Portuguese orthography is based on the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

and makes use of the

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...

, the

circumflex accent The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...

, the

grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages usin ...

, the

tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...

, and the

cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan language, Catalan, French language, French, and Portuguese language, ...

to denote stress,

vowel height A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (le ...

, nasalization, and other sound changes. The diaeresis was abolished by the last Orthography Agreement. Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters for

collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

purposes. The spelling of Portuguese is largely

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

, but some

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s can be spelled in more than one way. In ambiguous cases, the correct spelling is determined through a combination of

etymology Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words ...

with morphology and tradition; so there is not a perfect one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters or digraphs. Knowing the main

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

al paradigms of Portuguese and being acquainted with the orthography of other Western European languages can be helpful.

A full list of sounds, diphthongs, and their main spellings is given at

Portuguese phonology 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 phonolog ...

. This article addresses the less trivial details of the

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is on ...

of Portuguese as well as other issues of

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

, such as accentuation.

Letter names and pronunciations

Only the most frequent sounds appear below since a listing of all cases and exceptions would become cumbersome. Portuguese is a

pluricentric language A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, inc ...

, and pronunciation of some of the letters differs. Apart from those variations, the pronunciation of most consonants is fairly straightforward. Only the consonants ''r'', ''s'', ''x'', ''z'', the digraphs ''ch'', ''lh'', ''nh'', ''rr'', and the vowels may require special attention from English speakers. Although many letters have more than one pronunciation, their phonetic value is often predictable from their position within a word; that is normally the case for the consonants (except ''x''). Since only five letters are available to write the fourteen vowel sounds of Portuguese, vowels have a more complex orthography, but even then, pronunciation is somewhat predictable. Knowing the main inflectional paradigms of Portuguese can help. In the following table and in the remainder of this article, the phrase "at the end of a

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

" can be understood as "before a consonant, or at the end of a word". For the letter ''r'', "at the start of a syllable (not between vowels)" means "at the beginning of a word or after ''l'', ''n'', ''s'', or a prefix ending in a consonant". For letters with more than one common pronunciation, their most common phonetic values are given on the left side of the

semicolon The semicolon or semi-colon is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought. When a ...

; sounds after it occur only in a limited number of positions within a word. Sounds separated by "~" are

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

s or

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

al variants. The names of the letters are

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors ...

. :

Notes

# The letters b, d, g can denote , , and in intervocalic positions, especially in northern and central Portugal. In

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

an intervocalic /d/ can be realized as .ðor ː mostly before a final e-caduc or reduced /o/. In other intervocalic schemes can be realized also as �of European variety. # /k/ can be realized in

as ʰ mostly before a final e-caduc or reduced /o/. # Before the letters ''e'', ''i'', ''y'', or with the

. # Allophonically

affricated An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pa ...

before the sound (spelled ''i'', or sometimes ''e''), in BP. # May become an

approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...

as a form of vowel reduction when unstressed before or after another vowel. Words such as ''bóia'' and ''proa'' are pronounced and . # The letters f, j, l, m, n, r and s are sometimes named differently in the northwest region of Brazil: ''fê, ji, lê, mê, nê, rê, sê''. # Silent at the start or at the end of a word. Also part of the digraphs ''ch'', ''lh'', ''nh''. See below. # The letters K (called ''capa'' /ˈkapɐ/ in EP or ''cá'' /ka/ in BP), W (EP: ''dâblio'' /ˈdɐbliu/ or ''duplo vê'' /ˈduplu ˌve/, BP: ''dáblio'' /ˈdabliu/), and Y (EP: ''ípsilon'' /ˈipsɨlɔn/ or ''i grego'' /ˌi ˈgrɛgu/, BP: ''ípsilon'' /ˈipsilõ/) were not part of the official alphabet before 2009. Used only in foreign words,

personal name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is kno ...

s, and hybrid words derived from them. The letters K, W and Y will be included in the alphabet used in East Timor, Macau, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe, when the 1990 Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement comes into legal effect. In Brazil, the Orthographic Agreement went into legal effect from January 1, 2009; in Portugal, from May 13, 2009; in Cabo Verde, from October 1, 2009. However, those letters were used before 1911 (see the article on spelling reform in Portugal). # Velarized to in EP and conservative registers of southern BP. Vocalized to , , or seldom (as influence from Spanish or Japanese), at the end of syllables in most of Brazil. # Usually silent or

