Portuguese has around 170M native speakers, principally in the Portuguese islands in the Atlantic (with about 11M speakers) and Portugal (about 154M speakers); also in the former foreign provinces of Portugal, such as Africa and Asia(about 5M speakers). Portuguese is a commonly spoken language in countries such as Andorra, Angola, Brazil, East Timor, Cape Verde, Luxembourg, Guinea Bissau, Macau (China), Namibia, Mozambique, Portugal, Príncipe and São Tomé and other countries.
Let’s now see the scope of Portuguese language in the future.
Before we begin it’s important to understand that Portugal is considered to be one of the most underrated languages in the entire world. This is because many people tend to consider learning French or Spanish as more sophisticated than learning Portuguese. This is in fact far from the truth. Portugal this is equally beneficial and fun to learn as would be any other language. Even though Portuguese has a vast number of people speaking this language, it is still not as popular as you might think. But you know what? This also means that learning an underrated language is going to help you stand out from the crowd. So basically you would be some serious competition for others.
Now moving on to the popularity of this language. This is the language spoken in nine countries which spread across a total of four continents. These include famous countries like Brazil, Portugal,Cape Verde, etc. Additionally, Brazil itself accounts for more than 230 million native speakers of Portuguese. Did you know that Portugal is the mother tongue of more individuals when compared to German, French, Italian, Russian or even Japanese.
Portuguese is more beneficial in ways that you might not even expect. You see, if you ever plan on learning more languages in the future, learning Portuguese is a good place to start. How you might ask? Portuguese is a popular romance language. This means that learning Portuguese opens up doors to learn other Romance languages like English, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, etc. now considering how this language will help you grow in India. India and Brazil have always had a very close relationship in all sorts of international forums such as BRICS, IBSA, BASIC and many other international bodies like the UN, UNESCO, WTO, etc . In fact Brazil ranks as India’s most important trading partner in the entirety of the Latin American and Caribbean region. Therefore learning Portuguese is going to definitely help your job prospects grow much more in the future.
Finally,
Due to a large number of Portuguese speakers all over the world and its dispersion over Europe, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia (it is the sixth most widely spoken) Portuguese is developing rapidly and has the potential, according to UNESCO, to be an ‘international communication language.’ The international growth of Portuguese resulted in the introduction of numerous Portuguese terms into English. Example: “cobra” and “fetish” (from feitiço meaning to enchant or magic).