Is Portuguese to be considered a Dialect of Spanish?

Question

All my life I was certain that these two forms of language were totally different languages. Although I have met Portuguese speaking people (Brazilian and Portuguese) and I noted that there are various similarities between the two languages it just never occurred to me to think of Portuguese as a dialect of Spanish. However, a co-worker of mine who has no understanding of either language one day mentioned that he always thought Portuguese was just a dialect of Spanish. I was fast to answer him no. However, he challenged me and told me to prove it to him. He said that if I heard a Portuguese person speak and I could understand about 50% of what they said then that proves that it is the same language. To my astonishment I realized this is true in most cases. I'm a native Spanish speaker and when watching Portuguese television I can understand probably that much (or even more) of what is been said. Could you help me answer this dilema????

Answer 1

Portuguese is not a dialect of Spanish. In order for it to be a dialect of Spanish, it would have to have sprung from the Spanish language. Portuguese did not, it comes from Latin, just like Spanish, French and Italian.

It would be accurate to say that Portuguese is a dialect of Latin. Just because you can understand a good amount of Portuguese as a Spanish speaker, does not mean Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish. Both languages were born out of Latin, it makes sense that the two would share many similar roots. I can read texts in Italian and French and cull the general idea of simple texts just based on my knowledge of Portuguese. Does that make French a dialect of Portuguese? Of course not. Your friend, like many arrogant Spanish-speakers, likes to think that Spanish and Portuguese are the same language, but if you ask him to speak Portuguese, you'll soon see how Spanglicized it is.

Answer 2

I am not a linguist, nor do I speak Spanish, some words maybe. Portuguese, Spanish,Italian and French are all derived from latin- so there will be a lot of similarities. Then there are dialects of each language. A person can speak Italian and not be understood in a country that speaks Italian, because of the dialect. I learned this when working in the food and Beverage industry and encountered people from different Spanish Speaking countries, and even some Portuguese people from Brazil. Though, I had to ask them what language they were speaking. I believe that it could be a possibility that Portugese is a dialect of Spanish or vice versa. If you go to Italy and you speak Spanish you might understand them more than a French person would, though they are all in the same family.

Answer 3

Portguese origin, read on: Galician and Portuguese were, in medieval times, a single language which linguists call Galician-Portuguese, Medieval Galician, or Old Portuguese, spoken in the territories initially ruled by the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. Both languages are even today united by a dialect continuum[citation needed] located mainly in the northern regions of Portugal.

Answer 4

Is a political issue actually, my parents are from Brazil but I grew up in Spain and I'm spanish and I live in the region where "portuguese" born, just to say that this region is Spanish and not portuguese and that is Galicia (Where Santiago of Compostela is) and the distance from where portuguese (galician) and spanish born is more or less 300km ...


So when Portugal get independence of Spain they called their dialect Portuguese instead of Galician ... So yes is a Co-dialect or at least a member of a macrolanguage that could be "iberian macrolanguage" including portuguese-galician and spanish

Answer 5

No absolutely not, Portuguese is a language as well as Spanish. They have their roots in the Latin language (as French and Italian), some words can even be the same in both the languages. If you know Spanish, you can even understand written Portuguese to some extent. For a native Spanish speaker the Portuguese language is for sure easier to understand.

I´n not a native Spanish speaker, but have worked in Spain, and think I know Spanish quite well. I visited Brazil some years ago and to my astonishment I understood what people over there said and they understood my Spanish (not always of course, but quite often).

Tell your co-worker that his has lost the challenge, absolutely!

Answer 6

I think they are regarded as two separate but related languages.

(Though I get the feeling that Portuguese is just Spanish with ao at the end of the words.)

Pero, a pesar de esta variedad de posibilidades que la voz posee, sería muy pobre instrumento de comunicación si no contara más que con ella. La capacidad de expresión del hombre no dispondría de más medios que la de los animales. La voz, sola, es para el hombre apenas una materia informe, que para convertirse en un instrumento perfecto de comunicación debe ser sometida a un cierto tratamiento. Esa manipulación que recibe la voz son las "articulaciones".

Porém, apesar desta variedade de possibilidades que a voz possui, seria um instrumento de comunicação muito pobre se não contasse com mais que isso. A capacidade de expressão do homem não disporia de mais meios que a dos animais. A voz, sozinha, é para o homem apenas uma matéria informe, que para se converter num instrumento perfeito de comunicação deve ser submetida a um certo tratamento. Essa manipulação que a voz recebe são as "articulações".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Spanish_and_Portuguese

Although there are a lot of similarities, there are also similarities with Italian, and the other Romance languages.

Answer 7

Surely not. I live in Brazil and if I go to Argentina, for exemple, I do have sure that they wouldn't understand nothing that I'm saying. We get some word when they say something, but almost all sounds incompreensible. I guess it due to their accent.

Answer 8

The answer is more political than truly linguistic. Just as with Russian and Ukrainian, Danish and Norwegian, Fleming and Dutch, desire to be seen as entirely independent drives the dialect vs language question.