Talk:List of countries and territories where Portuguese is an official language

Various comments

 * Until then, it had been a home language, and communication was done through trade languages based on Tupi and influenced by Latin and Portuguese.
 * What is a "home language" and a "trade language"?

Not confusing at all. most spoken and first language are very different things. There are aticles that can help you: First language, home language, second language. Trade language is used in the sense that it is the language used for communication with the native people to trade. -Pedro 19:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're right, and I had already deleted my silly doubt.

Extiction of Iberian languages planned?
I do have one more comment, though (at least):
 * A strong romanization led to the complete extinction of all the former native languages, as planned by Roman Emperors such as Caesar Augustus.

What is the source for claiming that Augustus or other Roman emperors actually planned the extinction of the local languages? I had never heard about this. FilipeS 19:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, filipe, I think Augustus did not planned any extinction. He was interesting in the development and stability of the Roman Empire. Thus the spread of the Latin culture and language were important to reach his goals. See a biography of Caesar Augustus or the history of that period for more information on the Romanization policy. look at this map: . A curiosity: Britain and the Basque country area were not part of the empire then.
 * Oh, now I know why you asked that. it's a misinterpretation of yours. Augustus made a strong Romanization, not a persecution against native languages! but that obviously lead to the extinction of the native languages.--Pedro 23:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Linguas Gerais Pidgins?
Thanks for the explanation on "home language". Were the línguas gerais really pidgins, though? FilipeS 19:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * they were trade languages, but not pidgins (these languages were based on native languages, not Portuguese). The Portuguese thought there was a common language in Brazil, so they used a Portuguese/Latin-influenced version of it.--Pedro 22:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Type of Portuguese preferred by Africans

 * Although they can understand Portuguese from Brazilian T.V. stations, locals still want to learn standard European Portuguese (including some Chinese), as do East Timor and the PALOP countries.

Needs to be sourced! FilipeS 19:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, needs clarity. Do they mean Chinese immigrants in Angola/Mozambique want to learn EP? Or, does it mean that along with African nations, people in Macau (China) want to learn EP? Or, what makes no sense at all, does it mean that Luso-Africans want to learn Chinese? 98.64.73.9 (talk) 23:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC) Tom in Florida

Galician
This probably deserves a title of its own...
 * About the debate on whether Galician is within the Portuguese language, or if it is a different, but close language (as politically the Spanish administration does), see Galician. Galician has been accepted orally as Portuguese in the European Union Parliament and used as such by, among others, the Galician representatives José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.

I think it's problematic to state that it's "the Spanish administration" which considers Galician a different, though close language, to Portuguese. As far as I know, Galicia has an elected regional government, and it is Galician institutions which have decided the status of Galician with respect to Portuguese (José Posada's symbolic act notwithstanding). FilipeS 19:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC

- Yes and no... Galicia's government passed the language regulations but not without great controversy. The debate lingers on since 1982 and has no easy solution. "Officially" a norm for Galician is used, but this doesn't mean this is accepted by everybody. To be honest, large sectors of the public are simply unaware of all this controversy thus giving way to Spanish to replace Galician language (they perceive Galician as "chaotic", in front of the well-established Spanish). And yet, linguists and academics are still discussing about the "standard norm" with the same intensity as 20 years ago, regardless of what is considered "official". The 1982 norms (the ones used today) were, in fact, a political decision since a draft for the norms completed in 1979 was clearly pro-Portuguese (the draft was revoked overnight and new norms were passed without the approval of the linguistic commission from the University of Santiago de Compostela which, up to that time, was working on it). Look for "Carvalho Calero", "Reintegracionism", "AGAL" and the famous "Decreto Filgueira" for a better understanding of this. Some have stated that the only way to put an end to this senseless "internal fight" would be adopting a solution ala Norwegian, that is, having two official written norms, and let people choose (something that was never done, since texts diverging from the "official" norm are systematically rejected by official institutions, etc) - (XP 07/Sept/08)

Portuguese in Africa

 * The Portuguese language especially grew in use after the independence of Portugal's former [African] colonies. Independence movements from Guinea-Bissau to Mozambique saw it as an instrument to achieve their countries' development and national unity. The residents of these countries use the standard European Portuguese.