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

at the end of syllables (word-final ''n'' is fully pronounced by some speakers in a few loaned words). See Nasalization section, below. # At the start of syllables (not between vowels) in most of the dialects or at the end of syllables (in some dialects of BP), a single graphical ''r'' is pronounced or ~~ (see

for variants of this sound). However, in the dialect of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaW ...

it can be realized as /ɽ/ even in consonant clusters, such as ɽ ɽ ɽ ɽ ɽ ɽ ɽ or after /j/. After /l/ can be assimiled and realized as �.r e.g. ''melro'' ˈɛɽ.rʊ In European dialects word-initial or preceded by /n/, /l/, /s/ ( � or nasalisation can be pronounced as very intense /ʁ/, /ʀ/, or /r/ (latter — as in Galician). Elsewhere, it is pronounced as and its variants. Word-final rhotics may also be silent when the last syllable is stressed, in casual and vernacular speech, especially in Brazil (pervasive nationwide, though not in educated and some colloquial registers) and in some African and Asian countries. In European variety a word-initial /r/ can be realised as ̝after /s/. Word(or coda)-final European variants of /ɾ/ include �̥ ̝ ̻ and �̊ Sometimes a non-phonematic �is added after a final /ɾ/. # A single ''s'' is pronounced voiced between vowels. # The opposition between the four

sibilants Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

, , , is neutralized at the end of syllables; see

below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname *Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general *Fred Below ...

for more information. # Letter t, surrounded by nasal vowels (realized always as

nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...

+ before it), , , , , , , and Stop consonant, stops, can be read as allophones, allophonic in some Mozambican Portuguese, Mozambican varieties. Mostly before final reduced vowels can be realized there also as ʰ The same pattern of aspiration for /t/ occurs in

East Timorese Portuguese East Timorese Portuguese ( in Portuguese) is a Portuguese dialect spoken in the country of Timor-Leste or East Timor. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste alongside Tetum. As with other Lusophone countries besides Brazil, the Por ...

. # Northern Portuguese dialects share with Galician and other, more distantly related, North Iberian languages (

Astur-Leonese Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Astu ...

, including

Mirandese The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of ...

, Castilian, Aragonese,

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

and, to some extent,

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

) one common feature — merger of /b/ and /v/ into /β~b/. # The letter ''x'' may represent , , , , or (''peixe, fixar, exemplo, próximo, hexágono''). It is always pronounced at the beginning of words.

Digraphs

Portuguese uses digraphs, pairs of letters which represent a single sound different from the sum of their components. Digraphs are not included in the alphabet. : The digraphs ''qu'' and ''gu'', before ''e'' and ''i'', may represent both plain or labialised sounds (''quebra'' , ''cinquenta'' , ''guerra'' , ''sagui'' ), but they are always labialised before ''a'' and ''o'' (''quase, quociente, guaraná''). The trema used to be employed to explicitly indicate labialized sounds before ''e'' and ''i'' (''quebra'' vs. ''cinqüenta''), but since its elimination, such words have to be memorised. Pronunciation divergences mean some of these words may be spelled differently (''quatorze / catorze'' and ''quotidiano / cotidiano''). The digraph ''ch'' is pronounced as an English ''sh'' by the overwhelming majority of speakers. The digraphs ''lh'' and ''nh'', of Occitan origin, denote

palatal consonant Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteris ...

s that do not exist in English. The digraphs ''rr'' and ''ss'' are used only between vowels. The pronunciation of the digraph ''rr'' varies with dialect (see the note on the phoneme , above).

Diacritics

Portuguese makes use of five

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s: the

(ç),

(á, é, í, ó, ú),

(â, ê, ô),

(ã, õ), and

(à, rarely ò, formerly also è, ì, and ù). : The cedilla indicates that ''ç'' is pronounced (from a historic palatalization). By convention, ''s'' is written instead of etymological ''ç'' at the beginning of words, as in "São", the hypocoristic form of the female name "Conceição". The

and the

indicate that a vowel is stressed and the quality of the accented vowel and, more precisely, its

height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is ab ...

: ''á'', ''é'', and ''ó'' are low vowels (except in nasal vowels); ''â'', ''ê'', and ''ô'' are high vowels. They also distinguish a few homographs: ''por'' "by" with ''pôr'' "to put", ''pode'' " e/she/itcan" with ''pôde'' " e/she/itcould". The

marks nasal vowels before glides such as in ''cãibra'' and ''nação'', at the end of words, before final ''-s'', and in some compounds: ''romãzeira'' "pomegranate tree", from ''romã'' "pomegranate", and ''vãmente'' "vainly", from ''vã'' "vain". It usually coincides with the stressed vowel unless there is an acute or circumflex accent elsewhere in the word or if the word is

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...

