Portuguese descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman province of Gallaecia, in what is now northwestern Portugal and Galicia (Spain). During the Middle Ages, Galician-Portuguese was a prestigious literary language used for lyric poetry across the Iberian Peninsula. After Portugal gained independence in the 12th century, the southern dialect diverged into modern Portuguese, while Galician continued as a separate but closely related language in northwestern Spain. The Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries spread Portuguese to Brazil, Africa, and Asia, establishing it as a global language. Today Portuguese is the sixth most spoken native language in the world, with Brazil alone accounting for more than 200 million speakers.
