Portuguese is the official and national language of Brazil,According to the Brazil Constitution, article 13: "A língua portuguesa é o idioma oficial da República Federativa do Brasil." being widely spoken by nearly all of its population. Brazil is the most populous Portuguese-speaking country in the world, with its lands comprising the minority of Portugal's former colonial holdings in the Americas.

Aside from Portuguese, the country also has numerous minority languages, including over 200 different indigenous languages, such as Nheengatu (a descendant of Tupi), and languages of more recent European and Asian immigrants, such as Italian, German and Japanese. In some municipalities, those minor languages have official status: Nheengatu, for example, is an official language in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, while a number of German dialects are official in nine southern municipalities.

Hunsrik (also known as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch) is a Germanic language also spoken in Argentina, Paraguay and Venezuela, which derived from the Hunsrückisch dialect. Hunsrik has official status in Antônio Carlos and Santa Maria do Herval, and is recognized by the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina as part of their historical and cultural heritage.

As of 2023, the population of Brazil speaks or signs 238 languages, of which approximately 217 are indigenous and others are non-indigenous. In 2005, no indigenous language was spoken by more than 40,000 people.

With the implementation of the Orthographic Agreement of 1990, the orthographic norms of Brazil and Portugal have been largely unified, but still have some minor differences. Brazil enacted these changes in 2009 and Portugal enacted them in 2012.

In 2002, the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) was made the official language of the Brazilian deaf community.

On December 9, 2010, the National Inventory of Linguistic Diversity was created,Presidente institui inventário which will analyze proposals for revitalizing minority languages in the country.Decreto cria Inventário Nacional da Diversidade Linguística In 2019, the Technical Commission of the National Inventory of Linguistic Diversity was established.Decreto Nº 9.938, de 24 de julho de 2019, Institui a Comissão Técnica do Inventário Nacional da Diversidade LinguísticaGoverno cria comissão técnica para avaliar a inclusão de línguas no Inventário Nacional de Diversidade Linguística, G1

Overview

Before the first Portuguese explorers arrived in 1500, what is now Brazil was inhabited by several Amerindian peoples that spoke many different languages. According to Aryon Dall'Igna Rodrigues there were six million Indians in Brazil speaking over 1,000 different languages. When the Portuguese settlers arrived, they encountered the Tupi people, who dominated most of the Brazilian coast and spoke a set of closely related languages.

The Tupi called the non-Tupi peoples "Tapuias", a designation that the Portuguese adopted; however, there was little unity among the diverse Tapuia tribes other than their not being Tupi. In the first two centuries of colonization, a language based on Tupian languages known as Língua Geral ("General Language") was widely spoken in the colony, not only by the Amerindians, but also by the Portuguese settlers, the Africans and their descendants.

This language was spoken across a vast territory stretching from São Paulo to Maranhão as an informal tongue for domestic use, while Portuguese remained the language for public and official purposes. Língua Geral was spread by Jesuit missionaries and Bandeirantes into other regions of Brazil where Tupi was not originally spoken. In 1758 (and reinforced in 1775), the Marquis of Pombal prohibited the use of Língua Geral or any other indigenous language in favour of Portuguese to consolidate colonial control.

However, before that prohibition, the Portuguese language was dominant in Brazil. Most of the other Amerindian languages gradually disappeared as the populations that spoke them were integrated or decimated when the Portuguese-speaking population expanded to most of Brazil. The several African languages spoken in Brazil also disappeared. Since the 20th century there are no more records of speakers of African languages in the country. However, in some isolated communities settled by escaped slaves (Quilombo), the Portuguese language spoken by its inhabitants still preserves some lexicon of African origin, which is not understood by other Brazilians.

Due to the contact with several European, Amerindian and African languages, the Portuguese spoken in Brazil absorbed many influences from these languages, which led to a notable differentiation from the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. Examples of widely used words of Tupi origin in Brazilian Portuguese include abacaxi ("pineapple"), pipoca ("popcorn"), catapora ("chickenpox"), and siri ("crab"). The names of thirteen of Brazil's twenty six states also have Amerindian origin.

Starting in the early 19th century, Brazil started to receive substantial immigration of non-Portuguese-speaking people from Europe and Asia. Most immigrants, particularly Italians and Spaniards, adopted the Portuguese language after a few generations. Other immigrants, particularly Germans, Japanese, Poles and Ukrainians, preserved their languages for more generations. German-speaking"German" here meaning varied Germanic dialects spoken in Germany and other countries, not standard German. immigrants started arriving in 1824. They came not only from Germany, but also from other countries that had a substantial German-speaking population (Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Romania and Russia (Volga Germans).

