The Orthographic Reformation of the Portuguese Language. The Orthographic Agreement of 1990 and Its Linguistic Cultural and Political Consequences

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics grade: 12 University of Bremen course: Das (französische) Lexikon: theoretische synchrone und diachrone Aspekte language: English abstract: The orthographic agreement of 1990 will be the focus of this term paper. The first chapter will note important historical events regarding previous orthographic agreements between Portugal and Brazil as well as the orthographic agreement of 1990. The most significant changes in the Portuguese orthography in relation to the orthographic agreement of 1990 will be presented in the second chapter. Particularly changes in the alphabet spelling the use of diacritical marks as well as the use of majuscule and minuscule will be analyzed. Exceptions in the latest orthographic agreement which allow bilateral spellings will also be discussed in the second chapter. For clarification there will be given several examples in the aforesaid chapter on how certain words were written before the orthographic agreement and after the orthographic agreement. The third chapter will deal with the multiple aspects as well as the advantages and disadvantages that are connected to the orthographic agreement of 1990. Not only linguistic aspects but also cultural and political aspects will be discussed in that chapter. Subsequently there will be an analysis of how this reformation of the Portuguese language might evolve in the future and what this development means for native speakers of the Portuguese language as well as Portuguese L2 speakers.Portuguese is with approximately 240 million speakers the second most spoken Romance language in the world. It is an official language in Portugal Brazil Cape Verde Islands Angola Mozambique Guinea-Bissau East Timor Macau and São Tomé and Príncipe. Furthermore it possesses a co-official status in Equatorial Guinea as well as a significant cultural presence in Goa India. Portuguese is the only Romance language tha