Marking World Portuguese Language Day today, the President of the Republic underscored the enduring importance of a shared language that spans continents and centuries. Portuguese, he noted, is not merely a means of communication but a pluricontinental inheritance—shaped by history, creativity, and cultural diversity—and spoken by more than 290 million people worldwide.

Linking nations and cultures across the globe, Portuguese stands as a powerful instrument of dialogue and influence. It is at once a cultural asset, a strategic resource, and an economic force—an inheritance too valuable to neglect or diminish in the lives of its speakers.

Coming on the heels of World Book Day, observed on April 23, the President emphasized that this occasion should also serve to honor the architects and renewers of the language. From Luís de Camões to José Saramago, and through voices such as Jorge Amado, Cecília Meireles, Luandino Vieira, Mia Couto, Eça de Queirós, Sá de Miranda, Noémia de Sousa, João Vário, Machado de Assis, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Adélia Prado, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Cesário Verde, and Fernando Pessoa. These writers, he observed, expanded and enriched the language while preserving the core of its plural identity.

If it was their task to deepen and diversify the language, the President argued, it is now the responsibility of the present generation to safeguard that legacy and ensure Portuguese remains a language prepared for the future.

Writers, readers, journalists, editors, teachers, students, actors—and speakers everywhere—carry an extraordinary responsibility: to sustain the life of the Portuguese language and to renew it daily, in fidelity to its history and in dialogue with its greatest voices, past and present.

In a world searching for common ground among diverse cultures and perspectives, the President concluded, it is through the Portuguese language that communities meet. It is within it that identity is affirmed—and through it that a global community, wherever it may be, celebrates not only a language, but a shared way of being.

Translated and adapted from Press Release