16 May 08 Speak Properly

The Portuguese have voted to make some fundamental changes to their mother tongue in order to make the language, which is spoken by about 230 million people across the world. more uniform globally.

Numerous spellings will be standardized and three letters (k,w,y) will be added to the alphabet to bring it more into line with the way it is written and spoken in Brazil.

As an example silent consonants will be removed in order for words to be spelled more phonetically, turning, for example “optimo” (great) into “otimo”.

As well as Portgual and Brazil, Portuguese is also the official language in Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe.

I can’t help but smile at the thought of all the English speaking countries in the world trying to reach a similar agreement.

Tags: alphabet, angola, brazil, cape verde, countries in the world, east timor, english speaking countries, fundamental changes, guinea bissau, mother tongue, mozambique, portgual, portuguese, sao tome, silent consonants, spellings, three letters