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Portuñol or Portunhol (pronunciation (help·info)) is a portmanteau of the words Português/Portugués (Portuguese) and Español/Espanhol (Spanish). It refers to various types of language contact between Spanish and Portuguese which have occurred in regions where the two languages coexist. These range from improvised code-switching between monolingual speakers of each language to more or less stable mixed languages.
[edit] As code-switching
It is the name often given to any unsystematic mixture of Portuguese with Spanish (code-switching). This is sometimes used by speakers of the two languages to talk to each other. It is possible to conduct a moderately fluent conversation in this way because Portuguese and Spanish are closely related languages.
[edit] As a language variety
[edit] Portuñol Riverense
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It also refers to a Portuguese spoken in the border between Uruguay and Brazil, notably in the region of the twin cities of Rivera and Santana do Livramento, where the border is open and a street is the only line dividing the two countries. This condition, over hundreds of years, gave rise to this variety, influenced by Spanish and the Portuguese used on radio and television, which their speakers call portuñol/portunhol, brazilero, bayano or fronterizo/fronteiriço. It has been studied extensively by linguists.
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