Aniceto dos Reis Gonçalves Viana (; 1840–1914)
[ was a Portuguese writer and orientalist, who led a committee that made ]reforms of Portuguese orthography
The Portuguese language began to be used regularly in documents and poetry around the 12th century. Unlike neighboring Romance languages that adopted formal orthographies by the 18th century, the Portuguese language did not have a uniform spelli ...
to make it more phonetic.[
]
Biography
Aniceto dos Reis Gonçalves Viana was born in Lisbon
Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
in 1840. His father, who was an actor, and his brother died of yellow fever in 1857. Viana had to concentrate on earning money to support his family.[
He continued his studies, first studying Greek and then ]Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
under Guilherme de Vasconcelos Abreu.
He led the commission that advised on how the spelling of Portuguese should be reformed.[Aniceto dos Reis Gonçalves Viana]
, cvc.instituto-camoes.pt. Retrieved April 2010. This change was successfully made, but created a schism with Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
which continued to use the traditional spelling.
Selected works
*1897; ''Selecta Easy English Readings''
*1897; ''Grammar English''
*1907; ''French Grammar''
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Viana, Aniceto Dos Reis Goncalves
1840 births
1914 deaths
Portuguese male writers
Portuguese orientalists
Writers from Lisbon
19th-century Portuguese writers
19th-century male writers