THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE
Reading edition
The Portuguese language[4] was evolved principally from the popular Latin spoken in the Portuguese part of the Spanish peninsula after the Roman conquest in the second century before Christ. Only a few words of the former Celtic dialects spoken there were preserved in the later Portuguese. The subsequent Gothic invasion also introduced a few words of Germanic origin, while the religious life of the people led to the introduction of certain words of Greek origin.
In the eighth century the Moors invaded the Spanish peninsula, and for several hundred years occupied portions of that region. This long contact of the Moors with the inhabitants of Portugal naturally resulted in the introduction into the Portuguese language of a good many words of Semitic origin; most of these words have as a prefix the Arabian article al, such as algodão, cotton; alfinete, pin. It was during the long Gothic and Arabian occupancy that the Latin spoken in western Spain appears to have gradually taken on the form of a distinct language that was spoken the whole length of the region now known as Portugal.
The oldest-known documents in the Portuguese language date from the last quarter of the twelfth century—about the time the Portuguese monarchy was founded. It was only in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, that it became a literary language, and took on permanent form.
A few words were introduced from the French and others from the Provençal, while translations from the Latin introduced many words and idioms from that language, partly, it is supposed, through the pedantry of the translators. The Spanish language, on account of its literary vogue, and on account of the proximity of its people and the similarity of the two tongues, necessarily reacted upon the Portuguese. This vogue was so marked that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many Portuguese authors wrote in Spanish. The explorations of the Portuguese navigators into the newly discovered parts of the world led to the importation of some foreign words, and, at the same time, carried colonists and established the language in Asia, Africa, and South America.
In the sixteenth century the first Portuguese grammars were published by Fernão de Oliveira and João de Barros, and these works materially helped to fix the language.
It is said that of the living languages of Latin origin the Portuguese most closely resembles the Latin. This is due to the fact that Portugal, on account of its geographic position, has not been affected by contact with the rest of the world so much as Italy, France, and Spain.
In recent years, however, the increased facilities for international communication, the demands of commerce and the requirements of various enterprises and technical industries, and the spread of interest in certain sports have caused the introduction of words from various foreign tongues. In many cases the foreign words themselves have been adopted but in others the words have been more or less modified.