Portuguese

Portuguese is a Romance language spoken by about 240 million people mainly in Brazil (Brasil) and Portugal, and also in Angola, Mozambique (Moçambique), Cape Verde (Cabo Verde), Guinea-Bissau (Guiné-Bissau), São Tomé e Principe, East Timor (Timor-Leste) and Macau. There are also communities of Portuguese speakers in the USA, Canada and a number of other countries.

History
Portuguese is a descendent of Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants from 218 BC. The earliest records of a distinctly Portuguese language appear in administrative documents dating from the 9th century AD. In 1290 King Denis decreed that Portuguese, then simply called the "Vulgar language" should be known as the Portuguese language and should be officially used.

A reformed Portuguese orthography (nova ortografia), in which words were spelled more in accordance with their pronunciation, was adopted is Portugal in 1916. A slightly modified form was adopted in Brazil in 1943 and revised in 1970. A new orthography which aims to unify the written Portuguese of all the lusophone countries was adopted in Brazil in 2009. Dates have yet to be set for its adoption in the other Portuguese-speaking countries