Portuguese orthography

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The orthography of Portuguese is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes. Brazilian Portuguese also uses the diaeresis mark. Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters for collation purposes.

Portuguese spelling is partly based on etymology or analogy, so there is not a perfect one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters or digraphs. However, the pronunciation of the consonants (except x) is predictable from their position in a word. Since only five vowel letters a, e, i, o, u are available to transcribe the fourteen vowel phonemes of this language, the orthography of the vowels is more complex, but even in this case pronunciation is predictable to a degree. Knowing the main inflectional paradigms of Portuguese, and being acquainted with the orthography of other languages of Western Europe, can be helpful in this regard.

Contents

[edit] Letters

Only the most frequent sounds are given below, since a listing of all cases and exceptions would be too cumbersome. Portuguese is a pluricentric language, and the pronunciation of some of the letters is different in European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Apart from these variations, the pronunciation of most consonants is fairly straightforward, and similar to French or Catalan pronunciation. Only the consonants r, s, x, z, the vowels, and the digraphs ch, lh, nh, rr may require special attention. In the following, the phrase "at the end of a syllable" can be understood as "before a consonant, or at the end of a word". For the letter r, "at the start of a syllable" means "at the beginning of a word, or after l, n, s".

Letter Default pronunciations Other pronunciations
a /a, ɐ/
b /b/
c /k/, but /s/ before e or i
d /d/ [dʒ] before /i, ĩ/ (in BP only)
e /e, ɛ/ /i/ or /ɨ/ (the latter in EP only), in some unstressed syllables
f /f/
g /g/, but /ʒ/ before e or i
h silent; part of the digraphs ch, lh, nh
i /i/ [i̯] in diphthongs
j /ʒ/
l /l/ [ɫ] (in EP) or [w] (in BP), at the end of a syllable
m /m/ silent, or voiceless, at the end of a syllable
n /n/ silent, or voiceless, before a consonant
o /o, ɔ/ /u/ in some unstressed syllables
p /p/
q /k/
r /ɾ/ except at the start of a syllable /ʁ/ at the start or at the end of a syllable
s /s/, but /z/ between vowels /s/ or /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant;

/z/ or /ʒ/ before a voiced consonant
t /t/ [tʃ] before /i, ĩ/ (in BP only)
u /u/ [u̯] in diphthongs
v /v/
x /ʃ/ before vowels;

/ks/ between vowels only (in loanwords)

 /s/ or /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant;

/z/ or /ʒ/ before a voiced consonant
z /z/ /s/ or /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant;

/z/ or /ʒ/ before a voiced consonant

For the names of the letters, see Portuguese alphabet.

[edit] Notes on the vowels

  • Vowels may be nasalized before the nasal consonants m and n. See the section on conditional digraphs, below.
  • The vowels in the pairs /a, ɐ/, /e, ɛ/, /o, ɔ/ only contrast in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, each element of the pair occurs in complementary distribution with the other. Stressed /ɐ/ appears mostly before the nasal consonants m, n, nh, followed by a vowel, and stressed /a/ elsewhere, although they have a limited number of minimal pairs in EP.

[edit] Notes on the consonants

  • The rhotic phonemes /ʁ/ and /ɾ/ only contrast between vowels. At the start of a syllable, only the former occurs. At the end of syllables, EP uses /ɾ/, while several Brazilian dialects use /ʁ/. Word final rhotics may also be silent when the last syllables is stressed, in casual speech, especially in Brazil (states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro) and some African countries.
  • At the end of syllables, the sibilants occur in complementary distribution. In most of Brazil, they are alveolar: /s/ is used before voiceless consonants or at the end of words, while /z/ is used before voiced consonants: e.g. isto /'istu/, turismo /tu'rizmu/. (This is like in English.) In most of Portugal, and in Rio de Janeiro and some northeastern states of Brazil, syllable-final sibilants are postalveolar: the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ is used before a voiceless consonant or at the end of a word, and the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ is used before a voiced consonant: isto /'iʃtu/, turismo /tu'riʒmu/.
  • The traditional pronunciation of the letter x between vowels is /ʃ/, but in loan words from Latin or Greek it may be read in other ways: /ks/ (the most common), /z/ (in words that begin with ex- or hex- followed by a vowel, and in compounds made from such words), or /s/ (in a very small number of words, such as trouxe and próximo).

