TRANSLATE FROM / TO PORTUGUESE

Services of translation from / into Portuguese in our translation agency are performed by certified professional translators of Portuguese language.

We provide translation from / into Portuguese for both enterprises, including state organizations, and for private individuals as well. Our services involve all types of written / oral translation from / into Portuguese, including simultaneous interpretation.

SOME FACTS

Portuguese language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. It is the mother tongue of about 170 million people, chiefly in Portugal and the Portuguese islands in the Atlantic (11 million speakers); in Brazil (154 million speakers); and in Portugal's former overseas provinces in Africa and Asia (about 5 million speakers). Although the Portuguese spoken in Portugal differs to some extent from the Portuguese current in Brazil, with reference to pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, the differences are not major. A distinctive phonetic feature of Portuguese is the nasalization of certain vowels and diphthongs, which can be indicated by a tilde placed above the appropriate vowel. The acute and circumflex accents serve to make clear both stress and pronunciation and also to distinguish homonyms. The grave accent is a guide to pronunciation. It can also indicate a contraction, as in as, which is a combination of a “to” and as “the” (feminine plural). A c with a cedilla (c) is pronounced like c in English place when used before the vowels a, o, and u. As in Spanish, there are two forms of the verb “to be”: ser, which denotes a comparatively permanent state and which also precedes a predicate noun, and estar, which denotes a comparatively temporary condition. Again like Spanish, Portuguese tends to use reflexive verbs instead of the passive voice. Historically, Portuguese, which developed from the Vulgar Latin brought to the Iberian Peninsula by its Roman conquerors, could be distinguished from the parent tongue before the 11th cent. The Portuguese spoken in Lisbon and Coimbra gave rise to the Standard Portuguese of today. Although the greater part of the Portuguese vocabulary comes from Latin, a number of words have also been absorbed from Arabic, French, and Italian, and also from some of the indigenous South American and African languages.

PORTUGUESE: a language of Portugal
SIL code: POR
ISO 639-1: pt
ISO 639-2: por

Population 10,000,000 in Portugal. Population total all countries 176,000,000 first language speakers (1999 WA), 191,000,000 including second language speakers (1999 WA).
Region Iberia, Azores, Madeira. Also spoken in 33 other countries including Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, China, Congo, France, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mozambique.
Alternate names PORTUGUES
Dialects BEIRA, GALICIAN, MADEIRA-AZORES, ESTREMENHO, BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE.
Classification Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, Portuguese-Galician.
Comments Standard Portuguese of Portugal is based on Southern or Estremenho dialect (Lisbon and Coimbra). Official language. Dictionary. Grammar. SVO. Literacy rate in second language: 83% to 84%. Christian. Bible 1751, in press (1993).

Also spoken in:
Angola Language name PORTUGUESE
Population 57,600 in Angola (1993).
Comments Official language. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


Brazil Language name PORTUGUESE
Population 158,000,000 in Brazil (1997 UBS).
Comments National language. Literacy rate in first language: 71%. Christian, spiritism. Bible 1751-1996.


Cape Verde Islands Language name PORTUGUESE
Comments Official language. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


France Language name PORTUGUESE
Population 750,000 in France (1989 National Geographic).
Comments Literacy rate in second language: Relatively low. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


Guinea-Bissau Language name PORTUGUESE
Comments Official language. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


Mozambique Language name PORTUGUESE
Population 30,000 or more in Mozambique (1998 SIL), 27% speak it as second language (1980 census).
Comments Official language. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


Sao Tome e Principe Language name PORTUGUESE
Population 2,580 in Sao Tome (1993).
Comments Used by many people as their primary language until their late 20s, when they become more active in Sao Tomense society, and relearn Sao Tomense, the language of social networks above age 30. Used as a second language by some people. Official language. Bible 1751, in press (1993).


Timor Lorosae Language name PORTUGUESE
Alternate names PORTUGUES
Comments Probably 2% of the population from Timor Lorosae worldwide can function in it, including about 9,000 people living overseas. Dictionary. Grammar. Christian. Bible 1751, in press (1993).