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Portuguese
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Portuguese is included here as an interface language rather than as a language the atlas treats as a vehicle of original scriptural composition. It is nonetheless the liturgical and devotional language of one of the world's largest national Catholic populations, in Brazil and Portugal alike, and it is also a principal language of Brazilian Spiritism and of the Afro-Brazilian traditions Candomble and Umbanda, whose ritual songs and invocations mix Portuguese with Yoruba. Its presence on the interface list reflects the size of its global readership rather than any special place in the history of scripture composition.
Facts
Origins
Language FamilyWest Iberian Romance branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from Vulgar Latin in Portugal's Galician homeland, closely related to Spanish and Galician. 2 Place of OriginPortuguese originated in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula, in the medieval County of Portugal between the Minho and Douro rivers, developing from Galician-Portuguese Vulgar Latin. 2 Practice
Liturgical and Scriptural RoleCarries the Fatima Marian devotional tradition and its associated prayers; the working language of Afro-Brazilian syncretic religions including Candomble and Umbanda and of Brazil's large Pentecostal movement. 3 Identity
Native ScriptThe Latin alphabet, with the acute, circumflex and grave accents, the tilde and the cedilla. 1 Geography
Modern AreaThe national language of Portugal and Brazil, and an official language of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor. 2 Learn More
Portuguese: A Western Romance Language of Iberian and Colonial Reach
Portuguese developed from Vulgar Latin in the Iberian Peninsula's northwestern Galician region, becoming a distinct literary language by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom, and belongs to the West Iberian Romance branch alongside Spanish, Galician and Asturian, with which it retains significant mutual intelligibility reflecting shared medieval origins. Portuguese maritime exploration and colonization from the fifteenth century carried the language across Brazil, parts of Africa including Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, and enclaves in Asia including Goa and Macau, making Brazilian Portuguese speakers today vastly outnumber speakers in Portugal itself and giving the language its status as one of the world's most widely spoken by native speakers.
Brazilian and European Portuguese have diverged noticeably in pronunciation and some vocabulary since colonial separation, comparable to differences between American and British English, while remaining a single language for most practical and literary purposes, and Portuguese remains an official language across a substantial community of nations spanning four continents as a direct legacy of the Portuguese maritime empire.
Fatima Devotion and Afro-Brazilian Syncretism in Portuguese
Portuguese carries a substantial Catholic devotional literature centered particularly on the reported 1917 Marian apparitions at Fatima, whose associated prayers, including the Fatima Prayer added to the rosary, and devotional writings composed originally in Portuguese have since spread worldwide in translation, making Fatima one of the most significant modern additions to global Catholic Marian devotion.
Portuguese colonial missionary activity across Africa and Brazil produced further substantial religious literature, and in Brazil specifically Portuguese became the language through which Afro-Brazilian traditions including Candomble and Umbanda articulated their syncretic theology, since enslaved practitioners' original African languages were suppressed while their orixa deities and ritual practices survived by attaching themselves to Portuguese-language Catholic saint devotion, producing a distinctly Lusophone body of syncretic religious vocabulary and liturgy unlike anything found in Spanish-speaking Latin America's comparable but linguistically distinct syncretic traditions. Portuguese remains the working language of Brazil's large and growing Pentecostal movement, among the largest Portuguese-language religious publishing and broadcasting sectors in the world.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Portuguese directly: "Pedro Strecht, commissioned by the Portuguese Bishops' Conference in late 2021 to examine sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church in Portugal from 1950 to 2022, but constituted and..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "A reference encyclopedia article on the Portuguese Inquisition's tribunal at Goa, established 1560 and opening in 1561 under King John III of Portugal and Cardinal Henrique, with Aleixo Dias Falcao..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "Informador is a Portuguese legal reference database that republishes consolidated statute text, including Law 16/2001, the Law on Religious Freedom, without editorial commentary of its own."
This source names Portuguese directly: "Pedro Strecht, commissioned by the Portuguese Bishops' Conference in late 2021 to examine sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church in Portugal from 1950 to 2022, but constituted and operated..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "Radio Renascença is a Portuguese radio station founded in 1934 by Monsignor Manuel Lopes da Cruz as an organ of Catholic Action, with trial transmissions from June 1936 and regular broadcasting from..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "broadcast itself (S8) and against the Portuguese-language Wikipedia article on the station."
This source names Portuguese directly: "began suppressing Hindu worship in Portuguese Goa in 1560, already recorded here, and one hundred sixty years before indentured labour carried Hinduism to Mauritius in 1834, also recorded here, a..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "Portuguese colonial authorities in Goa, formalized by an Inquisition tribunal established in 1560, suppressed Hindu religious practice across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: temples were..."
This source names Portuguese directly: "into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and Hindustani, reportedly selling in the millions of copies across those editions."
This source names Portuguese directly: "East, into obedience to Rome and the Portuguese Padroado."
This source names Portuguese directly: "3ABN today broadcasts in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and French across eight satellites, more than 500 cable systems and more than 200 radio affiliates worldwide."
This source names Portuguese directly: "This is the Portuguese language Wikipedia's article on the Federacao Espirita Brasileira, a community edited tertiary encyclopedia entry."
Related To
The ritual songs and invocations of Candomble and Umbanda mix Portuguese with Yoruba, which crossed the Atlantic with the traditions themselves.
Sources
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