page_title: Portuguese language
section_title: Vocabulary
hierarchical_section_title: Portuguese language / Vocabulary
caption_attribution_description: English: Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil. Português: Biblioteca Nacional no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
context_page_description: Portuguese is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the sole official language of Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone". As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found around the world.
  Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon. With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world. It is also the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers.
context_section_description: Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
  A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 2,000 words, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants.
  In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500 
  Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to warfare – such as espora 'spur', estaca 'stake', and guerra 'war', from Gothic *spaúra, *stakka, and *wirro respectively; the natural world i.e. suino 'swine' from *sweina, gavião 'hawk' from *gabilans, vaga 'wave' from *vigan' human emotions such as orgulho or orgulhoso ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic *urguol or verbs like gravar 'to craft, record, graft' from *graba or esmagar 'to squeeze, quash, grind' from Suebian *magōn or esfarrapar 'to shred' from *harpō. The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from the Germanic sinths (military expedition) and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths 'council'. Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
  Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)-, and include common words such as aldeia 'village' from الضيعة alḍai`a  alface 'lettuce' from الخس alkhass, armazém 'warehouse' from المخزن almakhzan, and azeite 'olive oil' from الزيت azzait.
  Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, catana 'cutlass' from Japanese katana, chá 'tea' from Chinese chá, and canja 'chicken-soup, piece of cake' from Malay.
  From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came kifumate > cafuné 'head caress' (Brazil), kusula > caçula 'youngest child' (Brazil), marimbondo 'tropical wasp' (Brazil), and kubungula > bungular 'to dance like a wizard' (Angola). From South America came batata 'potato', from Taino; ananás and abacaxi, from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati, respectively (two species of pineapple), and pipoca 'popcorn' from Tupi and tucano 'toucan' from Guarani tucan.
  Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by 
caption: The National Library of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, the largest library in Latin America
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