LISBON, Portugal – Lawmakers on Friday adopted a widely contested standardization of Portuguese that requires hundreds of words to be spelled the Brazilian way.
Legislators with the governing Socialist Party and the main opposition Social Democratic Party overwhelmingly backed the government's proposal, standing up to vote “yes” as is the usual practice in Portugal. The overall tally wasn't immediately available.
Portuguese is the official language of some 230 million people worldwide. In addition to Portugal, there are seven other Portuguese-speaking countries: Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe.
Brazil, which accounts for around 190 million Portuguese speakers, and the Cape Verde Islands already have ratified the standardization.
The changes would take place over six years to allow publishers time to reprint books and ease public adoption of the alterations.
Under the agreement, the spelling will match more closely to the way words are pronounced by removing silent consonants, as in Brazil. The alphabet also expands to 26 letters with the introduction of k, w and y, and there are new rules on use of hyphens and accents.
For example, the removal of silent consonants turns “optimo” (great) into “otimo” and “accao” (action) into “acao.” The new rules on hyphens and accents change “auto-estrada” (highway) to “autoestrada.”
Some leading writers and other public figures in Portugal have strongly opposed the agreement, saying it is an unnecessary capitulation to Brazilian influence.
Opponents on Thursday delivered to Parliament a petition with more than 33,000 signatures. It urged lawmakers to vote against the proposal.
Advocates say the benefits include easier Internet searches in Portuguese and uniform legal jargon for international contracts.
Officials also hope the agreement can help advance an old ambition of getting Portuguese adopted as an official language at the United Nations, which currently has six: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
