Which languages are spoken in Brazil?

What language do Brazilians speak? The main language spoken in Brazil is Portuguese. At Tomedes, almost every translation project involving Brazil (whether for clients in Brazil or companies doing business with Brazil) includes Portuguese in the language pairing. But a linguistic tour of Brazil is far more than Portuguese alone.

What do Brazilians speak when they are not speaking Portuguese? Perhaps surprisingly, German is the second most spoken language in Brazil, while Italian comes in third. This article explores the full picture: the official language, the major immigrant languages, the minority tongues, and the remarkable diversity of Brazil's indigenous languages — including updated figures from Brazil's 2022 Census.

In this article:

1. The official language of Brazil
2. Brazilian Portuguese
3. The other major languages: German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and more
4. Indigenous languages
5. What Brazil's linguistic landscape means for translation
6. Frequently asked questions

The official language of Brazil

The primary language in Brazil is Portuguese, spoken by approximately 99% of the population. It is the language of government, education, the arts, business, and almost every element of daily life. Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, when the first Portuguese colonists arrived on the country's coast. With each subsequent wave of migration, the language's grip deepened.

Brazil's current population is approximately 213-215 million people, making it the world's most populous Portuguese-speaking country by a considerable margin. At a national level, Portuguese is the only official language of Brazil. While the country is home to numerous minority languages, they hold official recognition at municipality level rather than nationally.

English is not widely spoken in Brazil. With only around 5% of the Brazilian population able to communicate in English, organizations seeking to do business in Brazil require Portuguese translation services. The United States is one of Brazil's largest trading partners, making English-to-Portuguese and Portuguese-to-English translation services essential for keeping goods and commercial relationships moving across borders.

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese has evolved considerably from its European origins. Over the centuries, the language developed its own accent, grammatical structures, orthographic conventions, and vocabulary — influenced by Brazil's indigenous languages, by settlers from other European countries, and by the African languages brought with enslaved people during the colonial period.

A major attempt was made to unify Brazilian and European Portuguese through the Orthographic Agreement of 1990, which was enacted in Brazil in 2009 and in Portugal in 2012. The differences between the two varieties are relatively minor and speakers of either can converse across borders, comparable to the differences between British and American English. But for translation purposes, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese are distinct target varieties that require different translators, different vocabulary choices, and sometimes different spelling conventions.

Several practical differences matter for localization. The word "recepção" (reception) is spelled "receção" in Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese text averages approximately 30% longer than equivalent English text, which has real implications for user interface design, marketing layouts, and document formatting. Informal register is more prevalent in Brazilian communication than in European Portuguese (and more acceptable in consumer marketing) while legal, financial, and technical content calls for standard formal Brazilian Portuguese.

Brazil is home to more Portuguese speakers than any other country. Portugal's Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva has observed that Portuguese speakers in Africa may outnumber those in Brazil by 2100, reflecting the demographic weight of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) as a whole.

The other major languages of Brazil

German

German is the second most spoken first language in Brazil after Portuguese. It is spoken by approximately 1.9% of the population (roughly 3 million people) many of them in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

This surprises many people, since Brazil has more immigrants of Italian origin than German origin. The reason German has maintained its speaker numbers more strongly is cultural: census data shows that two-thirds of German immigrants' children speak German at home as their mother tongue, compared to half of Italian immigrants' children.

Brazilian German differs from European German considerably, far more than Brazilian Portuguese differs from European Portuguese. The dominant variety is Hunsrik (also known as Riograndenser Hunsrückisch), descended from the Hunsrückisch dialect of West Central Germany, with approximately 3 million native speakers. Hunsrik has been recognized as a co-official language in two municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul. Pomeranian German is also spoken, largely in Espírito Santo, alongside approximately 1.5 million speakers of standard German.

Italian

The third most natively spoken language in Brazil is Italian, though the variety spoken there is quite different from standard Italian. Known as Talian (also called Brazilian Venetian), this form is mostly spoken in Rio Grande do Sul, where it holds co-official status in some municipalities, and in Santa Catarina. Italian immigration to Brazil intensified towards the end of the 19th century, with some 1.5 million Italians arriving before World War II. Approximately 60% of those immigrants came from Veneto, which explains the Venetian character of Brazilian Italian.

