Portuguese is a native language of 220 million people in the world, is spoken by 260 million people and is 6th most spoken language in the list of most spoken languages. Besides, it is the 1st mostly spoken language in South America and 2nd mostly spoken language in Latin America.
Portuguese has its roots in Aryan linguistic family and it is mostly spoken in Brazil, which is one of the old colonies of Portugal. As Portugal had established colonies in Africa in the past, there are some nations who speak Portuguese in those lands. Contrary to what is believed, only 5% of people whose native languages are Portuguese live in Portugal.
Major countries where Portuguese is used as an official language are:
- Brazil
- Portugal
- o Mozambique
- Angola
- Guinea-Bissau
- Macau
- Cape Verde Islands
- São Tomé and Príncipe
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Portuguese became the official language with the declaration of Portuguese by King Denise in 1290. Until the end of 2008, Portuguese alphabet did not include the letters "k", "y" and "w"; but as too many words from English were used in Portuguese, these letters have become a part of Portuguese alphabet in January 2009.
Although there are differences of dialect in Portuguese speaking countries, they can easily understand each other. The most similar language to Portuguese is spoken in Galicia, the autonomous region of Spain.