What language is spoken in Brazil?
Portuguese is the official language of Brazil. With more than 210 million people, Brazil is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from 1500 until its independence in 1822, which is why Portuguese became its language. Brazil is the only country in South America where Portuguese is the main language. Most of its neighbors speak Spanish, and speakers of the two languages can often understand each other partly.
Brazilian Portuguese differs from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal in pronunciation, vocabulary and some grammar, similar to the differences between American and British English. Brazilian Portuguese has also borrowed many words from Indigenous languages, such as Tupi, and from African languages.
Other languages
More than 200 Indigenous languages are still spoken in Brazil, mostly in the Amazon region. Communities descended from immigrants also speak German, Italian and Japanese in some areas. Brazilian Sign Language, called Libras, is officially recognized.
Did You Know?
Brazil has the largest population of people of Japanese descent outside Japan, mainly in São Paulo.