The phonology of Portuguese can vary between dialects, in extreme cases leading to some difficulties in intelligibility. This article focuses on the pronunciations that are generally regarded as standard. Since Portuguese is a pluricentric language, and differences between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) can be considerable, both varieties are distinguished whenever necessary.
Consonants[]
The consonant inventory of Portuguese is fairly conservative. The medieval Galician-Portuguese system of seven sibilants (/s z/, /ʃ ʒ/, /tʃ/, and apicoalveolar /s̺ z̺/) is still distinguished in spelling (intervocalic c/ç z x g/j ch ss s respectively), but is reduced to the four fricatives /s z ʃ ʒ/ by the merger of /tʃ/ into /ʃ/ and apicoalveolar /s̺ z̺/ into either /s z/ or /ʃ ʒ/ (depending on dialect and syllable position), except in parts of northern Portugal (most notably in the Trás-os-Montes region). These changes are known as deaffrication. Other than this, there have been no other significant changes to the consonant phonemes since Old Portuguese. However, several consonant phonemes have special allophones at syllable boundaries (often varying quite significantly between European and Brazilian Portuguese), and a few also undergo allophonic changes at word boundaries. Henceforward, the phrase "at the end of a syllable" can be understood as referring to a position before a consonant or at the end of a word.
| Labial | Dental, Alveolar |
Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | |||||||
| Nasal | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | ŋ̊ʷ | ||
| voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ | ɴ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | c | k | kʷ | q |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɟ | ɡ | ɡʷ | ɢ | |
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | ç | x | xʷ | χ |
| voiced | v | z | ʒ | ʝ | ɣ | ɣʷ | ʁ | |
| Approximant | central | ʋ | ɹ | j | ɰ | w | ||
| lateral | l | ʎ | ʟ | ʟʷ | ʟ̠ | |||
| Flap | central | ⱱ | ɾ | ɢ̆ | ||||
| lateral | ɺ | ʎ̆ | ʟ̆ | |||||
Vowels[]
Portuguese has one of the richest vowel phonologies of all Romance languages, having both oral and nasal vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs. A phonemic distinction is made between close-mid vowels /e o/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛ ɔ/, unlike in Spanish, though there is a certain amount of vowel alternation. European Portuguese has also two central vowels, one of which tends to be elided like the e caduc of French.
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unround | round | unround | round | ||
| Close | i | y | ɨ | ɯ̽ | u |
| Close-mid | e | ø | ɘ | ɤ | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | œ | ɜ | ʌ | ɔ |
| Near-open | æ | ɐ | |||
| Open | a | ɶ | ä | ɑ | ɒ |