan (bread) becoming panecillo (small piece of bread).
The Role of Antonio de Nebrija in Recording the Development of Castilian
Salamanca Cathedral, Spain. Nebrija studied at the University of Salamanca
(Photo by Mayte Garcia Llorente on Unsplash)
The challenge of recording and systematising the developments of the Castilian language, as well as building on the work of Alfonso X to iron out discrepancies, was met by Antonio de Nebrija. He was the first European to make a record of the grammar of a vernacular tongue, publishing a grammar of Castilian, Gramática de la lengua Castellana, in 1492, which helped to further standardise the language.
In the same year, Nebrija published a Latin-to-Castilian dictionary, Lexicon hoc est Dictionarium ex sermone latino in hispaniensem. Though it missed out on being the first Castilian dictionary by two years, it was by far the most comprehensive, with thirty thousand entries.
Three years later, he added another volume, including Castilian-to-Latin translations. Nebrija’s work helped to systematise in writing the trends of spoken Castilian, most notably the tendency for the f in words like fablar (to speak/to talk) to be replaced with h - producing hablar.
He was also the first to give specific terminology to verb tenses, a development completed in the nineteenth century by the Venezuelan scholar, Andrés Bello, who organised the verb system of Spanish.
In 1517, and at the ripe old age of seventy-five, Nebrija became the first to publish a book of spelling and pronunciation for Castilian, showing how every Spanish phoneme - unit of sound - should be pronounced. This work, Reglas de la Orthographía en la lengua castellana, inspired a new ortografía to be published roughly every fifteen years - a tradition which continues to this day, with the most recent edition being published by Spain’s official language academy, the Real Academía Española, in 2010.
Nebrija is thus widely credited with being the reason that Spanish pronunciation and grammar, despite some subtle differences, remained so uniform across Latin America, and that the language did not splinter into widely different dialects.
In this regard, Nebrija’s work arrived just in time for the Spanish language, as it was about to be spread across the Atlantic Ocean.
🇵🇹 The Portuguese and 🇪🇸 Spanish Empires
Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs) and the Forging of Spain
Wedding portrait of Fernando of Aragón and Isabel of Castile
(Photo from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ferdinand_of_Aragon,_Isabella_of_Castile.jpg)
By the late fifteenth century, the Iberian Peninsula was beginning to take the political shape we see today.
The marriage of Isabel of Castile to Fernando of Aragón in 1469 paved the way for the union of two of the most powerful Iberian kingdoms aside from Portugal. Though neither were initially head of their respective dominions, by 1479 the pair had ascended to their thrones, to be Isabel I, Queen of Castile, and Fernando II, King of Aragón.
They came to be known as Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs), as their reign was characterised by measures to unite the inhabitants of their domains, channelling the religious zeal of the Reconquista to forge the Kingdom of Spain. In fact, they were the first monarchs to refer to their marriage of kingdoms as a single political entity - España.
Although religious fervour was the monarchs’ chosen force to unify the kingdom, they deliberately began calling the Castilian language español, in an attempt to inspire a sense of shared identity amongst their subjects.
The Origin of the Term 'America'
Carte du monde Universalis Cosmographia, 1507; by the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller
(Photo from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UniversalisCosmographia.jpg)
With the Granada war over, the monarchs set their sights on exploration. In October 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived in the ‘New World’ under their banner.
The Americas, as they’re known today, take their name from Amerigo Vespucci, a commander of one of the ships sent by the monarchs in 1499 to find the Asian mainland, in the wake of waining confidence in the ability of Columbus. Vespucci, an Italian explorer, figured out the coast of Brazil was not India, but a ‘new’ continent.
Publishing accounts of this ‘new’ land in 1502 and 1504, he became famous throughout Europe, and despite cartographers of Spain and Portugal proposing names for the new land, the title of Vespucci’s first account, Nuevo Mundo (New World), became the popular choice.
A cartographer in the small town of Saint-Dié, nestled in France’s Vosges Mountains, changed everything. Martin Waldseemüller was so enthused upon reading Vespucci’s accounts that he published Cosmographiae Introductio (Introduction to Cosmography) in 1507. Inside, Waldseemüller had drawn the eastern shore of the New World with impressive accuracy, and had called the new continent America, in honour of the man whose accounts had inspired him.
Six years later, the cartographer tried to undo his dedication after learning it was Columbus who first ‘discovered’ the new lands, but his map had already sold a thousand copies, and the name has held firm to this day.
The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the Spanish and Portuguese Conquest of the Americas, and the Emergence of the Atlantic Slave Trade
The Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494
(Photo accredited to theageofdiscovery.wikispaces.com - but unable to open link when I found this map)
Just two years after Columbus first made landfall, Pope Alexander VI decreed the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), dividing the world between the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal.
The ensuing rush for wealth and land led to the deaths of tens of millions of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, mostly through European diseases to which they lacked immunity, but also through murder and enslavement.
This contributed to the emergence of the Atlantic Slave Trade, as Europeans found they couldn’t sustain the commercial ventures they’d started in the Americas due to the rate at which their actions were killing the indigenous people they had enslaved.
Their solution, founded on the slave trade Portugal had established during the fifteenth century, was to enslave human beings from Africa, forcing them to work on the plantations and mines sprouting in the Americas.
