Like all other Romance languages, Portuguese is a descendant of Vulgar Latin, just like Spanish or French. While the closest major language to Portuguese is Spanish, Portugal’s native language is slightly older than Spain’s.

Since the Portuguese Empire was far less successful than the Spanish Empire, the number of countries that speak Portuguese today is considerably smaller. While Brazil is an obvious example, Mozambique and Angola are the other major countries where Portuguese is spoken.

Brazilian Portuguese differs more from European Portuguese than Latin American Spanish does from Castilian Spanish. One major reason is that in Brazil, many words from indigenous languages were retained, along with words introduced by enslaved Africans.

The Portuguese-speaking world is known as the Lusophone world. The term dates back to the Roman province of Lusitania, which roughly corresponds to what is now modern-day Portugal.

Despite being a Latin-derived Romance language, Portuguese retained some Celtic roots in its vocabulary.

Largely thanks to Brazil’s population, Portuguese is the fifth most spoken native language in the world.

Portuguese words like guerra (war) and rico (rich) come from the Germanic language of the Visigoths, who ruled the region after the Romans.

The national anthem of Brazil is written in formal, poetic Portuguese, which many Brazilians find difficult to understand or pronounce.

Abacaxi is the word for pineapple in Brazilian Portuguese, whereas in European Portuguese—and most other European languages—the word is ananas.