: ''órgão'' "organ", ''irmã'' + ''-zinha'' ("sister" +

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

suffix) = ''irmãzinha'' "little sister". The form ''õ'' is used only in the plurals of nouns ending in ''-ão'' (''nação → nações'') and in the second person singular and third person forms of the verb ''pôr'' in the present tense (''pões, põe, põem''). The

marks the contraction of two consecutive vowels in adjacent words (

crasis Crasis (; from the Greek , "mixing", "blending"); cf. , "I mix" ''wine with water''; '' kratēr'' "mixing-bowl" is related. is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong, making one word out of ...

), normally the preposition ''a'' and an article or a demonstrative pronoun: ''a'' + ''aquela'' = ''àquela'' "at that", ''a'' + ''a'' = ''à'' "at the". It can also be used when indicating time: "às 4 horas" = "at 4 o'clock". It does not indicate stress. Sometimes ''à'' and ''ò'' are used in other contraction forms, e.g.: ''cò''(''s'') and ''cà''(''s'') (from the comparative conjunction ‘than’ and definite articles ''o'' and ''a''). (Although, these examples are rare and tend to be called ''unstandard'' or ''dialectal'', as well as ''co''(''s'') and ''coa''/''ca''(''s'') from ‘with’ + definite articles). Other examples of its use are: ''prà'', ''pràs'' (from ''para''+''a''/''as'') and ''prò'', ''pròs'' (from ''para''+''o''/''os''). According to the orthographic rules of 1990 (adopted only in Portugal, Brazil, and Cabo Verde in 2009), these forms should be spelled without the grave accent. Some grammatists also used to denote unstressed �and �as ''è'' and ''ò'' respectively. This accentuation is not provided by the current orthographical standards. Until the spelling reforms of 1971 (Brazil) and 1973 (Portugal), the

was also used to denote accents in words with so-called ''irregular stress'' after some changes. E.g., in adverbs formed with ''-mente'' affix, as well as in some other cases of indication of slightly accented or yet unaccented vowels (mostly because of affixal word formation), all of the vowels can take the

mark, e.g.: ''provàvelmente'', ''genèricamente'', ''analìticamente'', ''pròpriamente'', ''ùnicamente''. The main pattern is to change the

mark, if it graphically exists in ''any'' part of the word before the affixation to the grave one, e.g.: in penultimate syllable: ''notável'' › ''notàvelmente''; in ultimate syllable: ''jacaré'' › ''jacarèzinho'', and so on. The

mark did not change: ''simultâneo/a'' › ''simultâneamente''. The graphemes ''â'', ''ê'', ''ô'' and ''é'' typically represent oral vowels, but before ''m'' or ''n'' followed by another consonant (or word final -m in the case of ''ê'' and ''é''), the vowels represented are

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

. Elsewhere, nasal vowels are indicated with a tilde (''ã'', ''õ''). The letters with diaeresis are nowadays practically in disuse. Until 2009 they were still used in Brazilian Portuguese in the combinations güe/qüe and güi/qüi (European Portuguese in this case used the grave accent between 1911 and 1945, then abolished). In old orthography they were also used as in English, French and Dutch to separate diphthongs (e.g.: ''Raïnha'', ''Luïsa'', ''saüde'' and so on). The other way to separate diphthongs and non-hiatic vowel combinations is to use acute (as in modern ''saúde'') or circumflex (as in old-style ''Corôa'').

Stress

Below are the general rules for the use of the acute accent and the circumflex in Portuguese. Primary

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

may fall on any of the three final syllables of a word. A word is called

oxytone An oxytone (; from the grc, ὀξύτονος, ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''. (A paroxytone Paroxytone ( el, παροξύτονος, ') is a lingui ...

if it is stressed on its last syllable,

paroxytone Paroxytone ( el, παροξύτονος, ') is a linguistic term for a word with stress on the penultimate syllable, that is, the second last syllable, such as the English word ''potáto'', and just about all words ending in –ic such as mús ...

if stress falls on the syllable before the last (the

penult Penult is a linguistics term for the second to last syllable of a word. It is an abbreviation of ''penultimate'', which describes the next-to-last item in a series. The penult follows the antepenult and precedes the ultima. For example, the main ...

), and

proparoxytone In linguistics, a proparoxytone ( el, προπαροξύτονος, ) is a word with stress on the antepenultimate (third last) syllable, such as the English words "cinema" and "operational". Related terms are paroxytone (stress on the penultimate ...

if stress falls on the third syllable from the end (the

antepenult In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is third-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima. Etymology Ul ...