🌎 The Contribution of Indigenous Languages of the Americas to Spanish and Portuguese
Mural in Kichwa, one of the indigenous languages (or languages groups) of Ecuador, Quito
(Photo by the Author)
⚔️ The Effect of European Conquest on the Indigenous Languages of the Americas
It’s thought there were at least 600 languages being spoken in the Americas in 1492, from 125 different language families. Given that population estimates now have 75 million people as an absolute minimum for the Americas at that time - with some arguing as many as 145 million - it is likely there were more than 600 languages, given that as much as 95% of the indigenous population are thought to have died within decades of European arrival.
Although it is believed around half of the six hundred languages were wiped out, some cultures that are claimed in history lessons to have been made extinct, lived on. They were decimated, certainly, but they did not all disappear. Some of the indigenous languages of the Americas live on today, or are being resurrected from obscurity. For example, people living in the Caribbean are today piecing the Taíno language back together.
🛶 The Contribution of Taíno to European Languages
Trees along the coast of Jamaica
(Photo by Yves Alarie on Unsplash)
The Taíno people were the first encountered by Columbus.
Their language, like other indigenous tongues, has also lived on through Spanish. In fact, the words Spanish and then Portuguese borrowed from Taíno have also been borrowed by English.
Of all the indigenous languages encountered by Spanish, it was Taíno that had the greatest influence.
🇪🇸 Spanish Words of Taíno Origin
canoa (canoe)
barbacoa (barbecue)
hamaca (hammock)
iguana
maíz (corn)
tobacco
cacique (chief)
tiburón (shark)
huracán (hurricane)
🇧🇷 Portuguese Words of Taíno Origin
canoa (canoe)
maca (hammock)
iguana
tabaco
cacique (chief)
tubarão (shark)
furação (hurricane)
🌮 The Contribution of Nahuatl to Spanish and Portuguese
Huasteca Potosina, Xilitla, Cd Valles, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
(Photo by Guido HN on Unsplash)
The Aztec Empire, brought down in 1519 by Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors, was a multilingual and multinational entity of Huastecs, Mixtecs, Otomi, Tarascans, Totonacs, and Zapotecs, all of whom understood the Aztec language, Nahuatl.
As with Taíno, Spaniards used indigenous words to describe things they’d never seen before. Nahuatl is therefore the origin of an array of Spanish, and thus Portuguese, words.
The Nahuatl word xitomatl became tomate (tomato) in both Spanish and then Portuguese. Likewise, a drink called xocolatl became chocolate in Spanish and Portuguese.
Names of indigenous staples also gave Spanish the words cacahuete (peanut) and aguacete (avocado) - which is abacate (avocado) in Portuguese.
Another was nopal, an edible cactus central to the Mexican diet, now resting on the national flag. Nahuatl also gave Spanish the suffix -iche, which was adapted from -itzin.
🌋 The Contribution of Quechua to Spanish and Portuguese
View of Cusco, Peru, from the Incan site of Sacsaywaman
(Photo by Renny Gamarra on Unsplash)
The conquistador Francisco Pizarro left behind smallpox after a scouting mission to Peru in 1528, and by the time he’d returned in 1532, the Inca Empire he attacked was in a chaotic state. The Spanish had subdued much of the resistance by 1540, and the subjects of the Incas found themselves with new masters.
Not long before the Spaniards’ arrival, the Incas had adopted Quechua as the lingua franca of their empire, and the Spanish continued to use it for the same practical purposes.
As with the Caribbean and Mexico, indigenous staples and resources became part of Spanish, and therefore Portuguese, vocabulary, with some of the most notable examples being alpaca, quinoa, cobayo ('guinea pig' in Spanish), cobaia ('guinea pig' in Portuguese), llamas (Spanish), lhamas ('llamas' in Portuguese), and coca (coca leaves), the latter being used as a cure for altitude sickness.
🧉 The Contribution of Tupí-Guaraní to Spanish and Portuguese
Iguazu Falls, straddling the borders of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina
Photo by Jeffrey Eisen on Unsplash
As the Spaniards reached Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, a few words were borrowed from Tupí-Guaraní, the most famous of which are jaguar, maraca (Spanish), maracá ('maraca' in Portuguese), piranha (Portuguese), and piraña ('piranha' in Spanish).
By 1550, the map of Latin America we see today had almost taken shape, and, apart from Brazil, would be under Spanish dominion for almost three centuries.
Jaguar drinking water in the wetland region known as Pantanal, in Poconé, Mato Grosso, Brazil
(Photo by Joanne de Graaff on Unsplash)
🌏 The Contribution of Asian, African, and American Languages to Portuguese
Portuguese colonies in East Africa and Southeast Asia gave the language an array of words.
⛵️ The Malay Contribution to Portuguese
Malay gave Portuguese words like bule (teapot), catatua (cockatoo), catre (pallet), junco (reed), and orangotango (orangutan).
River running through Malacca, Malaysia. The Portuguese controlled the important trade city from 1511 to 1641.
Photo by Valeriano G on Unsplash
🇮🇳 The Contribution of the Languages of India to Portuguese
Portuguese commercial ventures along India’s coast led to the adoption of the words bengala (cane), carambola, ceroulas (long shorts), caxemira (cashmere), pagode (pagoda), and pijamas (pyjamas).
Basílica do Bom Jesus, Goa, India. Built from 1594 to 1605, in 2010 it was voted by the Ministry of Culture of Portugal and the Portuguese Institute for Architectural Heritage as one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World.
Photo by KUSHAGRA DHALL on Unsplash
🐲 The Contribution of Chinese Languages to Portuguese
Trade with China, particularly in Macao, gave Portuguese words like chá (tea), ganga (denim), leque (fan), and tufão (typhoon).
