PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE. Portuguese-Galician con stitutes the second branch of the Latin of Spain. In it we must distinguish—(i ) Portuguese (Portuguez, perhaps a contraction from the old Portugalez = Portugalensis), the language of the king dom of Portugal and its colonies in Africa, Asia and America (Brazil) ; (2) Galician (Gallego), or the language of the old kingdom of Galicia (the modern provinces of Pontevedra, La Coruna, Orense and Lugo) and of a portion of the old kingdom of Leon (the territory of Vierzo in the province of Leon). Portu guese, like Castilian, is a literary language, which for ages has served as the vehicle of the literature of the Portuguese nation constituted in the beginning of the i2th century. Galician, on the other hand, which began a literary life early in the middle ages— f or it was employed by Alfonso the Learned in his Cantigas in honour of the Virgin—decayed in proportion as the monarchy of Castile and Leon, to which Galicia had been annexed, gathered force and unity in its southward conquest.
Lat. e, 6 with the accent have not been diphthongized into ie, uo, ue: pe (p e d e m), bom (b o n u s). On the other hand, Portuguese has a large number of strong diphthongs produced by the attraction of an i in hiatus or the resolution of an explosive into i: raiba (r a b i a), feira (f e r i a), oito (o c t o). A peculiar feature of the language occurs in the "nasal vowels," which are formed by the Latin accented vowels followed by nn, it, or nt, nd: be (b e n e), grd (g r an de m), 1)6 (b o n u m). These nasal vowels enter into combination with a final atonic vowel: irmdo (germanus); also amcio (amant), sermao (sermonen), where the o is a degenerated representative of the Latin final vowel. In Old Portuguese the nasal vowel or diphthong was not as now marked by the ti/ ( ), but was expressed indifferently and without regard to the etymology by m or n: bem (b e n e), tam (t antum), disserom (dixerunt), sermorn (ser m o n e m). The Latin diphthong au is rendered in Portuguese
by ou (ouro, a u r u m), also pronounced oi. With regard to the atonic vowels, there is a tendency to reduce a into a vowel re sembling the Fr. e "muet," to pronounce o as ii, and to drop e after a group of consonants (dent for dente).
Here the most remarkable feature, and that which most distinctly marks the wear and tear through which the language has passed, is the disappearance of the median con sonants 1 and n: corda (c or on a), lua (1 u n a), Or formerly poer (ponere), conego (canonicus), vir (venire), paco (p alatiu m), pego (p e 1 a g u s). Lat. b passes regularly into v: cavallo (c a b a 11 u s), but, on the other hand, Lat. initial v readily tends to become b: bodo (v o t u m). Lat. initial f never becomes h: fazer (f a c e r e). Lat. c before e and i is represented either by the hard sibilant s or by the soft z. Lat. g between vowels is dropped before e and i: ler for leer (1 e g e r e), dedo (d i g i t u m) ; the same is the case with d, of course, in similar circumstances : remir (r e d i m e r e), rir (r i d e r e). Lat. j has assumed the sound of the French j. The Latin combinations cl, p/ at the beginning of words are transformed in two ways in words of popular origin. Either the initial consonant is retained while the / is changed into r: cravo (c 1 a v u m) ; or the group is changed into ch (=Fr. ch, Catal. x) through the intermediate sounds kj, f j, pj: chamar (c lamar e), chdo (p lanu s), chamma (f 1 a m m a). Within the word the same group and other groups also in which the second consonant is an I produce 1 mouillee (written lh, just as n mouillee is written nh, as in Pro vencal) : ovelha (o v i c' 1 a), velho (v e c 1 u s) ; and sometimes ch: facho (f a c' 1 u m), ancho (a m p 1 u m). Lat. ss or sc before e and i gives x (Fr. ch): baixo (b assu s), faxa (f asci a). The group ct is reduced to it: leito (1 e c t u m), sometimes to ut: douto (d octu s).