On October 12, 1990, the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Lisbon Academy of Sciences and delegations from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, approved in Lisbon a unified orthography project of the language Portuguese.
The new spelling agreementO entered into force on January 1, 2009. Aims at the unity of the language, increasing its social prestige and reducing or even extinguishing the barriers encountered by countries and speakers Lusophones when, for example, they try to spread their achievements, reflections and contents, because the orthographic differences hinder the circulation of such construction.
Let's see the content of some proposals:
- shake: the umlaut ceases to exist, with the exception of foreign proper name words. Example: Müllerian, from Müller.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
- Accentuation: the accent of the open oral diphthongs “éi” and “oi” disappears in the paroxytone words. The accent remains in the case of oxytones. Example: hero, heroic.
- initial h: used due to etymology and due to conventional adoption.
Examples: man, humour, huh?, hum!
It remains in a compound word linked to a previous element through the hyphen.
Example: prehistory, unhygienic.
In Portugal, the initial "h" will be suppressed, despite the etymology, when its absence is already established by use, as in herb (herb) and humid (moist).
Suppressed in composition by agglutination: disharmony, awkward, rehabilitate.
The proposed changes, according to experts, should change 0.45% of the vocabulary in Brazil, in Portugal the expected change is 1.6%.
By Marina Cabral
Specialist in Portuguese Language and Literature
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SILVA, Marina Cabral da. "Orthographic Agreement of the Portuguese Language"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/portugues/acordo-ortografico-lingua-portuguesa.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