Ruínas de São Paulo (Ruins of Saint Paul’s), Macau. Built from 1602 to 1640, in 2010 it was voted by the Ministry of Culture of Portugal and the Portuguese Institute for Architectural Heritage as one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World.
Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash
⛩️ The Japanese Contribution to Portuguese
Portuguese merchants and Jesuits briefly established connections with the Japanese port of Nagasaki, from which entered the words biombo (screen), caqui (persimmon), catana (machete), and quimono (kimono).
Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社, suwa jinja), Nagasaki, Japan.
The turbulent civil wars that plagued sixteenth century Japan led to the fishing village of Nagasaki being granted to the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) in 1580.
The Jesuits missionaries in Japan were predominantly Portuguese, and together with Portuguese traders turned the city into an entrepôt between Portuguese Malacca, China, and Japan.
Suwa Shrine was built in 1625 during Japan’s wave of measures to curb the influence of Christianity. Although the temple was destroyed by fire in 1857, it was rebuilt in 1869. More information can be found on the official website of Suwa Shrine.
Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash
🌍 The Contribution of African Languages to Portuguese
The Portuguese Empire included the Cape Verde islands, São Tomé and Principe, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea, whilst its largest occupations were of Angola and Mozambique.
Such is the linguistic and cultural richness and diversity of Africa, it is hard to determine from which language words entered Portuguese, but many will likely have come from Swahili, or certainly from one, if not various, Bantu languages. Words such as girafa (giraffe), inhame (yam), macaco (monkey), and moleque (kid) arrived from Portugal’s African colonies.
Muxima, Icolo e Bengo Province, Angola.
In 1589, the Portuguese captured the commune of Muxima. In 1599, the Portuguese built Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Muxima (Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Muxima) and Fortaleza de Muxima (Fortress of Muxima). In Kimbundu, Muxima means ‘heart’.
Photo by Jorge Sá on Unsplash
🌎 The Contribution of American Languages to Portuguese
Though Spanish introduced Portuguese to an array of words from the Americas, Portugal’s colonisation of Brazil led to the adoption of various words from the languages of indigenous peoples, and particularly from the Tupi languages.
Words such as amendoim (peanut), arara (macaw), caipira (hillbilly), jacaré (alligator), and mandioca (manioc) are from the indigenous languages of Brazil. There are others, such as papaia (papaya), which come from the Arawak languages, and could thus have arrived through Arawak speakers in the Caribbean, or from Arawak speakers in the north of South America.
Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) looking out on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Photo by Peter Nicola on Unsplash
🪷 Regional Variation in Portuguese and Spanish
Both Portuguese and Spanish are spoken across multiple countries, each with distinct accents, vocabulary, and even grammar peculiarities.
It's helpful to actually hear the differences in pronunciation between the different forms of Portuguese and Spanish, and so I'd recommend watching the following video comparing Brazilian and European Portuguese pronunciation and this video comparing accents from across the Spanish-speaking world.
🇧🇷 The Development of Brazilian Portuguese
Sunny day at the beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
(Photo by João Pedro Vergara on Unsplash)
Brazil has, by some distance, the most Portuguese speakers in the world, with 99 percent of its 211 million inhabitants speaking the language as a mother tongue, and much of the remaining 1 percent speaking it as a second after their indigenous languages, or the language of the place from which they have emigrated to Brazil.
The língua geral (general tongue)
During Portugal’s colonisation of Brazil in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese of the court in Lisbon remained the exclusive tongue of the colonial ruling class, such as in the law courts and the Church.
However, the colonisation and exploitation of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, which was often done by evangelising missionaries, was conducted in what was known as the língua geral (general tongue). This língua geral was essentially a creole of the most prominent indigenous language of the coastal region, Tupinambá, blended with an array of Portuguese vocabulary.
From the earliest period of Portugal’s involvement in Brazil, European Portuguese was thus perceived as the language of authority, used in formal settings and written correspondence, whilst daily interactions between colonisers and indigenous peoples were in the língua geral.
Over time, and as these interactions occurred with more of the indigenous population, aspects of Portuguese grammar were simplified in spoken language as a means of aiding communication - a ubiquitous trait when two or more languages’ speakers seek to find a means of communicating with one another.
Fazenda Cassange, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
(Photo by Felipe Dias on Unsplash)
This process was accelerated by the slave trade, which enslaved and transported an estimated 4.9 million people from Africa to Brazil between 1501 and 1866 - more than any other country.
The linguistic diversity of Brazil, comprised of hundreds of indigenous languages, those spoken by the enslaved from Africa, as well as the various regional dialects of the different Portuguese settlers, thus enhanced the simplification of the grammar of spoken Portuguese, as this was essential for communication.
The Development of Various Spoken Forms of Portuguese in Brazil
Many of the settlers from Portugal were attracted by the prospect of gold and diamonds further inland, and by the middle of the eighteenth century, over two hundred years of colonisation had led to the emergence of various spoken forms of Portuguese.
These variants included the different regional dialects of Portuguese settlers, those of indigenous tribes in permanent contact with the Portuguese, as well as those with mixed indigenous and Portuguese ancestry.
Other variants included those spoken by recently-transported slaves, those used to communicate between slaves and their owners, those with mixed African and Portuguese ancestry, as well as hybrids of all of the above in expanding urban areas.