). Most multisyllabic words are stressed on the penult. All words stressed on the antepenult take an

accent mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

. Words with two or more syllables, stressed on their last syllable, are not accented if they have any ending other than ''-a(s)'', ''-e(s)'', ''-o(s)'', ''-am'', ''-em'', ''-ens''; except to indicate

hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...

as in ''açaí''. With these endings paroxytonic words must then be accented to differentiate them from oxytonic words, as in ''amável'', ''lápis'', ''órgão''.

Monosyllables

Monosyllables are typically not accented, but those whose last vowel is ''a'', ''e'', or ''o'', possibly followed by final ''-s'', ''-m'' or ''-ns'', may require an accent mark. * The verb ''pôr'' is accented to distinguish it from the preposition ''por''. * Third-person plural forms of the verbs ''ter'' and ''vir'', ''têm'' and ''vêm'' are accented to be distinguished from third-person singulars of the same verbs, ''tem'', ''vem''. Other monosyllables ending in ''-em'' are not accented. * Monosyllables ending in ''-o(s)'' with the vowel pronounced (as in English "do") or in ''-e(s)'' with the vowel pronounced (as in English "be") or (approximately as in English "roses") are not accented. Otherwise, they are accented. * Monosyllables containing only the vowel ''a'' take an acute accent except for the contractions of the preposition ''a'' with the article ''a(s)'', which take the grave accent, ''à(s)'', and for the following

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

articles, pronouns, prepositions, or contractions, which are not accented (all pronounced with in Europe): ''a(s)'', ''da(s)'', ''la(s)'', ''lha(s)'', ''ma(s)'', ''na(s)'', ''ta(s)''. Most of those words have a masculine equivalent ending in ''-o(s)'', also not accented: ''o(s)'', ''do(s)'', ''lo(s)'', ''lho(s)'', ''mo(s)'', ''no(s)'', ''to(s)''.

Polysyllables

* The endings ''-a(s)'', ''-e(s)'', ''-o(s)'', ''-am'', ''-em'', ''-ens'' are unstressed. The stressed vowel of words with such endings is assumed to be the first one before the ending itself: ''bonita'', ''bonitas'', ''gente'', ''viveram'', ''seria'', ''serias'' (verbs), ''seriam''. If the word happens to be stressed elsewhere, it requires an accent mark: ''será'', ''serás'', ''até'', ''séria'', ''sérias'' (adjectives), ''Inácio'', ''Amazônia''/''Amazónia''. The endings ''-em'' and ''-ens'' take the acute accent when stressed (''contém'', ''convéns''), except in third-person plural forms of verbs derived from ''ter'' and ''vir'', which take the circumflex (''contêm'', ''convêm''). Words with other endings are regarded as oxytone by default: ''viver'', ''jardim'', ''vivi'', ''bambu'', ''pensais'', ''pensei'', ''pensou'', ''pensão''. They require an accent when they are stressed on a syllable other than their last: ''táxi'', ''fácil'', ''amáveis'', ''râguebi''. * Rising diphthongs (which may also be pronounced as hiatuses) containing stressed ''i'' or stressed ''u'' are accented so they will not be pronounced as falling diphthongs. Exceptions are those whose stressed vowel forms a syllable with a letter other than ''s''. Thus, ''raízes'' (syllabified as ''ra-í-zes''), ''incluído'' (''in-clu-í-do''), and ''saíste'' (''sa-ís-te'') are accented, but ''raiz'' (''ra-iz''), ''sairmos'' (''sa-ir-mos'') and ''saiu'' (''sa-iu'') are not. (There are a few more exceptions, not discussed here.) * The stressed diphthongs ''ei'', ''eu'', ''oi'' take an acute accent on the first vowel whenever it is low. * Aside from those cases, there are a few more words that take an accent, usually to disambiguate frequent homographs such as ''pode'' (

present tense The present tense ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

of the verb ''poder'', with ) and ''pôde'' (

preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple ...

of the same verb, with ). In European Portuguese, a distinction is made in the first person plural of verbs in ''-ar'', between the present tense ending ''-amos'' and the preterite ''-ámos'' . As these are pronounced identically in Brazilian Portuguese, this accent is not used. Accentuation rules of Portuguese are somewhat different regarding syllabification than those of Spanish (English "continuous" is Portuguese ''contínuo'', Spanish ''continuo'', and English "I continue" is Portuguese ''continuo'', Spanish ''continúo'', in both cases with the same syllable accented in Portuguese and Spanish).