Are we sure about their using "the standard European Portuguese"? Certainly, Africans do not, generally, have a European pronunciation, and I know their Portuguese has much African vocabulary that European Portuguese does not. This should be checked. FilipeS 19:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * well... upper class speak a very European accent. (there are sources for that on the net. it's common sense, really. As for the rest of the population, interestingly, the accent of men and women can be very different (in Angola and São Tomé). That what I've noticed, but I found no study about that. Women speaking with a more Angolan-like accent. (POV: probably women do not study or are more engaged in their culture.)--Pedro 23:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Madeira and the Azores
"Independence movements from Guinea-Bissau to Mozambique saw it as an instrument to achieve their countries' development and national unity. Azores and Madeira are among the regions where Portuguese is the official language. The residents of these countries use the standard European Portuguese." Why are Azores and Madeira being listed as African regions? Aren't they part of Portugal/Europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ettiago (talk • contribs)
 * The Ogre 15:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Anonymous user 195.23.216.224 reverted me arguing that "Geographically speaking (that's what we're talking here) Madeira is in the African Continent". I have reverted him arguing that "Madeira is not considered by the Portuguese governement or people to be in Africa - it is historicaly, politicaly, socialy and culturaly in Europe, even if it's technically in the African Plate". Hope that settles it. The Ogre 17:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Anonymous user 195.23.216.224 reverted me arguing that "Geographically speaking (that's what we're talking here) Madeira is in the African Continent". I have reverted him arguing that "Madeira is not considered by the Portuguese governement or people to be in Africa - it is historicaly, politicaly, socialy and culturaly in Europe, even if it's technically in the African Plate". Hope that settles it. The Ogre 17:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

PALOP
I see no need whatsoever to merge the PALOP article to this one. What's the point? It's an independent organization of coutries with specific characteristics, and the article isn't even that much of a stub. One article deals with linguistic issues, the other with political ones (try merging the Commonwealth with the geographic distribution of English). I totally disagree with the merge. Waldir talk 13:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * PALOP: Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa, African Countries of Portuguese Official Language. It's got everything to do with language. The proper analog to the Commonwealth would be the CPLP, not the PALOP.
 * Also, "PALOP" is a Portuguese acronym not well recognized in English. Articles in the English language Wikipedia should have English names. FilipeS (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You're right, the exact analog would be CPLP. But then again, why not merging CPLP into this article too, for the same reasons? Waldir talk 12:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, the first thing that drew my attention was the name of the article PALOP, which I'm sure is incomprehensible to most English speakers. We should not be so parochial as to assume that people who do not speak Portuguese are familiar with our acronyms.
 * A good reason to keep the Community of Portuguese Language Countries article separate from this is that it is indeed its own political entity, not just a label for a linguistic reality. I'm not sure that the PALOP are a political entity as well (this may be simply my ignorance). If it is an official political organization, then I'm O.K. with keeping it separate from this article, but I think it should be renamed. Regards. FilipeS (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It is indeed a political entity. Many cooperation policies exist among the countries and bewtween PALOP and Portugal, for instance (Actually, I benefit from one of such agreements myself, as a cape-verdean graduate student in Portugal). But you're totally right in saying that the article should be renamed. I understand your point, and agree. So, what name do you propose? "African Countries of Official Portuguese Language"? Waldir talk 13:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry for being a little insisting, but the fact that there are protocols between PALOP countries does not necessarily mean that the PALOP exists officially as an organization. You spoke earlier of the Commonwealth; the PALOP could be an unofficial community, like the Anglosphere, or Latin America.
 * It would be nice if we could find some reference that confirmed the existence of the PALOP as a political entity. Do you know if they have an official website? I looked for it, but, although I find many pages that mention the PALOP, I did not find a website of the PALOP itself. (The CPLP has one.)
 * Still, in the same spirit as the Anglosphere article, I guess there could be a PALOP article. If they had a website with a version in English, we could use their own translation to name the article...
 * I'm withdrawing the merger proposal. If you can find an official translation of PALOP into English, feel free to rename the article. FilipeS (talk) 14:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Insisting? Discussion is the path to enlightment! :)
 * Regarding the protocols, I was thinking of the external ones, rather than the internal ones. For example, in Portugal people from the PALOP have less strict conditions regarding immigrant laws. There are many other examples like this -- I'm sure some of them illustrate better my point. I don't think Portugal would sign agreements with each one of the 5 countries of the PALOP to implement such measures, but rather sign a protocol with the representative entity. Of course, they could have done it one by one, and I'm not sure they havent -- actually, after this discussion I'm starting to have doubts that the organization is an official, political one.
 * But in any case, I think we both agree that the article's worth keeping, since it has its own particularities, covers a specific part of the portuguese speaking community, and even if unofficial, is frequently acknowledged in the media and is noteworthy since portuguese is spoken not only in an informal basis, but is legally the official language of the countries.
 * About the translation to english, I never heard of any, but I'll try to find out something. Regards, Waldir talk 15:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, apparently the most usual name is "Portuguese Speaking African Countries", as can be shown by the examples below:
 * (United Nations)
 * (European Union)
 * (Portuguese National Institute of Public Administration)
 * (Banco de Portugal)
 * more (16,300) (1,340 for "African countries of Portuguese Official Language" and only 178 for "African Countries of Official Portuguese Language" )
 * What do you think? Waldir talk 15:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If you know how to move an article, go ahead. Include a few of the more serious links as references. FilipeS (talk) 16:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅. I moved the article, and corrected all (ufff!) incoming links. Waldir talk 18:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Good job. Just a note: you don't need to worry too much about changing the incoming links. I just changed a few for esthetic reasons. What you should be on the look out for are double redirects. (But don't worry, there aren't any double redirects to the new page; I checked. ;-)) Regards. FilipeS (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, there were, but I corrected them ;) But as a perfectionist, I couldnt resist to change all the other ones too xD. Btw, take a look at the edit summary of this edit. Apparently, the acronym's more well-known than we though, huh? ;-)
 * One last note: I forgot to add the external links to the article. Can you take care of that? I'll have to leave the PC for a while now. Waldir talk 21:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