The Continued Divergence of Written Portuguese and Spoken Forms of the Language in Brazil
Municipal Park Roberto Mario Santini, Santos, Brazil
(Photo by David Rangel on Unsplash)
In 1758, the use of Portuguese was made compulsory in Brazil, in a bid to reassert royal authority. European Portuguese remained the standard of writing and formal settings, including education, and continued to develop separately to the language, or forms of the language, spoken by Brazil’s people.
There was therefore a continued divergence between the written, European Portuguese of the ruling class, and the spoken language of the people. This was compounded by the fact that, between 1538 and 1850, around 70 percent of Brazilians were of indigenous, African, or multiethnic origin - most of whom were enslaved and denied education.
The remaining 30 percent of the population were of Portuguese decent, and it’s therefore clear how this social segregation enhanced the divergence of the spoken language from that of European Portuguese - both spoken and written. In fact, the written language of Brazil remained almost identical to European Portuguese, such was the inegalitarian and racist stratification of society.
The Influence of European Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro
Following Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal in 1808, the royal court was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, causing European Portuguese to exert more influence on the spoken language of Brazil. Though some of this influence spread to other parts of Brazil on account of the city’s royal significance, its most enduring effects were in Rio itself, as the 15,000 Portuguese who arrived with the court affected the local language.
A notable example of the changes brought by this migration is the pronunciation of s when a final syllable, which is still pronounced like ‘sh’ in the carioca accent.
Despite the transfer of the royal court, the influence of European Portuguese on the spoken language of Brazil remained minimal, particularly as Brazil gained independence in 1822.
Nineteenth Century Immigration
During the nineteenth century, various waves of migration occurred from non-Portuguese speaking countries, including Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Syria, and Japan, all of which played their part in the development of the pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary of Brazilian Portuguese.
Establishing a Literary Language from Brazilian Portuguese
Though the written language continued to bear a far closer resemblance to European Portuguese, attempts to establish an explicitly Brazilian literary language were made towards the end of the nineteenth century.
This literary language, based on elements of spoken Brazilian Portuguese, led to the works of the Brazilian Modernists in the 1920s and 30s. Despite these efforts, the syntax of the written language remained very close to European Portuguese in formal settings, particularly in academic circles, official documents, and the press.
Spelling Reforms Since the Twentieth Century
Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
(Photo by Alice Yamamura on Unsplash)
Much of the twentieth century, at least within the quiet corridors of those who adjudicate language, was characterised by debates, disagreements, and reforms over spelling.
Both the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences introduced their own changes to the respective written Portuguese of their countries, with only sporadic areas of agreement.
A series of reforms included the introduction of written accents on words whose stress fell on the third to last syllable - known as proparoxytone words. This affected words where e and o came before m and n, with the circumflex accent introduced to reflect Brazilian pronunciation, in contrast to the acute accent of European Portuguese. For example, words like polémico and crónica came to be written as polêmico (polemic, controversial) and crônica (chronic) in Brazilian Portuguese.
Though often met with resistance, and at best apathy, proponents of a unified standard of spelling made progress during the 1970s and 80s. Seeking consensus between Lusophone nations, a breakthrough was made with the Spelling Agreement of 1990, overseen by the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.
Despite this, a lack of unanimous ratification and a series of disputes ensured the reform wasn’t introduced until 1 January 2009, with a transition period first set until the end of 2012, but later extended until the end of 2015.
Brazilian and European Portuguese have differences in syntax, lexicon, and pronunciation, and so it’s unsurprising the reforms of 2009 have had to make allowances for divergent spellings as a means of accommodating the divergent pronunciations.
These spelling differences - which existed before the reform - had never posed problems for readers of the other’s form of written Portuguese. In fact, the Brazilian Academy of Letters has stated its intention to bring further adjustments in the coming years.
🇧🇷 Varieties of Brazilian Portuguese
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
(Photo by Luis Diego Aguilar on Unsplash)
Though there are subtle variations in vocabulary, idiom, and syntax, the most significant differences are in accent and pronunciation.
When someone speaks in their regional accent, together with a host of regional idioms and vocabulary, it may well be difficult to understand them at first. However, it’s always a simple matter of immersing in that variety. Immersing in a regional accent will be interesting, enjoyable, and will quickly lead to understanding any peculiarities of expression.
The Norma Urbana Culta (Educated Urban Standard)
There’s also something of a national standard, known as the norma urbana culta (educated urban standard). As the name suggests, it is spoken in larger urban areas, with the influence of television and the media ensuring its promulgation.
Most of the major television networks are based in Rio and São Paulo, and so these have set the national standard. This standard once bore a closer resemblance to Rio, as it used to be the capital. It is now much closer to the accent of São Paulo - the city with the largest population in Brazil.
Examples of Different Brazilian Accents
If you’re interested, the following is a great video discussing and providing examples of ten different Brazilian accents, whilst the following are useful videos on the accents and slang of Manaus, Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Curitiba.
To search for others, just type ‘sotaque’ followed by the location, or enter the demonym for that city or region. For example, to find a video on the accent of Minas Gerais, you could search ‘sotaque mineiro’, or ‘expressões mineiras’ for expressions.
📖 Comparing 🇧🇷 Brazilian Portuguese and 🇵🇹 European Portuguese
Evening in Lisbon, Portugal
(Photo by Andreas Brücker on Unsplash)
Are Spoken Forms of Brazilian and European Portuguese Mutually Intelligible?
Depending on who you ask, some say most Brazilians have a hard time understanding spoken European Portuguese. Aside from the differences in pronunciation and certain areas of vocabulary and syntax, there are various reasons for this.