Personal names

The use of diacritics in personal names is generally restricted to the combinations above, often also by the applicable Portuguese spelling rules. Portugal is more restrictive than Brazil in regard to given names. They must be Portuguese or adapted to the Portuguese orthography and sound and should also be easily discerned as either a masculine or feminine name by a Portuguese speaker. There are lists of previously accepted and refused names, and names that are both unusual and not included in the list of previously accepted names must be subject to consultation of the national director of registries. The list of previously accepted names does not include some of the most common names, like "Pedro" (Peter) or "Ana" (Anne). Brazilian birth registrars, on the other hand, are likely to accept names containing any (Latin) letters or diacritics and are limited only to the availability of such characters in their typesetting facility.

Consonants with more than one spelling

Most consonants have the same values as in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

, except for the

palatals Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteristi ...

and , which are spelled ''lh'' and ''nh'', respectively, and the following velars, rhotics, and sibilants:

Velar plosives

Rhotics

The

alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...

is always spelled as a single ''r''. The other rhotic phoneme of Portuguese, which may be pronounced as a trill or as one of the

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

, , or , according to the

idiolect Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people ...

of the speaker, is either written ''rr'' or ''r'', as described below.

Notes

Sibilants

For the following phonemes, the phrase "at the start of a syllable" can be understood as "at the start of a word, or between a consonant and a vowel, in that order". Note that there are two main groups of accents in Portuguese, one in which the sibilants are alveolar at the end of syllables ( or ), and another in which they are

postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...

( or ). In this position, the sibilants occur in

complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

before voiced consonants, and voiceless before voiceless consonants or at the end of

utterance In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written lang ...

Vowels

The vowels in the pairs , , only contrast in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, each element of the pair occurs in

with the other. Stressed appears mostly before the nasal consonants ''m'', ''n'', ''nh'', followed by a vowel, and stressed appears mostly elsewhere although they have a limited number of

minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...

s in EP. In Brazilian Portuguese, both nasal and unstressed vowel phonemes that only contrast when stressed tend to a mid height though may be often heard in unstressed position (especially when singing or speaking emphatically). In pre-20th-century European Portuguese, they tended to be raised to , (now except when close to another vowel) and . It still is the case of most Brazilian dialects in which the word ''elogio'' may be variously pronounced as , , , etc. Some dialects, such as those of Northeastern and Southern Brazil, tend to do less pre-vocalic vowel reduction and in general the unstressed vowel sounds adhere to that of one of the stressed vowel pair, namely and respectively.—The influence of foreign accents on Italian language acquisition In educated speech, vowel reduction is used less often than in colloquial and vernacular speech though still more than the more distant dialects, and in general, mid vowels are dominant over close-mid ones and especially open-mid ones in unstressed environments when those are in free variation (that is, ''sozinho'' is always , even in Portugal, while ''elogio'' is almost certainly ). Mid vowels are also used as choice for stressed nasal vowels in both Portugal and Rio de Janeiro though not in São Paulo and southern Brazil, but in Bahia, Sergipe and neighboring areas, mid nasal vowels supposedly are close-mid like those of French. ''Veneno'' can thus vary as EP , RJ , SP and BA according to the dialect. also has significant variation, as shown in the respective dialect pronunciations of ''banana'' as , , and . Vowel reduction of unstressed nasal vowels is extremely pervasive nationwide in Brazil, in vernacular, colloquial and even most educated speech registers. It is slightly more resisted but still present in Portugal.

Diacritics

The pronunciation of the accented vowels is fairly stable except that they become nasal in certain conditions. See #Nasalization for further information about this regular phenomenon. In other cases,

s are marked with a

. The

is used only on the letter ''a'' and is merely grammatical, meaning a

between two ''a'' such as the preposition "to" and the feminine article "the" (''vou a cidade'' → ''vou à cidade'' "I'm going to the city"). In dialects where unstressed ''a'' is pronounced , ''à'' is pronounced ; in dialects where unstressed ''a'' is the grave accent makes no difference in pronunciation. There was a proposal to use the grave for separation of unstressed diphthongs, e.g.: ''saìmento'', ''paìsagem'', ''saùdar''.https://files.dre.pt/gratuitos/1s/1911/09/21300.pdf The

trema Trema may refer to: * a Greek and Latin root meaning ''hole'' * ''Tréma'', a word in French meaning diaeresis ** more generally, two dots (diacritic) * ''Trema'' (plant), a genus of about 15 species of small evergreen trees * Tréma (record la ...