[edit] Diacritics and accented letters

Portuguese makes use of six diacritics.

The cedilla indicates that ç is pronounced /s/ (due to a historical palatalization). By convention, s is written instead of etymological ç at the beginning of words.

The acute accent and the circumflex accent indicate that a vowel is stressed, and also the quality of the accented vowel, more precisely its height: á, é, and ó are low vowels (except in the word endings -ém, -éns), while â, ê, and ô are high vowels. They also distinguish a few homographs: cf. para "for" with pára "it stops", por "by" with pôr "to put".

The tilde marks nasal vowels before other vowels, at the end of words, before final -s, and in some compounds, like romãzeira "pomegranate tree", from romã "pomegranate", and vãmente "vainly", from vã "vain". It usually coincides with the stressed vowel, unless there is an acute or circumflex accent elsewhere in the word, or if the word is compound, e.g. órgão "organ", irmã + zinha ("sister" + diminutive suffix) = irmãzinha "little sister".

The grave accent marks the contraction of two consecutive vowels in adjacent words (crasis), normally the preposition a and an article or a demonstrative pronoun: a + aquela = àquela "at that", a + a = à "at the", and so on. It does not indicate stress.

The trema indicates that the letter u is pronounced, exceptionally, in the graphemes gue, gui, que, qui; e.g. agüentar "to bear", freqüência "frequency", argüição "questioning", qüinqüelíngüe "in five languages" (conjectured to be the Portuguese word with most diacritics). It is only used in Brazil, and increasingly omitted (some newspapers and many people don't use it).

Accented letter Usual pronunciation
à /a/
á /a/
â /ɐ, ɐ̃/
ã /ɐ̃/
ç /s/
é /ɛ/
ê /e, ẽ/
í /i, ĩ/
ó /ɔ/
ô /o, õ/
õ /õ/
ú /u, ũ/
ü /u/

The graphemes â, ê and ô typically represent oral vowels, but before m or n followed by another consonant they are nasalized. Elsewhere, nasal vowels are indicated with a tilde (ã, õ). See the section on the conditional digraphs, below, for the pronunciation of word final -ém, -êm, -éns.

[edit] Basic digraphs

These are pairs of letters which represent a single sound, different from the sum of their components. They are always pronounced the same way.

Digraph Usual pronunciation Notes
ch /ʃ/ Voiceless postalveolar fricative.
lh /ʎ/ Palatal lateral approximant.
nh /ɲ/ Palatal nasal.
ou /o/ Still pronounced as the falling diphthong [ou̯] in some regions.
rr /ʁ ~ h ~ x ~ r/ Written only between vowels.
ss /s/ Written only between vowels.

The digraphs lh and nh, of Occitan origin, denote palatal consonants which do not exist in English, but can be approximated by li, ni in words such as million, onion, pronounced quickly.

Apart from the graphemes listed in this table, there are other sequences of letters which have special pronunciations at syllable or word boundaries, due to assimilation; see the notes about the pronunciation of consecutive sibilants, at Portuguese phonology: fricatives.

[edit] Conditional digraphs

These are pairs of letters which are normally pronounced separately, but in some positions in a word combine into a single sound. Some of the pronunciations have dialectal variants.

Grapheme Context Pronunciation
an, am, ân, âm before a consonant /ɐ̃/
-am word final /ɐ̃ũ/
en, em, ên, êm before a consonant /ẽ/
-em, -ém word final /ẽĩ ~ ɐ̃ĩ/
-en-, -én- before final s (e.g. parabéns) /ẽĩ ~ ɐ̃ĩ/
-êm word final /'ẽĩẽĩ ~ 'ɐ̃ĩɐ̃ĩ ~ ẽĩ/
gu before e or i /g/ (elsewhere /gu/)
in, im, ín, ím before a consonant or word final /ĩ/
on, om, ôn, ôm before a consonant or word final /õ/
qu before e or i /k/ (elsewhere /ku/)
un, um, ún, úm before a consonant or word final /ũ/

Accented graphemes are stressed.

