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The Portuguese Language
History
Portuguese is a Romance language, as its origins date back to the conquest of Portugal by the Romans, in the 3rd century BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the vulgar Latin which was spoken in the region started its evolution towards an intermediate form known as "Lusitanian Romance". During the Arab domination of Portugal, this last language was also influenced by Arabic. In 1290 it was set up the first University of Portugal and Portuguese officially entered education.The estimated number of Portuguese speakers is around 170 million, even if the majority of them live outside Portugal, mainly in the former Brazil's colonies. The most important territories which were conquered by Portugal in the 16th century were Brazil (where nowadays live 154 million Portuguese-speakers) and some regions of Africa and Asia (5 million speakers). Starting from Portugal's great maritime adventure, it was published an extremely abundant travel literature, which contributed to the shaping of the national language.
Dialcets
Portuguese is made up of many dialects, some of which are completely different one with the other. Just to make an example, the variety which is spoken in the North includes local forms of some nouns which people coming from other regions don't understand.The most widely-spread dialect outside Europe is the Portuguese of Brazil, which is characterised by a slightly different intonation and little differences in vocabulary. For instance, one of the differences lies in the use of pronouns, since "voce" in Portugal is used to address someone formally. The same form, in Brazil corresponds to the informal "tu" (you), used in colloquial situations.
And now, here you are an example which shows that, contrary to popular belief, Portuguese is not a dialect of Spanish. "Car", in Portuguese is "carro", a word that in Spanish defines the trolley you use at supermarket. It might be a mess if a Portuguese goes to a Spanish car dealer and asks for the latest model of "Seat's carro!". This was a small example which represents only a minimum part of the differences between Spanish and Portuguese, which affect vocabulary, grammar in general and syntax.