This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(January 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Portuguese and Spanish, although closely related Romance languages, differ in many aspects of their phonology, grammar, and lexicon. Both belong to a subset of the Romance languages known as West Iberian Romance, which also includes several other languages or dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible to some degree.
A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):[1] In the case of Spanish it was 20%, the third closest Romance language to Latin, only behind Sardinian (8% distance) and Italian (12% distance). Portuguese was 31%, making it the second furthest language from Latin after French (44% distance).
The most obvious differences are in pronunciation. Mutual intelligibility is greater between the written languages than between the spoken forms. Compare, for example, the following sentences—roughly equivalent to the English proverb "A word to the wise is sufficient," or, a more literal translation, "To a good listener, a few words are enough.":
Al buen entendedor pocas palabras bastan (Spanish pronunciation:[alˈβwenentendeˈðoɾˈpokaspaˈlaβɾasˈβastan])
Ao bom entendedor poucas palavras bastam (European Portuguese:[awˈβõẽtẽdɨˈðoɾˈpokɐʃpɐˈlavɾɐʒˈβaʃtɐ̃w]).
Some Brazilian dialects, however, including some found in the Brazilian Amazon, sustain more similarities with the European pronunciation than with that of the southern Brazilian region.
There are also some significant differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese as there are between British and American English or Peninsular and Latin American Spanish. This article notes these differences below only where:
both Brazilian and European Portuguese differ not only from each other, but from Spanish as well;
both Peninsular (i.e. European) and Latin American Spanish differ not only from each other, but also from Portuguese; or
either Brazilian or European Portuguese differs from Spanish with syntax not possible in Spanish (while the other dialect does not).
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
^Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. Lippincott. ISBN 03-9700-400-1.
and 25 Related for: Comparison of Portuguese and Spanish information
expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities ofSpainandPortugal. The main present-day communities ofSpanishandPortuguese Jews exist in...
Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Comparisonof Indonesian and Standard Malay ComparisonofPortugueseandSpanishComparisonof Ukrainian and other Slavic languages...
of troops and heavy losses among the Spanish invaders, the war is known in the Portuguese historiography as the Fantastic War (PortugueseandSpanish:...
called the Planet King (Spanish: Rey Planeta), was King ofSpain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King ofPortugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip...
presence ofPortuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar...
Peru, Portugal, and France. Spanish, French andPortuguese are the official languages and spoken as second languages. Spanish is the language of education...
provides a comparisonof the vocabularies of Papiamento, Portuguese, and the Portuguese creoles of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Spanish is shown for...
the pace of their military conquest in the archipelago had stopped and their East Asian interest was shifting to Portuguese India, Portuguese Ceylon, Japan...
(Spanish: Felipe III; 14 April 1578 – 31 March 1621) was King ofSpain. As Philip II, he was also King ofPortugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke...
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes...
Spanish victory in the War of the Portuguese Succession, Philip II ofSpain obtained the Portuguese crown in 1581, andPortugaland its overseas territories...
affiliations and other aspects of the population. Andorrans are a minority in their own country; Spanish, French, andPortuguese residents make up 67.7% of the...
chama? Spanish: Como se llama? - 'chama' & 'llama' are pronounced as though they were spelled "Shama"in both Argentinian SpanishandPortuguese. Moreover...
meaning "stream, channel"; also Portuguese arroio, Friulian roggia, Italian (Val Gardena) roia, Venetian roza; related to Spanish cuérrago "riverbed". artiga...
(Portuguese pronunciation: [pɾiˈmɐjɾɐ ˈliɣɐ]), officially known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football...
Portuguese (Portuguese: português brasileiro; [poʁtuˈɡe(j)z bɾaziˈle(j)ɾu]) is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the...
Country comparison to the world: 150th male: 6.4% female: 5.6% (2010 est.) Spanish (official) Spanish is the official language of Cuba. Of all the regional...
The Portuguese people (Portuguese: Portugueses – masculine – or Portuguesas) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation indigenous to Portugal, a country...
mainly ethnically Portuguese. As a former overseas territory ofPortugal until 1975, Angola possesses a Portuguese population of over 200,000, a number...
Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also official languages of the European Union. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan...
Latvian/Lettish and Vietnamese. Partial translations are available in Portuguese (Brazil), Indonesian, Dutch, Hebrew, Swedish, Portuguese (Portugal), Lithuanian...
Book of Saint Cyprian (Portuguese: Livro de São Cipriano; Spanish: Libro de San Cipriano) refers to different grimoires from the 17th, 18th, and 19th...
how the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classification systems organize resources by concept, in part for the purpose of assigning call numbers...
Global Information