The vowels are nasal /ɐ̃ ẽ ĩ õ ũ/ when they occur before m or n followed by another consonant, and in the word endings -im, -om, -um. In this case, the nasal consonants m, n just indicate the nasalization; they are no longer pronounced, or are pronounced only very softly (voiceless).

The endings -am, -em and -en(+s) represent nasal diphthongs. Final -am, which appears in polysyllabic verbs, is always unstressed. The grapheme -en- is also pronounced as a nasal diphthong in a few compound words, such as bendito (bem + dito), homenzinho (homem + zinho), and Benfica.

[edit] Status of K, W, Y

The letter y was never used consistently in medieval Portuguese. During the Renaissance, some authors reintroduced it in words of Latin or Greek origin, for etymology, or as a semivowel in falling diphthongs, like in Spanish. The Portuguese spelling reform of 1911, and the later spelling convention signed between Portugal and Brazil in 1931, however, abolished etymological spellings and decreed that semivowel y should be written i, since it is an allophone of the vowel /i/.

The letters k and w were always uncommon in Portuguese spelling, although they appeared occasionally in some proper nouns. Nevertheless, the use of these three letters is allowed in hybrid words derived from foreign names, such as keynesiano and newtoniano, listed even in the most authoritative Portuguese dictionaries. They are sorted as in English.

[edit] Personal names

Family names are exempt from the above restrictions. Thus, a foreigner who emigrates to a Portuguese speaking country and whose family name has one of these letters does not have to change its spelling.

In Brazil, these letters are also widely accepted for given names, in all official records and documents. In fact, those three letters are quite popular in made-up first and middle names, such as Waldirci and Deyvide, or in the names of Japanese-Brazilians, such as Satiko and Yojiro. Family names have often retained their pre-1940 spellings — in particular, final y was retained in many names of native (chiefly Tupi-Guarani) origin, such as Guaracy.

However, the use of diacritics in personal names is generally restricted to the letter-diacritic combinations above, and often also by the applicable Portuguese spelling rules. So, for example, a Brazilian birth registrar may accept Niccoló, Schwartz, or Agüeiro; but he is likely to object to Niccolò, Nuñez, Molière, or Gödel, and possibly even to Çambel or Qadi.

Portugal is more restrictive than Brazil in what concerns given names. They must be either Portuguese or adapted to the Portuguese orthography and sound, and should also be easily discerned as either a masculine or feminine name by a Portuguese speaker. There are lists of previously accepted names, and names not included therein must be subject to consultation of the national director of registries.[1]

[edit] Notes on spelling

As the presentation above shows, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters in Portuguese. In ambiguous cases, the correct spelling is determined through a combination of etymology with analogy and common tradition. The majority of the Portuguese lexicon is derived from Latin, Greek, or Arabic, so in principle this would require some knowledge of those languages. However, Greek words are latinized before being incorporated into the language, and many words of Latin or Greek origin have easily recognizable cognates in English and other western European languages which are spelled according to similar principles. For instance, glória, "glory", glorioso, "glorious", herança "inheritance", real "real/royal". Some general guidelines for spelling are given below:

