Language

How could language constitute a challenge when reading records created in Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese native-speaking countries? Most researchers might assume that fluency in speaking or reading Portuguese would be enough to interpret records of genealogical value. However, as people start reading older records, they quickly find out that the documents are not written in a pure standard form of Portuguese but in a variety of Portuguese influenced by local dialects and other languages, particularly Latin, which was the main literary language used by Catholic priests.

Because rules regulating the spelling and grammar of Portuguese did not become more available and widespread until approximately the 19th century and because most people write the way they speak, spelling will prove a real challenge when reading old Portuguese documents. Adding to this challenge are factors such as the influence of Latin on the spelling of Portuguese words and the several variations of Portuguese and the differences among them, such as differences in pronunciation resulting in different spellings. For example, the interchangeable use of /i/ and /y/, and /s/ and /z/:

During the time of the Roman occupation through the Middle Ages, Latin was used as the language of culture & law in the Portuguese world, along with Arabic during the Muslim occupation of the peninsula. The development of Latin into what could be recognizable as Portuguese began early on during the late Roman rule.

Because of the Muslim occupation of Iberia and the subsequent Reconquista, the vulgar Latin that developed in what is now Portugal adopted some amount of Arabic, which also became incorporated into the language, becoming prominent as early as the High Middle Ages.

The first uses of Portuguese in writing generally appear in vernacular poetry or mixed in with Latin in documents. The first full uses of the language appear around the turn of the 13^th century. The document Notícia de Fiadores, from 1175, is widely regarded to be one of the first documents in what is recognizable as Portuguese.

The real change to the use of Portuguese in records underwent an enormous change under the Reign of Dom Dinis of Portugal at the turn of the 14^th century. Continuing the precedent set out by his father, Dom Affonso III, Portuguese began to be used as an official language at court and in official documents.

This trend continued over the next decades and centuries. While some areas adopted the use of Portuguese in official documents quickly, the adoption was slower in others. Church records, wills, and other forms of documents were still written in Latin to the 17^th century, and it has survived in some forms today in the Catholic Church. That being said, the amount of documentation found in Portuguese in lieu of Latin increases exponentially after the 14^th century. By the time that genealogical records appear in the 16^th century, nearly all of these were kept in Portuguese.

It was only in 1911 that a commission was called to standardize the language. Even after the standardization, however, spelling practices persisted, especially in the various Portuguese dialects abroad.

Portuguese is the official language of at least seven different countries worldwide. It is the national language of Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau, while sharing a co-official title in many other countries. Because of the distance between regions, variations of the language occurred and still occur today.

This language diversity affected the spelling and grammar of records all throughout the Portuguese world to various degrees. Below is an example of an 1875 Brazilian marriage record (top) compared with an 1874 Cape Verdian marriage record (bottom). Although many differences exist within the Portuguese language, we can see from reading both records that understanding the written word of different regions is still manageable.

• Map: Eddo, Official Portuguese Language in the World, 2011, Map, Digital Image, Wikimedia Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org : accessed 24 June 2024). This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
• "Notícia de Fiadores." Ordem de São Bento, Mosteiro de São Cristóvão de Rio Tinto, mç. 2, doc. 10. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo.