Today is World Portuguese Language Day

The date of 5 May was officially established in 2009 by the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) - an intergovernmental organization that has been in official partnership with UNESCO since 2000, and which brings together peoples with the Portuguese Language as one of the foundations of their specific identity - to celebrate the Portuguese language and Lusophone cultures. In 2019, the 40th session of UNESCO's General Conference decided to proclaim 5 May of each year as "World Portuguese Language Day".

The Portuguese language is not only one of the most widespread languages in the world, with more than 265 million speakers spread through all continents, but it is also the most widely spoken language in the southern hemisphere. Portuguese remains, today, a major language of international communication and a language with a strong geographical projection, destined to increase. (See original text here )

Interesting Facts about Portuguese 

Portuguese is spoken as the official language (or one of the official languages) in 9 countries around the world, none of which share borders. Five percent of Portuguese speakers in the world live in Portugal, and 82% live in Brazil. In terms of sounds, Portuguese has the richest vowel system of all Romance languages. Besides oral and nasal vowels, it includes a variety of diphthongs and triphthongs, and a large set of sibilants, many of which ceased to exist in Spanish. It also has one of the most unstable vowel systems of Romance languages, and, depending on the dialect, the /o/ sound can be raised to /u/ and the /e/ sound can be raised to /i/, mainly in unstressed position. Also, palatalization is very common in most Brazilian dialects ("djiferentchi"=diferente). Grammatically speaking, Portuguese is also an incredibly interesting language. It's still uses the future and future perfect subjunctive moods in everyday conversation, and is one of the few Romance languages to feature a personal infinitive. Additionally, it can conjugate perfect tenses with either haver or ter as an auxiliary. 

What features of the language do you find particularly challenging? Comment below!