  • c/ç vs. s-/-ss-: The letters c (before e, i) and ç (before a, o, u) are usually derived from Latin c or t(i), or from s in non-European languages, such as Arabic and Amerindian languages. They correspond to Spanish z or c. At the beginning of words, however, s is written instead of etymological ç, by convention. The letter s (at the beginning of words, or between a consonant and a vowel) and the digraph ss (between vowels) correspond to Latin s or ss, and to Spanish s.
  • e vs. i and o vs. u: The semivowel in an oral diphthong is spelled with i or u (ai, ei, oi, ui; au, eu, iu, ou). Nasal diphthongs are spelled with e or o at the end of words (-ãe, -ão, -õe).
  • g vs. j: Etymological g changes into j before a, o, u, and verbs whose infinitive ends in -jar have j in all their inflections. Thus, viagem "voyage" (noun), but viajem (3rd. pers. plur. of the present subjunctive of the verb viajar "to travel").
  • The letter h is silent; it appears only at the start of a word for etymology or by convention, in a few interjections, and as part of the digraphs ch, lh, nh.
  • o vs. ou: The digraph ou (which in many words has the variant oi) normally corresponds to Latin and Arabic au or al, and more rarely to Latin ap, oc.
  • x- vs. ch: The letter x is derived from Latin x or s, or from Arabic sh. The digraph ch (before vowels) derives from Latin cl, fl, pl or from French ch, and corresponds to Spanish ll or ch.
  • z vs. -s-: The letter z corresponds to Latin c (+e, i) or t(i), to Greek or Arabic z, and to Spanish z/c. Intervocalic s corresponds to Latin and Spanish s.
  • -s vs. -x vs. -z: At the end of syllables, s is the most common spelling for all sibilants. The letter x appears, preceded by e and followed by one of the voiceless consonants c, p, s, t, in some words derived from Latin or Greek. The letter z occurs only at the end of oxytone words and in compounds derived from them, corresponding to Latin c (+e, i) or to Arabic z.

Latin ch, ph, rh, th, and y are usually converted into c/qu, f, r, t, and i, respectively.

[edit] Syllabification and collation

Portuguese syllabification rules require a syllable break between double letters cc, cç, mm, nn, rr, ss, or other combinations of letters which may be pronounced as a single sound, e.g. fric-ci-o-nar, pro-ces-so, car-ro, ex-ce(p)-to, ex-su-dar. Only the digraphs ch, lh, nh, gu, qu, and ou are indivisible. All digraphs are however broken down into their constituent letters for the purposes of collation, aloud spelling, and in crossword puzzles.

[edit] Stress and accentuation

Below are the general rules for the use of the acute accent and the circumflex in Portuguese. Primary stress may fall on any of the three final syllables of a word, but occurs mainly on the last two. A word is called oxytone if it is stressed on its last syllable, paroxytone if stress falls on the syllable before the last (the penult), and proparoxytone if stress falls on the third syllable from the end (the antepenult). Most words are stressed on the penult.

All words stressed on the antepenult take an accent mark. Words with two or more syllables, stressed on their last or their next-to-last syllable, may or may not be accented, depending on their ending, on whether they are composed of one syllable or more, and on whether their stressed vowel belongs to a rising diphthong or not.

[edit] Monosyllables

Monosyllables are typically not accented, but those whose last vowel is a, e, or o, possibly followed by final -s or final -m, may require an accent mark.

  • The verb pôr is accented, to be distinguished from the preposition por.
  • The 3rd. person plural forms of the verbs ter and vir, têm and vêm, are accented to be distinguished from the 3rd. person singular of the same verbs, tem, vem. Other monosyllables ending in -em are not accented.
  • Monosyllables ending in -o or -os with the vowel pronounced /u/ (as in English "do"), or in -e or -es with the vowel pronounced /i/ (as in English "be") or /ɨ/ (approximately as in English "roses"), are not accented. Otherwise, they are accented.
  • Monosyllables containing only the vowel a take an acute accent, except for the contractions of the preposition a with the articles a, as, which take the grave accent, à, às, and for the following clitic articles, pronouns, prepositions, or contractions, which are not accented: a, as, da, das, la, las, lha, lhas, ma, mas, na, nas, ta, tas. Note that most of these words have a masculine equivalent ending in -o(s), also not accented: o(s), do(s), lo(s), lho(s), mo(s), no(s), to(s).

[edit] Polysyllables

  • The endings -a, -e, -o, -as, -es, -os, -am, -em, -ens are unstressed. The stressed vowel of words with such endings is assumed to be the first one before the ending itself: bonita, bonitas, gente, viveram, seria, serias (verbs), seriam. If the word happens to be stressed elsewhere, then it requires an accent mark: será, serás, até, séria, sérias (adjectives), Inácio, Amazônia/Amazónia. The endings -em and -ens take the acute accent when stressed (contém, convéns), except in 3rd. person plural forms of verbs derived from ter and vir, which take the circumflex (contêm, convêm). Words with other endings are regarded as oxytone by default: viver, jardim, vivi, bambu, pensais, pensei, pensou. They require an accent when they are stressed on a syllable other than their last: táxi, fácil, amáveis.
  • Rising diphthongs (which may also be pronounced as hiatuses) containing stressed i or stressed u are accented, so that they will not be pronounced as falling diphthongs. Exceptions are those where the stressed vowel forms a syllable with a letter other than s. Thus, raízes (syllabified as ra-í-zes), incluído (u-í), and saíste (a-ís) are accented, but raiz (ra-iz), sairmos (a-ir) and saiu (a-iu) are not. (There are a few more exceptions, not discussed here).
  • The stressed diphthongs ei, eu, oi take an acute accent on the first vowel whenever it is low.

