Portuguese in Contact

Throughout its 500 years of expansion, the Portuguese language came into contact with hundreds of very different languages, in equally diverse situations. This chapter provides an overview of the multiplicity of contact situations involving Portuguese and their linguistic consequences. It suggests that Brazilian Portuguese is affected, to a greater or lesser extent, by the contact of Portuguese with Brazilian indigenous languages and African languages that were taken to Brazil. In addition, the chapter describes the survey of situations of language contact in Africa, Asia, and Oceania, including both contexts that gave rise to the emergence of creole languages and situations where varieties of Portuguese are spoken as a second language by millions of speakers. Finally, the chapter focuses on Portuguese-Spanish contact during which societal and prolonged bilingualism has given rise to stable varieties, as in northern Uruguay in South America and Miranda do Minho and Barranco in Europe.