Recent Portuguese immigrants to Brazil aside, Portugal is not of any particular significance to the majority of Brazilians. Compounding this is the fact that, given the relative population sizes of Brazil and Portugal, Brazilians don’t tend to have much exposure to European Portuguese culture and language. As a result, when a film from Portugal is shown, or in the rare event a European Portuguese speaker is on Brazilian television, subtitles are often provided for those watching.
Fortunately, this is not the case the other way round. If you’re unsure about which form of the language to focus on first, you may therefore be best choosing Brazilian Portuguese.
Such is the popularity of Brazilian music and telenovelas in Portugal, most Portuguese can understand spoken Brazilian. If you began by focusing on Brazilian Portuguese, you would of course be understood in Brazil, but could also communicate fine in Portugal. To ensure you understood speakers in Portugal, all you would need to do is spend some time immersing in European Portuguese with the methods discussed in the How to Learn Portuguese Guide.
It’s also worth remembering that the above are generalisations, and that it therefore may not feel as big a gap to some as it might to others. You may find it takes you more hours of exposure to understand European Portuguese, or may find it manageable almost immediately after having finished focusing on Brazilian Portuguese. The most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter whether it takes a few hours or tens of hours, you’ll get there.
Are the Written Forms of Brazilian and European Portuguese Mutually Intelligible?
🔑 Whilst the spoken forms of Brazilian and European Portuguese have varying degrees of mutual intelligibility, the written forms are even closer, and can be understood by the other without any issues.
However, the two varieties are diverging somewhat. The written language in Brazil has always borne a close resemblance to that of European Portuguese, but this has been gradually changing since the turn of the twentieth century. Since then, written Brazilian Portuguese has moved closer to the spoken language, slowly making it more distinct from its European counterpart.
This is far from saying the two are heading towards a loss of their mutual intelligibility, but there are lexical distinctions worth noting.
Neologisms (New Words) in European and Brazilian Portuguese
Boats anchored at Armação dos Búzios, Brazil
(Photo by Tadeu Jnr on Unsplash)
Some of the most significant of these stem from the different sources of neologisms (new words) for the two varieties.
European Portuguese has been influenced by French, Iberian Spanish, and British English, whilst Brazilian Portuguese tends to adopt much of its new words from the English of the United States.
For example, Brazilian Portuguese uses celular for ‘cell’ or ‘mobile phone’, whilst European Portuguese uses telemóvel. The word for ‘screen’ is tela in Brazilian Portuguese, but ecrã in the European form, whilst ‘team’ is time in Brazil, but equipe in Portugal.
Though there are hundreds of such distinctions, not all are as dissimilar. The word for ‘blogger’ is blogueiro in Brazil, and bloguista in Portugal.
It’s important not to get carried away by potential differences, as they’re not always consistent. For example, Brazilian Portuguese uses not just time, but equipe too, and has also adopted various French words, including garçom (waiter), garçonete (waitress), and chapéu (hat).
Though variations in vocabulary may seem daunting, it’s nothing to worry about. Whichever form of Portuguese you choose to focus on first, you will be able to understand the written form of the other.
If and when switching from one form to the other, you will have no problem understanding what you read. For any words you haven’t come across before, there’s a strong chance the context of the sentence will be enough to gauge its meaning, but even if this isn’t the case, you’ll soon learn its meaning through continued exposure to the language.
Regulation of the Portuguese Language
It’s worth remembering the Portuguese language does not have an overarching academy to oversee its usage across Lusophone nations. The French language has the Académie Française, whilst Spanish has the Real Academía working in conjunction with language academies in each Spanish-speaking country.
Neither the Brazilian Academy of Letters or the Lisbon Academy of Sciences has authority over the other, thereby leading to the disagreements that lead to subtle areas of divergence. As a useful reference, the Brazilian Academy of Letters periodically publishes the Vocabulário Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa, whose fifth edition contained 381,000 words in 2009.
The Different Sotaques (Accents) of Portuguese Around the World
Maputo, Mozambique
(Photo by Rohan Reddy on Unsplash)
Though a generalisation, the pronunciation of Lusophone Africa is said to fall somewhere between European and Brazilian Portuguese. The European form tends to be preferred, whilst elements of Brazilian pronunciation are also prevalent - particularly in Angola, which has various historical ties with Brazil.
The following is a great video discussing and providing examples of the different sotaques (accents) of Portuguese around the world, including Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, the Azores, Cape Verde, Macau, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste, and Guinea-Bissau.
There’s also the following video by the brilliant Langfocus YouTube channel, covering the differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese.
🌎 Spanish in Latin America
Hand-drawn map of Latin America
(Created by the Author)
Spanish did not become widespread immediately. For the first few centuries of Spanish rule, a combination of the Catholic Church’s favouring of indigenous tongues for missionary activity and an ambivalence from Spain to teaching Spanish ensured the language’s prominence was restricted to urban centres.
The ruling Spaniards took a pragmatic approach to the indigenous languages that had survived the conquest. The Spanish used Nahuatl and Quechua in the lands they’d taken from the Aztec and Inca empires, as well as using Guaraní further south.
This was done to consolidate Spain’s hold on these territories, whilst the Church used them as it felt it was easier to convert indigenous peoples using their own tongues, rather than through having to first teach them Spanish.
Recording Indigenous Languages of the Americas
Though the motives were cynical, the one positive effect this had was to help record indigenous languages. In fact, by the end of the nineteenth century, 1,188 books had been written in 369 of the 473 languages that were known to exist in the wake of the Spanish conquest.
