2.4. Archaic Portuguese
The process of differentiation between the Portuguese and
Portuguese-Galician began with the Christian advance towards the south
of the Iberian Peninsula, whereby the northern dialects mixed with the
southern Mozarabic dialects. The split between Galician and
Portuguese, which began with the independence of Portugal in 1185,
grew more marked with the expulsion of the Moors in 1249 and the
defeat of the Castilians who tried to annexe the country in 1385. In
the fourteenth century, literary prose in Portuguese came to be
produced for the first time, with the Crónica Geral de
Espanha (General Chronicle of Spain) in 1344 and the
Livro de Linhagens (Book of Lineages), both written by
Dom Pedro, Count of Barcelos, being the most notable examples.
The establishment of Portugal's overseas empire between the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries brought the Portuguese language to
various regions within Asia, Africa and South America, where it
incorporated many new lexical influences from its local surroundings
that are still in use today, such as the Malay word jangada
(raft) and the Chinese word chá (tea). The Renaissance
however brought more Italian expressions and learned words of Greek
derivation into Portuguese, making it more complex and malleable. The
use of Archaic Portuguese and its consolidation nonetheless came to an
end with the publication in 1516 of the Cancioneiro Geral de
Garcia de Resende (General Songbook of Garcia de Resende).
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