Portuguese alphabet

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The Portuguese alphabet consists of the following 23 Latin letters:

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V X Z
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a b c d e f g h i j l m n o p q r s t u v x z

In addition, the following characters with diacritics are used: Á, Â, Ã, À, Ç, É, Ê, Í, Ó, Ô, Õ, Ú, Ü. These are not, however, treated as independent letters in collation, nor do they have entries of their own in Portuguese dictionaries. When two words differ only in the presence or absence of a diacritic, the one without it is collated first. The trema on Ü is currently only used in Brazilian Portuguese.

Although not used in vernacular terms, the letters K, W, and Y may appear in personal names, and in words derived from them.

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See Help:IPA for a pronunciation key.

Contents

[edit] Letter names and pronunciations

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 digraphs ch, lh, nh, rr, and the vowels may require special attention from English speakers.

Although many letters have more than one pronunciation, their phonetic value is often predictable from their position within a word; this is normally the case for the consonants (except x). Since only five letters are available to write the fourteen vowel sounds of Portuguese, 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 can be helpful in this regard.

In the following table and in the remainder of this article, 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". For letters with more than one common pronunciation, their most common phonetic values of are given on the left side of the semicolon; sounds to the right of it occur only in a limited number of positions within a word. Sounds separated by "~" are allophones or dialectal variants.

The names of the letters are masculine.

Letter Name Phonetic
values
Spelling Pronunciation
Aa á /a/ /a/, /ɐ/
Bb bê /be/ /b/
Cc cê /se/ /k/; /s/1
Dd dê /de/ /d/ ~ [dʒ]2
Ee é or ê /ɛ/, /e/ /e/, /ɛ/, /i/,3 /ɨ/
Ff efe /ˈɛfi/ (BP), /ˈɛfɨ/ (EP) /f/
Gg gê or guê /ʒe/, /ge/ /g/; /ʒ/1
Hh agá /aˈga/ (BP), /ɐˈga/ (EP) silent4
Ii i /i/ /i/3
Jj jota /ˈʒɔtɐ/ /ʒ/
Kk cá (BP) or capa (EP) /ka/, /ˈkapɐ/ 5
Ll ele /ˈɛli/ (BP), /ˈɛlɨ/ (EP) /l/ ~ [u̯]6
Mm eme /ˈẽmi/ (BP), /ˈɛmɨ/ (EP) /m/7
Nn ene /ˈẽni/ (BP), /ˈɛnɨ/ (EP) /n/7
Oo ó /ɔ/ /o/, /ɔ/, /u/3
Pp pê /pe/ /p/
Qq quê /ke/ /k/
Rr erre /ˈɛʁi/ (BP), /ˈɛʁɨ/ (EP) /ɾ/, /ʁ/8
Ss esse /ˈɛsi/ (BP), /ˈɛsɨ/ (EP) /s/, /z/9; /ʃ/, /ʒ/
Tt tê /te/ /t/ ~ [tʃ]2
Uu u /u/ /u/3
Vv vê /ve/ /v/
Ww dáblio (BP) or dâblio (EP) /ˈdabliu/ 5
Xx xis /ʃis/, /ʃiʃ/ /ʃ/, /ks/; /z/, /s/, /ʒ/
Yy ípsilon /ˈipsilõ/ (BP), /ˈipsɨlɔn/ (EP) 5
Zz zê /ze/ /z/; /s/, /ʒ/, /ʃ/

[edit] Notes

  1. Before the letters e or i.
  2. Allophonically affricated before the sound /i/ (spelled i, or sometimes e), in BP.
  3. May become an approximant, when unstressed before another vowel.
  4. Silent at the start or at the end of a word. Also part of the digraphs ch, lh, nh. See below.
  5. Not part of the official alphabet. Used only in foreign words, personal names, and hybrid words derived from them.
  6. Vocalized to [u̯] at the end of syllables, in BP.
  7. Usually silent or voiceless at the end of syllables (word-final n is fully pronounced by some speakers in a few learned words). See also the section on Nasalization, below.
  8. At the start of syllables (in all dialects) or at the end of syllables (in some dialects of BP), a single r is pronounced /ʁ/ (see the notes on the Consonants below, for variants of this sound). Elsewhere, it is pronounced /ɾ/. 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.
  9. A single s is pronounced voiced /z/ between vowels.

[edit] Alternative names

  • Alternative name for w in Portugal: duplo vê.
  • Alternative names for y: ípsilo or i grego in Brazil and Portugal; ipsilão or ipsilone in Brazil.

[edit] Consonants

  • The opposition between the four sibilants /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ is neutralized at the end of syllables. In that position, they are alveolar in most of Brazil: /s/ occurs before voiceless consonants or at the end of an utterance, while /z/ occurs before voiced consonants: e.g. isto /ˈistu/, mesmo /ˈmezmu/. (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/ occurs before a voiceless consonant or at the end of an utterance, while the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ occurs before a voiced consonant: isto /ˈiʃtu/, mesmo /ˈmeʒmu/.
  • The traditional pronunciation of the letter x between vowels is /ʃ/, but in loanwords from Latin or Greek it may represent other sounds: /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). It is always pronounced /ʃ/ at the beginning of words and after consonants.

