Many major Brazilian newspapers are finally implementing a new spelling reform. The reform was to include all Portuguese speaking countries and aimed to unify spelling but only Brazil, Cape Verde, and Portugal signed up initially in 1990, with Brazil, only now, actually implementing the changes.
It is believed that 0.5 percent of words used in Brazil will be affected, against the 1.6 percent of Portuguese words. Furthermore, around 98 percent of the spelling discrepancies between the two countries will be eliminated once Portugal implements the agreement. They have until 2014 and are not likely to act before that time given the resistance to it of the people. The reason? Many common usage words will be effected whereas Brazilians must only become accustomed to a few missing accents, for example in idéia and vôo (which are now spelled ideia and voo), and also to new hyphenation rules.
So, if you have a Brazilian Portuguese website get your translation audit from us, in order to get in line with the new conventions. Alternatively, you can trust Web-Translations to use translators who are up-to-date with the latest reforms, no matter your subject matter.
Strangely, those most likely to benefit seem to be those living in African nations as they receive school books from Portugal but watch TV from Brazil and with new conventions there will be fewer discrepancies between the two.
8 January 2009 13:48