During over 100 years of continuous emigration, it is estimated that some 300,000 German-speaking immigrants settled in Brazil. Italian immigration started in 1875 and about 1.5 million Italians immigrated to Brazil until World War II. They spoke several dialects from Italy. Other sources of immigration to Brazil included Spaniards, Poles, Ukrainians, Japanese and Middle-easterns. With the notable exception of the Germans, who preserved their language for several generations, and in some degree the Japanese, Poles, Ukrainians, Arabs, Kurds and Italians, most of the immigrants in Brazil adopted Portuguese as their mother tongue after a few generations.

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is the official language of Brazil and the primary language used in most schools and media. It is also used for all business and administrative purposes. Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, influenced by the other European languages such as Italian and German in the South and Southeast, and several indigenous languages all across the country.

For this reason, Brazilian Portuguese differs noticeably from European Portuguese and other dialects of Portuguese-speaking countries, even though they are all mutually intelligible. Such differences occur in phonetics and lexicon and have been compared to the differences between British English and American English.

Brazilian Sign Language

The Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) is the sign language used by deaf people in Brazilian urban centers and legally recognized as a means of communication and expression.Lei nº 10.436, de 24 de abril de 2002 — Dispõe sobre a Língua Brasileira de Sinais - Libras e dá outras providências.Decreto nº 5.626, de 22 de dezembro de 2005 — Regulamenta a Lei no 10.436, de 24 de abril de 2002, que dispõe sobre a Língua Brasileira de Sinais - Libras, e o art. 18 da Lei no 10.098, de 19 de dezembro de 2000. It is derived both from an autochthonous sign language, which is native to the region or territory in which it lives, and from French sign language; therefore, it is similar to other European and American sign languages. Libras is not the simple sign language of the Portuguese language, but a separate language, as evidenced by the fact that in Portugal a different sign language is used, Portuguese Sign Language (LGP).

Like the various existing natural and human languages, it is composed of linguistic levels such as: phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Just as in oral-auditory languages there are words, in sign languages there are also lexical items, which are called signs. The difference is its modality of articulation, namely visual-spatial, or kinesic-visual, for others. Therefore, to communicate in Libras, it is not enough just to know signs. It is necessary to know your grammar to combine sentences, establishing communication correctly, avoiding the use of "signaled Portuguese".

Signals arise from the combination of hand configurations, movements, and points of articulation — places in space or on the body where signals are made — and also from facial and body expressions that convey the feelings that are conveyed to listeners by voice intonation, which together make up the basic units of this language.UNIP Interativa LIBRAS - Thus, Libras presents itself as a linguistic system for the transmission of ideas and facts, coming from communities of deaf people in Brazil. As with any language, there are also regional differences in Libras. Therefore, attention should be paid to its variations in each federative unit of Brazil.

In addition to being recognized nationally since 2002,Lei que institui a Língua Brasileira de Sinais completa 20 anos, Agência BrasilLei que reconhece Libras como língua oficial do país completa 20 anos, Câmara Municipal de Mata de São João Libras has also been made official at the municipal level in Belo Horizonte,Vereadores aprovam lei que reconhece Libras como língua oficial de BH, O TempoReconhecimento oficial de Libras pelo Município é aprovado em 1º turno, Câmara Municipal de Belo Horizonte Curitiba,Lei Nº 15.823, de 06 de abril de 2021, Leis MunicipaisAprovado reconhecimento da Língua Brasileira de Sinais em Curitiba Ouro PretoAprovado projeto de Lei que reconhece oficialmente a Libras em Ouro Preto, LIBRASOLAprovado Projeto de Lei que reconhece oficialmente a Libras em Ouro Preto, Câmara Municipal de Ouro PretoAprovado Projeto de Lei que reconhece oficialmente a Libras em Ouro Preto, Mundo dos InconfidentesAprovado Projeto de Lei que reconhece oficialmente a Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) em Ouro Preto, O Espeto and Salvador.Lei Nº 7862/2010 In Rio de Janeiro, the teaching of Libras was made official in the curriculum of the municipal school system.Agora é lei: Escolas da rede municipal terão ensino de LibrasLei nº 7391/2022, de 31 de maio de 2022

April 24 was made official as the National Day of Brazilian Sign Language.24 de abril é o Dia Nacional da Língua Brasileira de SinaisComunidade surda comemora sansão do Dia Nacional da Libras24 de abril - Dia Nacional da Língua Brasileira de Sinais

Minority languages

Despite the fact that Portuguese is the official language of Brazil and the vast majority of Brazilians speak only Portuguese, there are several other languages spoken in the country. According to the president of IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) there are an estimated 210 languages spoken in Brazil. 154 are Amerindian languages, while the others are languages brought by immigrants.

The 1950 census was the last one to ask Brazilians which language they speak at home. Since then, the census does not ask about language. However, the census of 2010 asked respondents which languages they speak, allowing a better analysis of the languages spoken in Brazil.

The first municipality to co-officialize other languages alongside Portuguese was São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the state of Amazonas, with the languages Nheengatu, Tukano and Baniwa. Since then, other Brazilian municipalities have co-officialized other languages.

Immigrant languages

European immigrant languages