2.5. Modern Portuguese
The sixteenth century saw Portuguese enter its modern phase with
the appearance of the first grammar books that define the language's
morphology and syntax. The Portuguese featured in Os
Lusíadas by Luis de Camões in 1572 is very similar to its
modern form, and from this point on, the language undergoes only minor
changes.
Between the years of 1580 and 1640, when Portugal was governed by
the Spanish throne, Portuguese incorporated many Castilian words, such
as bobo (fool) and granizo (hail), into its
vocabulary, and the French influence of the eighteenth century in
Europe brings about a divergence between the languages spoken in
Portugal and its colonies.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Portuguese incorporated
many words of a Greco-Latin origin that were used for the
technological advances of the age, such as automóvel
(automobile) and televisão (television), as well as English
words used in information technology and the medical sciences, such as
check-up and software. The sheer volume of new terms introduced into
the language inspired the creation in 1990 of a commission composed of
representatives from Lusophone nations that sought to regulate the new
technical vocabulary and avoid the already prevalent phenomenon of
different words being used for the same objects.
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