was official prior to the last orthographical reform and can still be found in older texts. It meant that the usually silent ''u'' between ''q'' or ''g'' and ''i'' or ''e'' is in fact pronounced: ''líqüido “''liquid''” and ''sangüíneo'' “''related to blood''”. Some words have two acceptable pronunciations, varying largely by accents. It was also proposed to use the

instead of trema, e.g.: ''líqùido'', ''sangùíneo''. :

Diphthongs

The pronunciation of each

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

is also fairly predictable, but one must know how to distinguish true diphthongs from adjacent vowels in

, which belong to separate syllables. For example, in the word ''saio'' (), the ''i'' forms a clearer diphthong with the previous vowel (but a slight yod also in the next syllable is generally present), but in ''saiu'' (), it forms a diphthong with the next vowel. As in Spanish, a hiatus may be indicated with an acute accent, distinguishing homographs such as ''saia'' () and ''saía'' . :

Nasalization

When a syllable ends with ''m'' or ''n'', the consonant is not fully pronounced but merely indicates the

nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internation ...

of the vowel which precedes it. At the end of words, it generally produces a nasal diphthong. : The letter ''m'' is conventionally written before ''b'' or ''p'' or at the end of words (also in a few compound words such as ''comummente'' - ''comumente'' in Brazil), and ''n'' is written before other consonants. In the plural, the ending ''-m'' changes into ''-ns''; for example ''bem'', ''rim'', ''bom'', ''um'' → ''bens'', ''rins'', ''bons'', ''uns''. Some loaned words end with ''-n'' (which is usually pronounced in European Portuguese). Nasalization of ''ui'', according to modern orthography, is left unmarked in the six words ''muito'', ''muita'', ''muitos'', ''muitas'', ''mui'', ''ruim'' (the latter one only in Brazilian Portuguese). During some periods, the nasal ''ui'' was marked as ũi: ''mũi'', ''mũita'', ''mũito'', ''mũitas'', ''mũitos''. The word endings ''-am'', ''-em'', ''-en(+s)'', with or without an accent mark on the vowel, represent nasal

s derived from various Latin endings, often ''-ant'', ''-unt'' or ''-en(t)-''. Final ''-am'', which appears in polysyllabic verbs, is always unstressed. The grapheme ''-en-'' is also pronounced as a nasal diphthong in a few compound words, such as ''bendito'' (''bem'' + ''dito''), ''homenzinho'' (''homem'' + ''zinho''), and ''Benfica''.

Morphological considerations

Verbs whose infinitive ends in ''-jar'' have ''j'' in the whole conjugation: ''viagem'' "voyage" (noun) but ''viajem'' (third person plural of the present subjunctive of the verb ''viajar'' "to travel"). Verbs whose

thematic vowel In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and tho ...

becomes a stressed ''i'' in one of their inflections are spelled with an ''i'' in the whole conjugation, as are other words of the same family: ''crio'' (I create) implies ''criar'' (to create) and ''criatura'' (creature). Verbs whose thematic vowel becomes a stressed ''ei'' in one of their inflections are spelled with an ''e'' in the whole conjugation, as are other words of the same family: ''nomeio'' (I nominate) implies ''nomear'' (to nominate) and ''nomeação'' (nomination).

Etymological considerations

The majority of the Portuguese lexicon is derived from Latin,

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foo ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, some Germanic and some

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

. In principle, that would require some knowledge of those languages. However, Greek words are Latinized before being incorporated into the language, and many words of Latin or Greek origin have easily recognizable

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...

s in English and other western European languages and are spelled according to similar principles. For instance, ''glória'', "glory", ''glorioso'', "glorious", ''herança'' "inheritance", ''real'' "real/royal". Some general guidelines for spelling are given below: * ''CU'' vs. ''QU'': if ''u'' is pronounced syllabically, it is written with ''c'', as in ''cueca'' (male underwear), and if it represents a labialized velar plosive, it is written with ''q'', as in ''quando'' (when). * ''G'' vs. ''J'': etymological ''g'', if representing a phoneme, changes into ''j'' before ''a'', ''o'', ''u''. * ''H'': this letter is silent; it appears for etymology at the start of a word, in a few

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...