Spanish

Brazil is not a Spanish-speaking country, but around 460,000 Brazilians speak Spanish, according to Ethnologue. The two languages are similar enough in written form that many Brazilians can understand Spanish without speaking it fluently. Spanish speakers cluster near Brazil's borders with Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, and in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, both of which have made Spanish-language learning mandatory in schools.

Japanese

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan itself, with approximately 1.5 million people of Japanese descent — the majority living in São Paulo. Japanese immigration to Brazil began in 1908. While many second and third-generation immigrants have adopted Portuguese as their primary language, Brazil retains a significant Japanese-speaking community. São Paulo even has its own Japanese-language newspaper, published since the 1940s.

French, Vlax Romani, and other minority languages

Around 30,000 French speakers live in Brazil, concentrated in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Brazil is also home to approximately 354,000 Vlax Romani speakers, part of a broader Vlax Romani community spanning 21 countries. Visitors to Brazil may also encounter speakers of Dutch, Korean, Polish, Ukrainian, Chinese, and English in various communities across the country.

Indigenous languages

When European colonists arrived in what is now Brazil in 1500, the territory was home to between six and ten million Amerindian people speaking an estimated 1,000 or more languages. The loss of indigenous peoples, cultures, and languages over the past five centuries has been profound.

Brazil's 2022 Population Census — the most comprehensive data available — identified 295 indigenous languages, with 474,856 speakers aged two and over. This was an increase from the 274 languages recorded in the 2010 Census, reflecting both improved methodology and the greater willingness of indigenous communities to self-identify. The 2022 Census identified 391 indigenous ethnic groups and a total indigenous population of 1,694,836, approximately 0.83% of Brazil's total population.

According to UNESCO, 12 of Brazil's languages are already extinct, 45 are critically endangered, 19 severely endangered, 17 definitely endangered, and 97 are considered vulnerable. The northern region of Brazil (particularly the state of Amazonas) holds the largest concentration of indigenous peoples, with approximately 45% of the total indigenous population.

The three indigenous languages with the most speakers according to the 2022 Census are:

Tikúna

The 2022 IBGE Census recorded 51,978 Tikúna speakers, making it by far the most widely spoken indigenous language in Brazil. The Tikúna people account for approximately 6.8% of Brazil's total indigenous population, making them the country's largest indigenous ethnic group. Their relatively inland location in the Upper Amazon kept them away from European settlers' violence and diseases until 1649, which contributed to their survival in larger numbers. Tikúna is believed to be a language isolate (with no proven genetic relationship to any other language) and is written in the Latin script.

Guarani Kaiowá

The 2022 Census recorded 38,658 Guarani Kaiowá speakers, an increase from earlier estimates. The Guarani Kaiowá are believed to have had no contact with European settlers until the late 1800s. The community writes their language using the Latin script, though literacy levels remain low. The Guarani Kaiowá face severe pressures in 2024–2025: the Dourados Indigenous Reserve, home to more than 15,000 people on just 3,500 hectares, has been documented as one of the most densely populated and resource-stressed indigenous territories in Brazil.

Guajajara

The 2022 Census recorded 29,212 Guajajara speakers, making it the third most spoken indigenous language in Brazil. The Guajajara (also known as the Tenetehara) are one of the largest indigenous groups in the Maranhão state and have been significant advocates for indigenous rights and land demarcation.

Kaingang

The Kaingang language has approximately 22,000 speakers within a nation of around 30,000 people in southern Brazil, with most Kaingang people also speaking Portuguese. Kaingang is a Gê family language within the broader Macro-Jê grouping.

Xavante

The 2010 Census identified approximately 13,300 Xavante speakers in Brazil, with around 7,000 of them monolingual. This native language of Brazil is spoken primarily in the Eastern Mato Grosso region. Xavante is a Jê language with unusual phonology that includes honorary and endearment terms in its morphology.

