Portuñol (Spanish spelling) or Portunhol (Portuguese spelling) () is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the words portugués/português ("Portuguese") and español/espanhol ("Spanish"), and is the name often given to any non-systematic mixture of Portuguese and Spanish (this sense should not be confused with the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in northern Uruguay by the Brazilian border, known by several names, among them ''Portuñol''). Close examination reveals it to be "a polyvalent term (''portuñol''/''portunhol'') used to describe a wide range of phenomena, including spontaneous contact vernaculars in border regions, errors produced by speakers attempting to speak the second language (L2) correctly, and idiosyncratic invented speech designed to facilitate communication between the two languages." Portuñol/Portunhol is frequently a pidgin, or simplified mixture of the two languages, that allows speakers of either Spanish or Portuguese who are not proficient in the other language to communicate with one another. When speakers of one of the languages attempt to speak the other language, there is often interference from the native language, which causes the phenomenon of

code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to ...

to occur. It is possible to conduct a moderately fluent conversation in this way because Portuguese and Spanish are closely related

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

. They have almost identical syntactic structures, as well as overlapping lexicons due to cognates, which means that a single macro-grammar is produced when the two mix. An example for literary effect, "not based on accurate imitations of the speech of border regions", is the phrase ''en el hueco de la noite longa e langue'', illustrating a code-mix of the Spanish article ''la'' and the Portuguese noun ''noite''.

Origins

Language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

between Spanish and Portuguese is a result of sustained contact between the two languages in border communities and multilingual trade environments. Such regions include the border regions between

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

in the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

, as well as the ones between

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 ...

, whose official language is Portuguese, and most of its neighboring countries whose official languages are Spanish. Because ''Portuñol'' is a spontaneous register resulting from the occasional mixing of Spanish and Portuguese, it is highly diverse; there is no one dialect or standard of ''Portuñol''. There does, however, tend to be a stronger presence of Spanish in ''Portuñol''.

Contemporary

In recent years, ''Portuñol'' has begun to appear in realms other than everyday speech. It has become a literary medium, especially in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

and

. Language professor María Jesus Fernández García states that literary registers only occasionally provide a true representation of ''Portuñol'', and that authors often choose to select only some of the features that it is characterized by; she thus describes it as a linguistic recreation of the actual language. One important literary work written in ''Portuñol'' is ''Mar paraguayo'' by Brazilian author Wilson Bueno. The passage below shows the mixing of Spanish and Portuguese in his novel. In recent decades, some Portuguese-based creole languages have also become influenced by standard Spanish, notably Annobonese and the Aruban dialect of Papiamento. The appearance of ''Portuñol'' has prompted two opposing opinions or attitudes towards its existence. On the one hand, it is viewed as the product of laziness among speakers unwilling to learn a different language. On the other hand, it is seen as the logical product of globalization. As far as the future of ''Portuñol'' is concerned, according to Francisco A. Marcos-Marín, it is too difficult to evaluate possible repercussions that ''Portuñol'' could have on future linguistic maps because it is not easy to separate linguistic tendencies that are merely in style and those that are permanent.

Compared to Mirandese

The colloquial dialect of Portuñol is similar to but different from Mirandese, or "Mirandês" in Portuguese. The Mirandese language is spoken by approximately 15,000 people in northeastern Portugal. The regional language has several similarities to both Portuguese and Spanish languages, but it is a direct descendant of Asturo-Leonese.

Sample texts

Notes

References