Aside from these cases, there are a few more words that take an accent, usually to disambiguate frequent homographs such as pode (present tense of the verb poder) and pôde (past tense of the same verb), or para (preposition) and pára (verb). Note also that the accentuation rules of Portuguese are somewhat different from those of Spanish.

[edit] Other symbols

[edit] Apostrophe

The apostrophe (') appears as part of certain phrases, usually to indicate the elision of a vowel in the contraction of a preposition with the word that follows it: de + água = d'água. It is used almost exclusively in poetry.

[edit] Hyphen

The hyphen (-) is used to make compound words, especially animal names like papagaio-de-rabo-vermelho "red-tailed parrot". It is also extensively used to append clitic pronouns to the verb, as in quero-o "I want it" (enclisis), or even to embed them within the verb, as in levaria + te + os = levar-tos-ia "I would take them to you" (mesoclisis). Proclitic pronouns are not connected graphically to the verb: não o quero "I do not want it". Each element in such compounds is treated as an individual word for accentuation purposes.

[edit] Quotation marks

In European Portuguese, as in many other European languages, angular quotation marks are used for general quotations in literature:

«Isto é um exemplo de como fazer uma citação em português europeu.»
"This is an example of how to make a quotation in European Portuguese."

Although American-style (“…”) or British-style ('...') quotation marks are sometimes used as well, especially in less formal types of writing (due to being more easily produced in keyboards) or inside nested quotations, they are less common in careful writing. In Brazilian Portuguese, only American and British-style quote marks are used.

"Isto é um exemplo de como fazer uma citação em português brasileiro."
"This is an example of how to make a quotation in Brazilian Portuguese."

In both varieries of the language, dashes are normally used for direct speech, rather than quotation marks:

― Aborreço-me tanto ― disse ela.
― Não tenho culpa disso ― retorquiu ele.
“I’m so bored,” she said.
“That’s not my fault,” he shot back.

[edit] Brazilian vs. European spelling

Written varieties
Portugal & Africa Brazil translation
Different pronunciation
anónimo anônimo anonymous
Vénus Vênus Venus
facto fato fact
ideia idéia idea
Silent consonants
acção ação action
direcção direção direction
eléctrico elétrico electric
óptimo ótimo very good
Diacritics
frequente freqüente frequent
voo vôo flight
Related article: Spelling reforms of Portuguese

As of 2005, Portuguese has two orthographic standards:

  • The Brazilian orthography, official in Brazil.
  • The European orthography, official in Portugal, Macau, and the five African Portuguese language countries.

In East Timor, both orthographies are currently being taught in schools.

The table to the right illustrates typical differences between the two orthographies. Some are due to different pronunciations, but others are merely graphic. The main ones are:

  • Presence or absence of certain consonants: The letters c and p appear in some words before c, ç or t in one orthography, but are absent from the other. Normally, the letter is written down in the European spelling, but not in the Brazilian spelling. In most cases, it is not pronounced in any variety of the language.
  • Different use of diacritics: the Brazilian spelling has a, ê or ô followed by m or n before a vowel, in several words where the European orthography has á, é or ó, due to different pronunciation. The diaeresis mark is used in Brazilian spelling to indicate that the letter u is pronounced rather than silent in the digraphs gü and qü when they are followed by e or i; the European spelling no longer uses it. The Brazilian orthography distinguishes between stressed éi and stressed ei, which are pronounced differently in Brazilian Portuguese; in European Portuguese, both diphthongs are pronounced the same way, and éi appears only in some oxytone plural nouns and adjectives, by convention.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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