One of the most famous missionaries to write in an indigenous language was Bernadino de Sahagún, who in 1529 began interviewing survivors of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, in order to learn more about their civilisation. The result, his Historia General de las cosas de Nueva España (General History of Things of New Spain), is considered to be one of the greatest academic accomplishments of all time, constituting a 2,400 page encyclopaedia of Aztec life, written in both Nahuatl and Spanish. If you’re interested in finding out more, it is known as the Florentine Codex, as it resides in an archive in Florence.
The Role of Spanish Immigration
Valle de Calamuchita, Córdoba, Argentina
(Photo by Juan Giraudo on Unsplash)
Part of the reason Spanish eventually spread in the Americas was the extent of Spanish immigration, and the corresponding lack of linguistic competition. Not only had many languages been decimated or made extinct in the wake of the conquistadors and European diseases, but the biggest languages that did survive were never the sole tongue of the previous empires. This meant that Spanish, though slow to spread, was never in danger of being halted by Quechua or Nahuatl, for example.
Though Quechua and Nahuatl are still spoken in the Andes and Mexico today, they were not majority languages, and formed part of a fabric of other tongues spoken in their respective regions.
An exception, though, is Guaraní, which was widely spoken in the Southern Cone. As such, a 1996 census found ninety-five percent of Paraguayans deem themselves fluent in the language, and it is thought around eighty percent of Paraguayans are still bilingual today.
Nevertheless, measures restricting the use of indigenous languages were introduced in 1782, and by the time Latin America began attaining independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century, there was a subsequent push to spread Spanish, as the newly liberated lands sought to bind on common ground.
This helped develop the presence of the language, and was aided by centuries of extensive Spanish immigration to the continent. It’s thought around 750,000 Spaniards had settled in the Americas by 1700, and immigration continued to increase during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
On an important side note, it’s also worth mentioning that Spanish speakers refer to América as the entire continent - North and South.
This differs from the English speaking world, which refers solely to the United States as ‘America’, and its inhabitants as ‘Americans’. For Spanish speakers, Americano refers to anyone living in North and South America, and citizens of los Estados Unidos (the United States) are thus referred to as estadounidenses (United Statesians).
This makes perfect sense, as people in Venezuela, Uruguay, or Guatemala, are just as ‘American’ as those in the United States.
💃🏻 The Influence of Andalusia on Latin American Spanish
Plaza España, Seville, Spain
Photo by Cristian iordan on Unsplash
Historical Causes of Andalusian Influence on Latin American Spanish
Linguists have often wondered why the Spanish in Latin America tends to resemble the style of Spanish spoken in Andalusia. Research in the 1960s found it was for reasons that had long been expected - the majority of Spanish settlers and conquistadors came from southern Spain.
Reinforcing this Andalusian influence was the nature of the route to the Americas. All settlers departed from the port of Seville, where they were surrounded by the Andalusian accent from anywhere between three months and a year whilst waiting for a ship. Andalusian speech also prevailed on the Canary Islands, the first stop on the journey across the Atlantic.
Seseo
To this day, Latin American Spanish has distinctive Andalusian features. The most famous is something known as seseo, referring to the Andalusian preference for pronouncing c and z as s, in contrast to the Castilian th. For example, in central and northern Spain, cabeza (head) would likely be pronounced ‘cabetha’, whilst in Andalusia it would be ‘cabesa’. Likewise, Zaragoza is pronounced ‘Tharagotha’ north of Andalusia, but in the south, and indeed in the Americas, it is ‘Saragossa’.
Yeísmo
Another distinctive Andalusian feature that prevails in Latin American Spanish is the yeísmo, the tendency to pronounce ll like the y in yoga. The result is that words like caballo (horse) are pronounced like ‘cabayo’. The yeísmo is used in many parts of Spain, and is the norm in Latin America. However, there are some exceptions, such as Colombia, and it would be far too simplistic to claim Latin American Spanish is derived from Andalusia. In some places, ll is pronounced as a soft j, which in English would be written like zh, giving it a pronunciation akin to the s in ‘treasure’.
Voseo
In Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Central America, the voseo is common - where people are addressed with vos rather than tú. At the time of the Spanish conquest, this feature was actually disappearing from Spain, being replaced by tú, known as tuteo.
🧉 Spanish by the time of Latin American Independence
View from the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, Cartagena, Bolivar, Columbia
(Photo by Christine Ellsay on Unsplash)
By the time of Latin American independence in the early nineteenth century, Spanish had taken a form close to its current appearance. The final period of significant developments in spelling and pronunciation occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Don Quixote and Changes in Spelling
The defining work of Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, illustrates these changes well. In 1605, the first volume was published with the spelling that is now used in English translations of the book. However, the Spanish language was undergoing some substantial shifts in spelling at the time, and soon after the author’s death in 1616, the x in words was being changed to j, which is why the Spanish title is now Don Quijote.
Earlier in the century, x had been pronounced like sh, and the French decided to keep to this phonetic spelling, and so in French the title is Don Quichotte. In the Americas, however, the x was resilient, and the importance of its sh sound in Nahuatl ensured it is still seen in names like Mexico and Texas today.
Other changes included the disappearance of sounds like ts, which at the time was written as ç. Conversely, features common today, such as the guttural h (written j) and the soft h (written g) were beginning to emerge.
The Further Development of Spanish Articles
Articles also developed significantly during this period. Though the feminine la had been around for a long time, the masculine article was still oscillating between el, le, and lo. The el used today was eventually settled on in the seventeenth century, whilst lo was retained as a neutral article, reserved for abstract ideas like lo más importante (the most important thing).
