Portuñol
Encyclopedia
Portuñol or Portunhol is the code-switching
of Portuguese
and Spanish
.
The word portunhol is a portmanteau of the words Portugués/Português ("Portuguese") and Español/Espanhol ("Spanish").
Portunhol is the name often given to any unsystematic mixture of Portuguese with Spanish (code-switching
). This is sometimes used by speakers of the two languages to talk to each other. It is possible to conduct a moderately fluent conversation in this way because Portuguese and Spanish are closely related Romance languages
.
Language contact
between Spanish and Portuguese occurs in regions where the two languages coexist, like the border regions between Portugal
and Spain
, as well as Brazil
, whose official language is Portuguese, and most of its neighboring countries, whose official language is Spanish.
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
of Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
.
The word portunhol is a portmanteau of the words Portugués/Português ("Portuguese") and Español/Espanhol ("Spanish").
Portunhol is the name often given to any unsystematic mixture of Portuguese with Spanish (code-switching
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
). This is sometimes used by speakers of the two languages to talk to each other. It is possible to conduct a moderately fluent conversation in this way because Portuguese and Spanish are closely related Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
.
Language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
between Spanish and Portuguese occurs in regions where the two languages coexist, like the border regions between Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, as well as Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, whose official language is Portuguese, and most of its neighboring countries, whose official language is Spanish.