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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Portuguese
As
a result of early Portuguese maritime exploration,
the Portuguese language was foremost among
European languages to be adopted outside Europe.
Language information:
In terms of speaker numbers, Portuguese is currently the second largest Romance
language after Spanish (Castilian) and before French. Its original territory
is Portugal, and it is now used in numerous countries that used to be Portguguese
colonies, foremost in Brasil (now the country with by far the largest number
of Portuguese speakers), also in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde Islands, São
Tomé e Príncipe, Eastern Timor and Macao. There are also numerous Portuguese
speakers in countries neighboring Brazil, in Australia, South Africa, Namibia,
India, North America and various European countries.
In
the Old Town of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil,
Portuguese-style additions and coats of paint thinly
disguise early Dutch architecture.
Portuguese is the closest
relative of Galician, belonging with it to the same language branch, though
some claim that these two constitute a single language. There are considerable
differences especially between European and Brasilian Portuguese, but mutual
comprehension problems are minor due to joined standardization efforts and
media sharing.
With currently close
to 190 million inhabitants, the
largest
Portuguese-speaking
nation nowadays is Brazil. In 1630, after years of activities by the
Dutch
East
India
Company, mostly related to sugar production, several parts of Brazil’s north came under Dutch rule under the name “New Holland” (Nieuw Holland). This occupation lasted little more than two decades, but one-time Dutch presence
in
Northern Brazil is still evident in things like period architecture.
Genealogy: Indo-European >Italic > Romance > Italo-Western > Western > Gallo-Iberian > Ibero-Romance > West Iberian > Portuguese-Galician
Historical Lowlands language contacts: Dutch, Irish English
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