A língua portuguesa: expressão de um projecto político e religioso

Over the centuries, power has always made a point of leaving some trace wherever it goes, sometimes based on monumental stones, sometimes documented in an official language, which is truly its rhetorical instrument of choice. The reflections presented here seek to focus on the political and religious goals that were at the base of the dynamization, expansion and democratization of the Portuguese language, in accordance with the successive social and cultural transformations that took place over eight centuries. In the beginning, the dynamization phase sought to consolidate a new language in Western Europe; Old Portuguese prevails, animated by Denis, the Farmer King, and by troubadours, and conveyed in the policy of the discoveries. Subsequently, the Portuguese language became global with the maritime expansion, in a phase strengthened with the mechanization of the book and the publishing growth. It was the time of Classical Portuguese, of Manueline splendour, and of inquisitorial censorship, practiced until the fall of absolutism. In the 19th century, liberal politics and romantic ideas started the democratization of the language with Modern Portuguese, further away from the Latinist influence and more attentive to the homeland and its ethnographic values.