The languages of Portugal are Portuguese, Mirandese,

Portuguese Sign Language Portuguese Sign language () is a sign language used mainly by deaf people in Portugal. It is recognized in the present Constitution of Portugal. It was significantly influenced by Swedish Sign Language, through a deaf education, school for the De ...

, Leonese and Caló, with the inclusion of other linguistic entities like argots and transitional languages. Historically, Celtic and Lusitanian were spoken in what is now Portugal.

Modern

Portuguese is practically universal in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, but there are some specificities. *Dialects of Portuguese in Portugal ** Alentejan Portuguese ** Algarvian Portuguese

** Azorean Portuguese ** Beiran Portuguese ** Estremaduran Portuguese **

Northern Portuguese Northern Portuguese is the oldest dialect of the Portuguese language. It is spoken in coastal northern Portugal from Viana do Castelo to Porto and stretching inland as far as Vila Real. The region is considered the birthplace of the Portuguese lang ...

(''interâmnico'') ** Madeiran Portuguese

*

Barranquenho Barranquenho () is a Romance linguistic variety spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos, near the Spanish border. It is a mixed language, and can be considered either a variety of Portuguese ( Alentejan Portuguese) heavily influenced by t ...

– A transitional language spoken in

Barrancos Barrancos ( Barranquenho: ), officially the Town of Barrancos (), is a municipality in Portugal. With a population of 1,834 in 2011, it is the least populated municipality in mainland Portugal. Its area is 168.42 km2. The municipality is co ...

, originally part of the Alentejan dialect of Portuguese, but influenced by

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

and Extremaduran. * Caló – a mixed Iberian-Romani language spoken by the

Romani people in Portugal The Romani people in Portugal, known in spoken Portuguese as (), but also alternatively known as , , and , are a minority ethnic group. The exact numbers of Romani people in the country are unknown—estimates vary from 40,000 to 60,000. As ...

. A

Para-Romani Para-Romani are various mixed languages of non- Indo-Aryan linguistic classification containing considerable admixture from the Romani language. They are spoken as the traditional vernacular of Romani communities, Matras, Y. ''Romani: A Linguist ...

language based on Romance grammar, with an

adstratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for 'layer') or strate is a historical layer of language that influences or is influenced by another language through contact. The notion of "strata" was first developed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia A ...

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnic groups * Romani people, or Roma, an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin ** Romani language, an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities ** Romanichal, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom * Romanians (Romanian ...

lexical items through

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...

by the Romani community. It is often used as an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

or secret language. * Leonese – A language or variety of the

Astur-Leonese Asturleonese is a Romance language or language family spoken in northwestern Spain and northeastern Portugal, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Asturias, northwestern Castile and León, Cantabria an ...

group. Despite being mainly spoken in Spain, in the region of Leon, the Leonese language is spoken on a small village on the Portuguese side of the border, Riudeonore. The Riunorese dialect, influenced by Portuguese instead of Spanish, has an unknown number of speakers, it might be extinct, and if it is not, it has very few speakers. *

Minderico Minderico, also known as (the language of Minde), was originally a sociolect or a secret language spoken by textile producers and traders in the freguesia (civil parish) of Minde ( Alcanena, Portugal). History After this initial phase (18th ...

– A

sociolect In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquisit ...

spoken in Minde, extinct in what comes to its original use (being a speech only the merchants of Minde would understand), yet, still conserved. * Mirandese – A language or variety of the

group spoken in Tierra de Miranda in northeastern Portugal, recognized officially as a minority language in 1999. *

In addition, it is estimated that 59.6% of Portuguese adults (aged 18–64) spoke English, 21.5% spoke French, 14.8% spoke Spanish as foreign languages as of 2016.

Sample text

Romance languages

História de um louco criminoso (Story of a crazy criminal), written originally in Rionorese Leonese. ''*due to the fact that Minderico has no established grammar, merely a handful of invented adjectives and nouns using portuguese grammar, and due to the lack of information on it, it is not on the table.'' ''*due to the lack of information on barranquenho, it is not on the table.''

Caló

The Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

Historically

Other languages have been extensively spoken in the territory of modern Portugal:

Pre-Roman languages

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( ) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from the hypothetical Proto-Celtic language. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yve ...

Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the ...

Gallaecian language Gallaecian or Northwestern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Celtic language of the Hispano-Celtic group. It was spoken by the Gallaeci in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula around the start of the 1st millennium. The region became the Roma ...

Tartessian language Tartessian is an extinct Paleo-Hispanic languages, Paleo-Hispanic language found in the Southwest Paleohispanic script, Southwestern inscriptions of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly located in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), ...

Lusitanian language Lusitania Lusitania (; ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province encompassing most of modern-day Portugal (south of the Douro River) and a large portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and Province of Salamanca). Romans named the regio ...

Roman, Post-Roman and Medieval languages

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Andalusi Arabic Andalusi Arabic or Andalusian Arabic () was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken mainly from the 8th to the 15th century in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula under the Muslim rule. Arabic spread gradually over the centuries ...

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic () is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notably in Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, e ...

Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, ...

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

Gothic language Gothic is an extinct language, extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only Ea ...

** Suebi language **

Vandalic language Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragm ...

Latin language Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...

***

Iberian Romance languages The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are ...

**** Galician-Portuguese ****

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Mirandese language Mirandese ( ) is an Asturleonese language, Asturleonese language or variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in eastern Terra de Miranda, Tierra de Miranda (made up of the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Mi ...

****

Mozarabic language Andalusi Romance, also called Mozarabic, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance that were spoken in Al-Andalus, the parts of the medieval Iberian Peninsula under Islamic control. Romance, or vernacular Late Latin, was the common tongue for t ...

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Judeo-Romance languages Judaeo-Romance languages are Jewish languages derived from Romance languages, spoken by various Jewish communities (and their descendants) originating in regions where Romance languages predominate, and altered to such an extent to gain recognition ...

*****

Judeo-Portuguese Judaeo-Portuguese, Jewish-Portuguese or Judaeo-Lusitanic, is an extinct Jewish language or a dialect of Galician-Portuguese written in the Hebrew alphabet that was used by the Jews of Portugal. Description It was the vernacular of Sephardi Je ...

Scythian languages The Scythian languages are a group of Eastern Iranic languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranic period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their desce ...

Alanic language Alanic (also known as Alanian) was a language spoken by the Alans from about the 1st to the 13th centuries AD. It formed a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, which in turn formed the Ossetian language. Byzanti ...

References

External links

*
Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
{{Minority languages of Europe Portuguese language Paleohispanic languages Extinct languages of Europe