字 Section 05
Orthography
The writing system, the accents and the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.
11 articles
Portuguese Orthography
The principles that govern Portuguese spelling — a largely phonological system, tempered by etymology and fixed by successive reforms — together with a map of this section.
The Portuguese alphabet
The twenty-six letters of modern Portuguese — including k, w and y, formally reinstated by the 1990 Orthographic Agreement — their names and their uses.
The 1990 Orthographic Agreement
The treaty that sought to unify the spelling of Portuguese across all Lusophone countries: what changed, how it was adopted, and why it still divides opinion.
The reforms of 1911 and 1945
The two reforms that fixed modern Portuguese spelling — the Republican simplification of 1911 and the 1945 Luso-Brazilian convention, the basis of writing in Portugal until the 1990 Agreement.
Written Accentuation
The acute, the circumflex, the grave and the tilde — what each one signals and the rules that decide which words are accented, under the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.
The tilde and nasality
The tilde (~) is not a stress accent but the graphic sign of nasality. How it arose, where it occurs today — on ã and õ — and how Portuguese spells its nasal vowels and diphthongs.
The Cedilla and the Digraphs
The c-cedilla (ç) and the digraphs — nh, lh, ch, rr, ss, gu, qu — two letters for a single sound: rules of use, historical origin and syllable division.
The hyphen and line-breaking
The two lives of the hyphen — a fixed sign in compounds, prefixation and clitics, and a provisional sign for breaking words at the end of a line — under the 1990 Agreement.
Capitalization and punctuation
The rules governing upper- and lower-case letters and the punctuation system in European Portuguese, including the options left open by the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.
Silent consonants
The etymological consonants that are not pronounced — the c of *acção*, the p of *óptimo* — and the 1990 Agreement's rule that deletes them while keeping those still articulated.
Spelling differences between Portugal and Brazil
The spelling divergences that persist between the European and Brazilian standards even after the 1990 Orthographic Agreement — accents, consonants and double spellings.