Portuguese is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone". As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon.
The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive, except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨q⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is q.
The phonology of Portuguese varies among dialects, in extreme cases leading to some difficulties in intelligibility. Portuguese is a pluricentric language and has some of the most diverse sound variations in any language. This article on phonology focuses on the pronunciations that are generally regarded as standard. Since Portuguese is a pluricentric language—and differences between European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and Angolan Portuguese (AP) can be considerable—varieties are distinguished whenever necessary.
Makalero or Maklere is a Papuan language spoken in the Lautém district of East Timor. It was previously considered to be a dialect of Makasae, but is nowadays seen as a separate language, both by its speakers and linguists.
European Portuguese, also known as Portuguese of Portugal, Iberian Portuguese, and Peninsular Portuguese, refers to the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau. The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portuguese Portuguese" as opposed to Brazilian Portuguese.
Macro-Jê is a medium-sized language family in South America, mostly in Brazil but also in the Chiquitanía region in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as well as (formerly) in small parts of Argentina and Paraguay. It is centered on the Jê language family, with most other branches currently being single languages due to recent extinctions.
The Lakes Plain languages are a family of Papuan languages, spoken in the Lakes Plain of Indonesian New Guinea. They are notable for being heavily tonal and for their lack of nasal consonants.
Munduruku is a Tupi language spoken by 10,000 people in the Tapajós River basin in north central Brazil, of which most of the women and children are monolingual.
Waimoa or Waimaʼa is a language spoken by about 18,467 people in northeast East Timor. Waimoa proper is reported to be mutually intelligible with neighboring Kairui and Midiki, with 5,000 speakers total.
The Rikbaktsa language, also spelled Aripaktsa, Erikbatsa or Erikpatsa and known ambiguously as Canoeiro, is a language spoken by the Rikbaktsa people of Mato Grosso, Brazil, that forms its own branch of the Macro-Gê languages.
The Kaingang language is a Southern Jê language spoken by the Kaingang people of southern Brazil. The Kaingang nation has about 30,000 people, and about 60–65% speak the language. Most also speak Portuguese.
Akpes (Àbèsàbèsì) is an endangered language of Nigeria. It is spoken by approximately 7,000 speakers in the North of Ondo State. The language is surrounded by several other languages of the Akoko area, where Yoruba is the lingua franca. Yoruba replaces Akpes in more and more informal domains and thus forwards a gradual shift from Akpes towards Yoruba. Akpes is generally attributed to the Volta-Congo Branch of the Niger-Congo phylum.
Willem Leo Marie (Leo) Wetzels is a full professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Directeur de recherche at Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (LPP), CNRS/Sorbonne-Nouvelle in Paris. He is Editor-in-Chief of Probus International, the Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics.
Mian is an Ok language spoken in the Telefomin district of the Sandaun province in Papua New Guinea by the Mian people. It has some 3,500 speakers spread across two dialects: West Mian, with approximately 1,000 speakers in around Yapsiei, and East Mian, with approximately 2,500 speakers in and around Timeilmin, Temsakmin, Sokamin, Gubil, Fiak and Hotmin.
The Ofayé or Opaye language, also Ofaié-Xavante, Opaié-Shavante, forms its own branch of the Macro-Jê languages. It is spoken by only a couple of the small Ofayé people, though language revitalization efforts are underway. Grammatical descriptions have been made by the Pankararú linguist Maria das Dores de Oliveira (Pankararu), as well as by Sarah C. Gudschinsky and Jennifer E. da Silva, from the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul.
Hatam is a divergent language spoken on the island of New Guinea, specifically in the Indonesian province of West Papua.
The Abawiri language, is a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia. It is spoken in the village of Fuau, located along the Dijai River, a tributary to the Mamberamo River. Clouse tentatively included Abawiri and neighboring Taburta (Taworta) in an East Lakes Plain subgroup of the Lakes Plain family; due to the minimal data that was available on the languages at that time. With more data, the connection looks more secure.
Mambai, also called Mambae or Manbae, is a language spoken by the Mambai people, the second largest ethnic group in the island country of East Timor.
Gumawana is an Austronesian language spoken by people living on the Amphlett Islands of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea.
The Oirata–Makasae, or Eastern Timor, languages are a small family of Papuan languages spoken in eastern Timor and the neighboring island of Kisar.