✅. :-) FilipeS (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing Galician from the calculations
The infobox data for Spain treats Galician as a variant of the Portuguese language. We should alter that, as it's blatant Portuguese POV (Galician is officially recognized as a separate language. Its classification as a dialect of Portuguese is disputed and mostly supported by the Portuguese linguist community only). Hús ö  nd  13:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

- wrote "mostly supported by the Portuguese linguist community only"... Let me add: and many Galician linguists too :P I mean... the interested parties (see "AGAL"). Thus, nobody denies that Galician and Portuguese form a dialect continuum and that they are part of the same diasystem, so... maybe not a "dialect of", but certainly variants of the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.244.151 (talk) 10:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Most Portuguese dont care about the linguistic issue of Galician, why people would? Maybe linguists care, because that's their job. Galician info is being added to Portuguese articles, even adding Galician bias by Galicians themselves. Only in Husond puzzle bobble world, Galician is a completely separate language from Portuguese. The issues concerning the situation of Galician is a debate in Galician only, not in Portugal. ---Pedro (talk) 10:38, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Loaned words from Portuguese
Malayalam language, spoken in Kerala in South India has many loan-words from Portuguese (please see Loan words in Malayalam).The association dates back to 1498, when Vasco Da Gama landed in kappad near Kozhikode in Kerala. Still, many such loan-words are part of everyday coversation in Malayalam. Can this get a mention under Asia section of this article ? Anish Viswa  05:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Page title
it is better to rename this page from 'Geographic distribution of Portuguese' to some other title having 'Portuguese' as the first word. It will help in having this page appear in searches starting with 'portug-'. Now people won't notice this article easily. Anish Viswa  01:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Namibia
In Namibia it is spoken by less than 2% of the population, though it is dying out

I doubt this information is reliable. The actual data that I introduced based on refugees from Urban Angolans was around 20%. Someone removed the zero, and added "dying out". But I dont longer known the online source, probably it no longer exists. So information from the present day would be much appreciated. -PedroPVZ 10:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Western Hemisphere
I changed the information of Brazil being the only lusophone country of the "Western Hemisphere" to being the only one in the Americas. Although some people call the American Continent "Western Hemisphere", this definition is far from being the most used. Among the traditional definitions, such as the Greenwich Meridian, Portugal is in the Western Hemisphere. Just saying Americas remove all the ambiguity of the term Western Hemisphere, excluding, with no doubt, all the other Lusophone nations. 177.182.211.237 (talk) 06:05, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of countries where Portuguese is an official language
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Reference named "unpop": From Angola:  From Arab League:  From East Timor:  From Namibia:  From Guinea-Bissau: Note: According to email information by the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa, Bissau, the preliminary results of the national population census in Guinea-Bissau put the figure at 1,449,230. 

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