s, and as part of the digraphs ''ch'', ''lh'', ''nh''. Latin or Greek ''ch'', ''ph'', ''rh'', ''th'', and ''y'' are usually converted into ''c/qu'', ''f'', ''r/rr'', ''t'', and ''i'', respectively. * ''O'' vs. ''OU'': in many words, the variant ''ou'' normally corresponds to Latin and Arabic ''au'' or ''al'', more rarely to Latin ''ap'', ''oc''. * ''S''/''SS'' vs. ''C''/''Ç'': the letter ''s'' and the digraph ''ss'' correspond to Latin ''s'', ''ss'', or ''ns'', and to Spanish ''s''. The graphemes ''c'' (before ''e'' or ''i'') and ''ç'' (before ''a'', ''o'', ''u'') are usually derived from Latin ''c'' or ''t(i)'', or from ''s'' in non-European languages, such as Arabic and

Amerindian languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

. They often correspond to Spanish ''z'' in any position or ''c'' preceding ''i'' or ''e''. At the beginning of words, however, ''s'' is written instead of etymological ''ç'', by convention. * ''Z'' vs. ''S'' between vowels: the letter ''z'' corresponds to Latin ''c'' (+''e'', ''i'') or ''t(i)'', to Greek or Arabic ''z''. Intervocalic ''s'' corresponds to Latin ''s''. * ''X'' vs. ''CH'': the letter ''x'' derives from Latin ''x'' or ''s'', or from Arabic ''sh'' and usually corresponds to Spanish ''j''. The digraph ''ch'' (before vowels) derives from Latin ''cl'', ''fl'', ''pl'' or from French ''ch'' and corresponds to Spanish ''ll'' (like in Rioplatense Spanish) or ''ch'' (like some varieties of Spanish). * ''S'' vs. ''X'' vs. ''Z'' at the end of syllables: ''s'' is the most common spelling for all sibilants. The letter ''x'' appears, preceded by ''e'' and followed by one of the voiceless consonants ''c'', ''p'', ''s'', ''t'', in some words derived from Latin or Greek. The letter ''z'' occurs only at the end of

words and in compounds derived from them, corresponding to Latin ''x'', ''c'' (+''e'', ''i'') or to Arabic ''z''. Loanwords with a in their original languages receive the letter ''x'' to represent it when they are nativised: ''xampu'' (shampoo). While the pronunciations of ''ch'' and ''x'' merged long ago, some Galician-Portuguese dialects like the Galician language, the ''portunhol da pampa'' and the speech registers of northeastern Portugal still preserve the difference as ''ch'' vs. ''x'' , as do other Iberian languages and Medieval Portuguese. When one wants to stress the sound difference in dialects in which it merged the convention is to use ''tch'': ''tchau'' (

ciao ''Ciao'' ( , ) is an informal salutation in the Italian language that is used for both "hello" and "goodbye". Originally from the Venetian language, it has entered the vocabulary of English and of many other languages around the world. Its du ...

) and Brazilian Portuguese ''República Tcheca'' (Czech Republic). In most loanwords, it merges with (or :''moti'' for

mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of , a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally ma ...

), just as most often merges with . Alveolar affricates and , though, are more likely to be preserved (''pizza'', ''Zeitgeist'', ''tsunami'', ''kudzu'', ''adzuki'', etc.), although not all of these hold up across some dialects ( for ''Zeitgeist'', for ''tsunami'' and for ''adzuki'' long with spelling ''azuki''

Syllabification and collation

Portuguese

syllabification Syllabification () or syllabication (), also known as hyphenation, is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken, written or signed. Overview The written separation into syllables is usually marked by a hyphen when using English or ...

rules require a syllable break between double letters: ''cc'', ''cç'', ''mm'', ''nn'', ''rr'', ''ss'', or other combinations of letters that may be pronounced as a single sound: ''fric-ci-o-nar'', ''pro-ces-so'', ''car-ro'', ''ex-ce(p)-to'', ''ex-su-dar''. Only the digraphs ''ch'', ''lh'', ''nh'', ''gu'', ''qu'', and ''ou'' are indivisible. All digraphs are however broken down into their constituent letters for the purposes of

aloud, and in

crossword puzzles A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the ans ...

Other symbols

Apostrophe

The apostrophe (') appears as part of certain phrases, usually to indicate the

elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

of a vowel in the contraction of a preposition with the word that follows it: ''de'' + ''água'' = ''d'água''. It is used almost exclusively in poetry.

