With about 250 million speakers, the Portuguese language is currently the fifth most spoken language in the world. Having its origins in Latin, more specifically in Vulgar Latin, Portuguese is a Neo-Latin language, also called Romance language
We know that the consolidation of European national languages, especially those of a Latin matrix (that is, derived from Latin), occurred in the transition from the Low Middle Ages to the Modern Age, that is, between the 12th and 16th centuries. However, the history of the formation of each of these languages must take into account the mixture of elements of the barbarian languages with Latin, given the wide contact that many barbarian peoples of northern Europe had, for centuries, with the Roman Empire.
The origin of the Portuguese language is an example of this mixture.
It is estimated that Portuguese appeared between the 9th and 12th centuries. There are documents written in Portuguese, dating from the 13th century, such as the Testament of Alfonso II. It was in this century that D. Dinis, King of Portugal, made Portuguese official as the language that should be used in all administrative documents of the kingdom, to the detriment of Latin. Thus, there is now a Portuguese historically documented.
Thus, the Portuguese territorial expansion process took the language to four continents. Wherever it arrived, the language suffered from local influences.
In Brazil, for example, there are words in Portuguese that are of indigenous or African origin. Due to the immensity of the country, Brazil also presents immense diversity within the Portuguese language, known as "Brazilian Portuguese".
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