Andrés Bello's Contribution to the Unity and Variations of Spanish Today
Mérida, Venezuela
(Photo by Jhon Vielma on Unsplash)
During the nineteenth century, the Venezuelan scholar, Andrés Bello, feared independence would shatter Spanish into separate dialects, and wanted to prevent this in the name of continental unity.
Bello believed Latin America could be united by language, and his work, though helping to give the Spanish verb system its terminology, was arguably most influential in waking Spain to the cultural importance of defining the Spanish language.
In addition to Bello’s influence, the fact that Spanish Latin America’s population had by this point become double that of Spain’s was central to the Real Academia Española paying more attention to the Spanish language in Latin America.
There are countless subtleties to the Spanish spoken in different countries, cities, and even neighbourhoods, but Spanish is still the only international language that has both national standards, and one international standard, and this relative unity is in large part owed to the work of Bello, whose efforts paved the way for the monitoring of the Spanish language that continues to this day.
💨 The Speed of Spanish
Paragliding in the Ecuadorian Andes
(Photo by the Author)
Spanish, on the Iberian Peninsula, is spoken at a notoriously fast pace. This can seem daunting to learners, but it’s nothing to worry about. Simply by listening to Spanish podcasts each day, your ears will soon become familiar with the pace of the language.
Of course, the above is just a generalisation. In Latin America, many regions and cities will speak at a different pace from one another. For example, the Spanish spoken in the Ecuadorian Andes is relatively slow compared with the speech of the coastal city of Guayaquil, where life, including Spanish, seems to move at a faster pace.
I’d read prior to arriving in Ecuador that costeños (those on the coast) tend to speak more quickly than serranos (those in the mountains), but a weekend in Montañita, almost three hours up the coast from Guayaquil, showed how even regional generalisations are nothing more than this.
Montañita is a quiet town, popular amongst surfers and iguanas. There’s a fair bit of nightlife, but this only enhances the laid back feel to the days, as people nurse their hangovers by the Pacific Ocean. The people I met in Montañita spoke Spanish at a much slower pace than those in Guayaquil, and perhaps even than those in the Andes.
It all varies according to countless factors, and though many of these are geographical and social, it will also vary from person to person. Some of the people I met in Montañita spoke faster than others, and I can vividly remember someone who spoke at a pace that scarcely got their words out - though this may well have had something to do with the time of day.
In short, don’t worry about the speed of Spanish. It varies from place to place, and from person to person. By immersing in the language everyday, you’ll become accustomed to the pace soon enough.
🍁 The Variety and Unity of Spanish
Paloquemao Fruit Market, Avenida Ciudad de Lima, Bogotá, Colombia
(Photo by Ricky Beron on Unsplash)
The beauty of Spanish is that it’s diverse enough to be ceaselessly interesting, but uniform enough to be learnt as one language.
There’s a huge variety in slang, accent, and even speed, but differences in pronunciation are fairly minor, and learning one form of Spanish is more than sufficient to communicate with Spanish speakers throughout the world.
For example, you do not have to learn the Spanish spoken around Madrid, and then start all over again to learn the Spanish spoken in Bolivia. Once you’ve learnt one form of Spanish, learning others is barely more than a case of learning some new vocabulary - and you can do this by watching some films and TV shows set in that city or country, or even by watching videos on YouTube.
If you’re interested in hearing some of the subtle differences, the following video tells a short story in six different Spanish accents - from Nicaragua, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, and Spain.
The Work of María Moliner
Although the years under the dictatorship of Franco were static for the Spanish language in Spain, the standardisation of the language did take another key stride. In 1966, and after fifteen years of tireless work and commitment, María Moliner published her Diccionario de Uso del Español (Dictionary of Spanish Usage), a landmark work that has sold almost two hundred thousand copies since 1967.
Though Moliner’s work was appreciated by the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, the backward hallways of the Real Academia Española rejected the nomination for Moliner’s membership of the Academy, which had been put forward by the renowned philologists Rafael Lapesa and Dámaso Alonso. Though the Academy failed to recognise the brilliance of Moliner’s work, the Spanish language, and some of its most famous authors and students, certainly do.
The Role of the Real Academia Española and the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, ASALE)
Sunset view of Calle Gran Vía, Madrid, Spain
(Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash)
The Real Academia Española, which was founded in 1713 in the model of its Italian and French counterparts, began making efforts to set the rules of the Spanish language. Aside from publishing a dictionary, it also encouraged the formation of similar academies in the rest of the hispanophone countries.
The culmination of these efforts, led by the then President of Mexico, Miguel Alemán, came in 1951, with the formation of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, ASALE), whose goal from its conception has been to establish español general (General Spanish), as a means of providing a standard international Spanish for broadcast, business, and communications.
The resulting efforts are the reason that, for all the interesting varieties of Spanish, it is possible to learn Spanish and communicate with Spanish speakers throughout the world.
One of the great strides made by this Pan-Hispanic team of academies was the twenty-second edition of what was originally the Real Academia Española’s dictionary, developed with the ASALE. Both organisations share the same offices in Madrid, and developments in technology allowed them to publish the landmark dictionary in 2001.
The Real Academia Española had been home to 14 million index cards, known as papelitos, each containing Spanish word definitions from over the centuries. Between 1995 and 2000, these 14 million papelitos, together with 450 million terms from historical sources, were scanned to computers. This enabled the production of the twenty-first edition of the dictionary, which had been about fifty years in the making.
