With approximately 270 million speakers worldwide, Portuguese is the third most spoken European language, and the sixth most spoken language altogether. Being the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe, as well as the co-official language of Equatorial Guinea, Macau, and East Timor in the South Pacific, the varieties of Portuguese span five continents and three oceans. The small kingdom of Portugal (or Lusitania, as it was called by the Romans) was Europe’s first colonial power, establishing trading posts and settler colonies in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean from the start of the fifteenth century. In our program, you will learn how Portuguese seaward expansion inaugurated Western colonialism and globalization, as well as about forms of local resistance that challenged or subverted Luso-colonial rule and produced new, Creolized and multi-ethnic cultures and societies. As a result, West African religious practices and culinary traditions are still very much alive today in northeastern Brazil, and Brazilian samba and forró music (as well as Portuguese fado and Cape Verdian morna) can still be heard today in Maputo (Mozambique), Dili (East Timor), or Goa (India) — as much as Angolan kizomba and kuduro can be in Lisbon (Portugal). Our courses offer an insight into the richness and diversity of Brazilian, Portuguese, and Luso-African languages, literatures, as well as artistic, musical and filmic expressions. In addition, our summer program in Recife (Brazil) offers students a firsthand experience of a Portuguese-speaking environment in one of Brazil’s most beautiful and culturally vibrant cities.
To find out more about language pathways, our study-away program at Recife, and about courses available on Portuguese, Brazilian and Luso-African, please contact span-port.dus@nyu.edu, span-port.dlp@nyu.edu, or mlk6542@nyu.edu.