[edit] Diacritics and basic digraphs

Portuguese makes use of six diacritics to expand the Latin alphabet, one of which is the cedilla, placed below the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced /s/ before the vowels a, o, or u, because of a historical palatalization. Digraphs are pairs of letters which represent a single sound, different from the sum of their components. Neither letters with diacritics nor digraphs are included in the alphabet. They are always pronounced the same way.

Grapheme Pronunciation
ç /s/
ch /ʃ/
lh /ʎ/
nh /ɲ/
rr /ʁ/
ss /s/

The digraph ch is pronounced as an English sh. 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. The digraphs rr and ss are only used between vowels. The pronunciation of the digraph rr varies with dialect (see the note on the phoneme /ʁ/, above).

[edit] Silent letters

As in other languages of western Europe, the letter u is normally silent in the graphemes gu and qu, when it comes before a front vowel:

  • gu is pronounced /g/ before e or i, and /gu/ elsewhere;
  • qu is pronounced /k/ before e or i, and /ku/ elsewhere.

There are, however, a few such words in which the vowel u is pronounced. These exceptions are indicated with a trema (güe, güi, qüe, qüi) in the Brazilian spelling, but not in the European orthography. Most of them are learned latinisms, such as freqüência/frequência "frequency", argüição/arguição "questioning", qüinqüelíngüe/quinquelingue "in five languages" (conjectured to be the Portuguese word with the most diacritics).

The graphemes sç and xs are pronounced as one sound /s/ in BP, but as two sounds /ʃs/ in standard EP. In BP, the letter pairs sc and xc are also pronounced /s/ before e or i. In standard EP, they are pronounced /ʃs/.

In the European orthography, the letters c and p are sometimes silent before c, ç, or t, especially in latinisms or hellenisms.

[edit] Vowels

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] Diacritics

The pronunciation of the accented vowels is fairly stable, except that they become nasal in certain conditions. (See the section on Nasalization, for further information about this regular phenomenon.) In other cases, nasal vowels are marked with a tilde.

Grapheme Pronunciation
á /a/
â /ɐ/
ã /ɐ̃/
à /a/
é /ɛ/
ê /e/
í /i/
ó /ɔ/
ô /o/
õ /õ/
ú /u/
ü /u/

[edit] Diphthongs

The pronunciation of each diphthong is also fairly predictable, but one must know how to distinguish true diphthongs from adjacent vowels in hiatus, which belong to separate syllables. For example, in the word saio /ˈsai̯u/, the i forms a diphthong with the previous vowel, but in saiu, /saˈiu̯/ or /sɐˈiu̯/, it forms a diphthong with the next vowel. As in Spanish, a hiatus may be indicated with an acute accent, distinguishing homographs such as saia /ˈsai̯ɐ/ and saía, /saˈiɐ/ or /sɐˈiɐ/.

Oral
Grapheme Pronunciation Grapheme Pronunciation
ai, ái /ai ~ ɐi1/ au, áu /au/
ei, êi /ei ~ ɐi2/ eu, êu /eu/
éi /ɛi ~ ɐi2/ éu /ɛu/
oi /oi/ ou /ou ~ o/
ói /ɔi/ -
ui /ui/ iu /iu/
Nasal
Grapheme Pronunciation Grapheme Pronunciation
ãe, ãi /ɐ̃ĩ/ ão /ɐ̃ũ/
õe /õĩ/ -

1 When followed by a vowel before the stressed syllable, in central Portugal.

2 In central Portugal.

[edit] Nasalization

When a syllable ends with m or n, this consonant is not fully pronounced, but merely indicates the nasalization of the vowel which precedes it. At the end of words, this sometimes produces a nasal diphthong.

Monophthongs Diphthongs
Grapheme Pronunciation Grapheme Pronunciation
-an, -am, -ân, -âm1 /ɐ̃/ -am2 /ɐ̃ũ/
-en, -em, -ên, -êm1 /ẽ/ -em, -ém2 /ẽĩ ~ ɐ̃ĩ/
-in, -im, -ín, -ím3 /ĩ/ -en-, -én-4
-on, -om, -ôn, -ôm3 /õ/ -êm2 /ẽĩ ~ ɐ̃ĩɐ̃ĩ/
-un, -um, -ún, -úm3 /ũ/

1 at the end of a syllable

2 at the end of a word

3 at the end of a syllable or word

4 before final s, for example in the words bens and parabéns

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, and 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] Keyboard layout

Keyboard layout for Portuguese (Portugal)
Keyboard layout for Portuguese (Portugal)
Keyboard layout for Portuguese (Brazil)
Keyboard layout for Portuguese (Brazil)

There are two QWERTY-based keyboard layouts used for Portuguese.

Additionally, there are two variants of the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard designed for Brazilian Portuguese.

Typewriters in Portuguese-speaking countries generally have a separate extra key for Ç, and a dead key for each diacritic except the cedilla; so that Á is obtained by typing first the acute accent, then the letter A. The same thing happens with computer keyboards, except when using an "English - International" keyboard layout, where to type Ç one should first type the acute accent and then the letter C.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Portal do Cidadão (Portuguese)

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links