PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE STATISTICS

Portuguese is the mother tongue of about 170 million people, mainly in Portugal and the Portuguese islands in the Atlantic (approximately 11 million speakers); in Brazil (about 154 million speakers); and in Portugal's former abroad provinces in Africa and Asia (approximately 5 million speakers). These nations are members of the Community of Portuguese languages Countries, which was established in 1996.

Geographic distribution

Nowadays, Portuguese is the official language of various countries such as Angola, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique.

It is considered one of the official languages of Equatorial Guinea (with Portuguese and French), the Chinese particularly administrative region of Macau (with Chinese), and East Timor, (with Tetum). It is a native language of most of the population in Portugal (100%), Brazil (100%), Angola (60%), and São Tomé and Príncipe (50%), and it is spoken by a diversity of the people of Mozambique (40%), although only 6.5% are native speakers. No statistics is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the people are bilingual and the monolingual population speaks Cape Verdean Creole.

Today, there are small Portuguese-speaking communities' former overseas colonies of Portugal such as Macau, where it is spoken as a first tongue by 0.6% of inhabitant and East Timor.

In Uruguay the Portuguese and the Portuguese have equal status in its educational system at the north limit with Brazil. In the rest of the country, it's taught as a mandatory topic beginning by the 6th grade.

It is also spoken by considerable immigrant communities, though not official, in Andorra, France, Luxembourg, Jersey (with a statistically considerable Portuguese-speaking population of about 10,000 people), Paraguay, Namibia, South Africa, Switzerland, Venezuela and in the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. In some parts of India, such as Goa and Daman and Diu Portuguese is still spoken. There are also considerable populations of Portuguese speakers in Canada (principally concentrated in and around Toronto) Bermuda and Netherlands Antilles.

Portuguese is an official language of various international organizations, such as the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the European Union, Mercosul, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union of South American Nations, and the African Union.

Portuguese and Portuguese languages are the fastest-growing European languages, and, according to the UNESCO, Portuguese is the language with the highest possibilities for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America.

Given these data, it's interesting to consider the Portuguese as a nice language to unlock job opportunities located in many countries. If you're looking to work in Portuguese company, we recommend you investigate the job market overview and build a well-written resume according to your professional goals. As you wonder , you should first focus on landing a career that you will enjoy and want to stay with for years.

Dialects

Portuguese have a variety of terms; the main difference between them is the pronunciation of some vowels. Portuguese languages have two major groups of dialects, those of Brazil and those of the European Portuguese, there are differentiation in vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax, particularly in popular varieties, while between educated Brazilians and Portuguese these differentiations are reduced. There are many resemblances in pronunciation, syntax and simplification in grammar use between vernacular Brazilian Portuguese and vernacular Angolan Portuguese. But there are no differentiations between cultivated European and Angolan Portuguese. For historical motives, the dialects of Africa and Asia are usually closer to those of Portugal than the Brazilian dialects, although in some aspects of their phonology, particularly the pronunciation of unstressed vowels; they similarity Brazilian Portuguese more than European Portuguese. They have not been studied as extensively as European and Brazilian Portuguese.

In the Portuguese languages, there are two official dialects. The one of Rio de Janeiro (and, in some way, São Paulo) for Brazil and of Lisbon and Coimbra for Portugal, Portuguese speaking African countries and East Timor, due to politics the two diversities are somewhat written differently. These differentiations are to be eradicated because Brazil and Portugal have made an orthographic accord. Because the African countries are involved and did not yet accepted, it is not yet in force, thought Brazil has made some pressure, with the support of Portugal, in the African countries to approve the accord.

Spoken varieties of Portuguese are: European and African Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, São Tomean Portuguese, Galician Portuguese (considered by philologists).