Little Portugal Created a Lusophone World

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

People are usually surprised to hear that in the western hemisphere, Portuguese is a more important language than French.

While French is spoken in parts of Canada, French Guiana, the French islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, as well as the former French colony of Haiti, Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, a country almost the size of Canada and, with a population of more than 190 million, the fifth largest in the world.

Apart from Brazil, the Portuguese have left a very deep and wide cultural footprint around the world. Of all the European countries involved in colonial acquisitions from the 15^th to the 19^th century, this little Iberian kingdom “punched above its weight” more than any other.

Portugal’s empire lasted almost six centuries, and was spread throughout a vast number of territories.

How did this happen? Little Portugal was first off the mark in imperial expansion. Even before Columbus set off across the Atlantic in 1492, Portuguese sailors under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator had rounded the coasts of Africa. By 1498 they had reached India, and soon thereafter present-day Indonesia.

Though Portugal would later lose much of its empire to stronger powers such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands, its legacy remains impressive.

Brazil, the crowning jewel in the empire, acquired its independence in 1822. It was by then far bigger and wealthier than the mother country. But the rest of the empire remained intact for another 150 years or so.

There are a number of important former Portuguese colonies in Africa. Angola and Mozambique are two large southern African states, with populations of 18.5 million and 23 million respectively; also on the mainland is Guinea-Bissau.

As well, there are two island republics off west Africa, originally “stepping stones” for Portuguese exploration of the continent and trans-Atlantic trade: Cape Verde, and São Tomé e Príncipe.

In Asia, the Portuguese enclave of Goa on the west coast of India and the island of Macau in southern China were acquired by those two Asian states in 1961 and 1999, respectively.

But the eastern part of the island of Timor, conquered by the Indonesians in 1975 after the Portuguese left, fought a war to liberate itself from that Muslim-majority country and in 2002 became the independent state of Timór-Leste.

While the rest of what had become the Dutch East Indies remained Muslim, East Timor, after four centuries of Portuguese rule, was now predominantly Roman Catholic.

Though Portugal divested itself of its empire (except Macau) by 1975, its former colonies continue to exhibit both cultural and political affinities and in 1996 formed the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

These Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nations are home to almost 250 million people located across the globe, with a combined area of about 10,742,000 square kilometres. The seventh CPLC summit was held in Luanda, Angola, last year.

While the British, French and Spanish empires eventually overshadowed that of Portugal, this country of 11 million people has certainly left its mark in the world.