Technology is also helping the language to become less Ibero-centric. By 2011, both the number of words, and the number of americanismos (vocabulary from the Americas) in the dictionary had doubled. Of the 88,000 words in the dictionary, fifteen percent - 13,500 words - are americanismos.
This is because the database is using more and more Latin American sources for its entries. Prior to 1974, three quarters of sources were Spanish, with the remainder coming from Latin America. Between 1974 and 2000, this had shifted to half each, and since 2001, sources have been three quarters Latin American, and this will continue to be the case for future editions, in line with the relative size of the populations of Spain and Latin America.
Español General (General Spanish)
Medellín, Colombia
(Photo by Juan Saravia on Unsplash)
The objective of General Spanish is not to homogenise the language. Its application is mainly to written Spanish, and even this is merely for the sake of facilitating certain forms of communication, such as in business, logistics, and certain types of broadcast.
One of the brilliant things about the Spanish language is that it has such diversity, whilst remaining one language. Once you have developed your level to the point of reasonable fluency, there is no question of having to then learn ‘Nicaraguan’ or ‘Argentinian’ Spanish from scratch. There are just subtle, but colourful, differences you can pick up as you explore the myriad varieties of the language, all whilst still being able to communicate with Spanish speakers throughout the world.
Castellano or Español : Different Terminology for the Spanish Language
Santa Fe, Mexico City, Mexico
(Photo by Alexander Huang on Unsplash)
Depending on location, the Spanish language is referred to as either castellano or español.
In Spain, both terms are used, though Basques, Catalans, and Galicians tend to call it castellano, in order to underline the distinction from their own regional languages.
In Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, español is typically used, except for El Salvador, where the preference is castellano.
In Argentina, castellano is also used, as a way of stressing independence from Spain, whilst Colombia, for the same reasons, uses español, believing it to highlight the equality of all Spanish speakers, bound together by language.
In short, the wonderful thing about Spanish, and indeed about learning the language, is that it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope. By looking through one lens, you’re able to see a whole host of other new worlds - similar enough to explore, yet diverse enough to fascinate.
🏕️ My Experience Learning Portuguese and Spanish
LDU Quito play Boca Juniors at the Estadio Rodrigo Paz Delgado ('La Casa Blanca') before sunset, Quito, Ecuador
(Photo by the Author)
🛶 Teaching Myself Spanish
Front page of El Socialista, Tuesday 31 January 1933
(Photo by the Author - scanned at the Hemeroteca Municipal, Madrid, Spain, January 2019)
I taught myself Spanish for various reasons. Aside from wanting to learn more about the history and cultures of Spanish-speaking countries, I also learnt Spanish in order to research in the language as part of my final-year university dissertation - comparing fascism in Europe during the 1930s, with a particular focus on Spain.
For more detail, I'd recommend this blog post and video about my journey learning Spanish.
⛵️ Teaching Myself Portuguese
After teaching myself Spanish, I found learning Portuguese for the purpose of dissertation research to be a smooth process. This was particularly the case for learning to read Portuguese, as the abundance of shared vocabulary between the two languages made picking up the meaning of Portuguese texts a faster task than it would otherwise have been.
To make this process even smoother, I used Assimil's Portugués de Brasil book, which featured dialogues in Brazilian Portuguese on one page and a corresponding translation in Spanish on the other. This way, I was able to maintain my Spanish reading level whilst learning Brazilian Portuguese. Better still, it made it even easier to notice similarities and differences between Portuguese and Spanish.
Another motivation for learning Portuguese was to communicate with Portuguese-speaking friends in Portuguese, learn about the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and to be able to watch Brazilian series and films, follow Brazilian news, and to be able to read books in Portuguese.
To achieve this, I was sure to immerse in Portuguese as often as possible. I'd often listen to radio shows, watch YouTube channels covering the news in Brazil, and followed the content of Brazilian booktubers to both immerse in the language whilst picking up great book recommendations in Portuguese.
🇧🇷 How to Learn Portuguese
How to Learn Portuguese (eBook)
If you're curious about learning Portuguese and want to save yourself a lot of time through not having to spend hours looking for resources and through having a convenient, affordable, and enjoyable plan for learning the language, then I'd recommend the How to Learn Portuguese Guide. It provides you with everything you need to learn Portuguese - focusing on free, online resources you can use wherever you are.
If you're only after resources for learning Portuguese, then I'd suggest using Resources for Learning Portuguese.
The resources in these eBooks cover both Brazilian and European Portuguese.
🇪🇸 How to Learn Spanish
How to Learn Spanish (eBook)
For the same reasons as stated above, if you're interested in learning Spanish I'd recommend the How to Learn Spanish Guide. It provides you with everything you need to learn Spanish - focusing on free, online resources you can use wherever you are.
If you're only after resources for learning Spanish, then I'd suggest using Resources for Learning Spanish.
The resources in these eBooks cover both Castilian and Latin American forms of Spanish.
If you've enjoyed this article about the similarities and differences between Portuguese and Spanish, then I'd recommend reading the article I wrote comparing Catalan and Spanish.
🪴 Conclusion
Arpoador, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
(Photo by Jason Ortego on Unsplash)
The intertwined histories of Portuguese and Spanish are key to understanding the similarities and differences between the two languages.
Their shared history explains the huge amount of common vocabulary, but their unique paths shed light on why their phonologies (sound systems) differ significantly and why both languages are comprised of such rich tapestries of regional variation.