Hyphen

The hyphen (-) is used to make compound words, especially plants and animal names like ''papagaio-de-rabo-vermelho'' "red-tailed parrot". It is also extensively used to append clitic pronouns to the verb, as in ''quero-o'' "I want it" (enclisis), or even to embed them within the verb (mesoclisis), as in ''levaria'' + ''vos'' + ''os'' = ''levar-vo-los-ia'' "I would take them to you". Proclitic pronouns are not connected graphically to the verb: ''não o quero'' "I do not want it". Each element in such compounds is treated as an individual word for accentuation purposes: ''matarias'' + ''o'' = ''matá-lo-ias'' "You would kill it/him", ''beberá'' + ''a'' = ''bebê-la-á'' "He/she will drink it".

Quotation marks

In European Portuguese, as in many other European languages, angular

quotation mark Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...

s are used for general quotations in literature: : «Isto é um exemplo de como fazer uma citação em português europeu.» : ''“This is an example of how to make a quotation in European Portuguese.”'' Although American-style (“…”) or British-style (‘…’) quotation marks are sometimes used as well, especially in less formal types of writing (they are more easily produced in keyboards) or inside nested quotations, they are less common in careful writing. In Brazilian Portuguese, only American and British-style quote marks are used. : “Isto é um exemplo de como fazer uma citação em português brasileiro.” : ''“This is an example of how to make a quotation in Brazilian Portuguese.”'' In both varieties of the language, dashes are normally used for direct speech rather than quotation marks: : : : ''“I’m so bored,” she said.'' : ''“That’s not my fault,” he shot back.''

Brazilian vs. European spelling

Prior to the

Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 The Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 ( pt, Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa de 1990) is an international treaty whose purpose is to create a unified orthography for the Portuguese language, to be used by all the count ...

, Portuguese had two orthographic standards: * The Brazilian orthography, official in Brazil. * The European orthography, official in Portugal, Macau, East Timor and the five African

Lusophone Lusophones ( pt, Lusófonos) are peoples that speak Portuguese as a native or as common second language and nations where Portuguese features prominently in society. Comprising an estimated 270 million people spread across 10 sovereign countries ...

countries (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Cape Verde). The table to the right illustrates typical differences between the two

orthographies An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. Some are due to different pronunciations, but others are merely graphic. The main ones are: * ''Presence or absence of certain consonants'': The letters ''c'' and ''p'' appear in some words before ''c'', ''ç'' or ''t'' in one orthography, but are absent from the other. Normally, the letter is written down in the European spelling, but not in the Brazilian spelling. * ''Different use of diacritics'': the Brazilian spelling has ''a'', ''ê'' or ''ô'' followed by ''m'' or ''n'' before a vowel, in several words where the European orthography has ''á'', ''é'' or ''ó'', due to different pronunciation. * ''Different usage of double letters'': also due to different pronunciation, Brazilian spelling has only ''cc'', ''rr'' and ''ss'' as double letters. So, Portuguese ''connosco'' becomes Brazilian ''conosco'' and words ended in ''m'' with suffix ''-mente'' added, (like ''ruimmente'' and ''comummente'') become ''ruimente'' and ''comumente'' in Brazilian spelling. As of 2016, the reformed orthography (1990 Agreement) is obligatory in Brazil, Cape Verde, and Portugal.

Notes

Citations

References

*Bergström, Magnus & Reis, Neves ''Prontuário Ortográfico'' Editorial Notícias, 2004. *Estrela, Edite ''A questão ortográfica — Reforma e acordos da língua portuguesa'' (1993) Editorial Notícias
Formulário Ortográfico
(''Orthographic Form'') published by th
Brazilian Academy of Letters
in 1943 - the pre-2009 spelling rules in Brazil

of the Brazilian government, in 1971, amending the orthography adopted in 1943
Orthographic Agreement of 1945
(in Portuguese) - the present day spelling rules in all Portuguese speaking countries except Portugal, Brazil, and Cabo Verde
Orthographic Agreement of 1990
(PDF - in Portuguese) - the present day spelling rules in Portugal, Brazil, and Cabo Verde, to be adopted by other Portuguese-speaking countries

External links

Includes a recording with the names of the letters of the alphabet, and most phonemes, by a Brazilian speaker.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Portuguese Orthography Orthography, Portuguese Indo-European Latin-script orthographies

Letter names and pronunciations

Notes

Digraphs

Diacritics

Stress

Monosyllables

Polysyllables

Personal names

Consonants with more than one spelling

Velar plosives

Rhotics

Notes

Sibilants

Vowels

Diacritics

Diphthongs

Nasalization

Morphological considerations

Etymological considerations

Syllabification and collation

Other symbols

Apostrophe

Hyphen

Quotation marks

Brazilian vs. European spelling

See also

Notes

Citations

References

External links