Yanomami

Brazil is home to approximately 12,700 Yanomami speakers. The Yanomami language is known for its extensive nasal harmony: when one vowel in a word is nasalized, all other vowels in that word are also nasalized. The language has no native written form and is not believed to be associated with any other language family. The Yanomami community faced a documented humanitarian crisis in 2023–2024, with significant malnutrition and mercury contamination from illegal mining documented by FUNAI and the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

What Brazil's linguistic landscape means for translation

Brazil represents one of the world's most significant translation markets. With approximately 213 million people speaking Portuguese and only around 5% with meaningful English ability, any organization seeking to operate in Brazil (whether in e-commerce, legal services, healthcare, manufacturing, or finance) must communicate in Brazilian Portuguese.

Several practical considerations matter for translation and localization targeting Brazil:

Brazilian Portuguese is not interchangeable with European Portuguese. A document translated for Portugal will not automatically be appropriate for Brazil. Spelling conventions, vocabulary, and register differ. The most obvious example is how formal and informal address differ between the two varieties — European Portuguese uses "você" in formal contexts, while Brazilian Portuguese uses it in informal ones. Translators must be specified as Brazilian Portuguese specialists, not merely "Portuguese" translators.

Text expansion is a localization consideration. Brazilian Portuguese text averages approximately 30% longer than equivalent English text, which affects software interfaces, packaging, marketing layouts, and document design. This needs to be factored into any localization project from the design stage.

Tone and register vary by industry. Brazil's communication culture is relatively informal in consumer contexts — a more playful, warm tone is effective in marketing. Legal, financial, and technical documents require standard formal Brazilian Portuguese, which has its own conventions distinct from the informal registers of everyday speech.

German and Italian communities represent specialist needs. For organizations operating in southern Brazil (particularly Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina) awareness of Hunsrik-speaking and Talian-speaking communities can matter for community communications, local government, and cultural programming.

Indigenous language access is a growing area. With 295 documented indigenous languages and over 1.6 million indigenous people in Brazil, organizations working in healthcare, education, or legal services in indigenous territories increasingly require translation services in indigenous languages.

Tomedes provides professional Portuguese translation services specifically for the Brazilian market, with certified human translators specialized in Brazilian Portuguese across legal, medical, technical, and marketing domains. For a free quote, contact Tomedes. For more on learning the language itself, see the guide to how to learn Portuguese.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is the official language of Brazil?
A: Portuguese is the only official national language of Brazil. Approximately 99% of Brazil's population of around 213 million people speak Portuguese. While the country is home to many minority and indigenous languages, none hold national official status — only municipality-level recognition.

Q: Why is German the second most spoken language in Brazil?
A: German immigration to Brazil's southern states began in 1824, with the majority of settlers coming from Rhineland-Palatinate and Pomerania. Census data reveals that two-thirds of German immigrants' children speak German at home as their mother tongue — a higher rate of language retention than Italian immigrants' children, which is why German maintains second-language status despite Italy having provided more immigrants overall.

Q: How many indigenous languages are spoken in Brazil?
A: The 2022 IBGE Census identified 295 indigenous languages in Brazil, with 474,856 speakers aged two and over. This was an increase from the 274 languages recorded in the 2010 Census. Many indigenous languages are endangered, UNESCO classifies 45 as critically endangered and 12 as already extinct.

Q: What is the most spoken indigenous language in Brazil?
A: Tikúna is the most widely spoken indigenous language in Brazil, with 51,978 speakers recorded in the 2022 Census. It is believed to be a language isolate with no proven relationship to any other language family. The second most spoken is Guarani Kaiowá, with 38,658 speakers, followed by Guajajara with 29,212.

Q: Is Brazilian Portuguese the same as European Portuguese?
A: No. While the two varieties are mutually intelligible and speakers of either can communicate with speakers of the other, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling conventions, and register. For translation and localization purposes, they are treated as separate target varieties requiring different specialists.

Q: Does Brazil speak Spanish?
A: Brazil does not speak Spanish as an official or widely used language. Around 460,000 Brazilians speak Spanish, concentrated near the country's borders with Spanish-speaking Latin American nations and in major cities like São Paulo. Because Portuguese and Spanish share structural similarities, many Brazilians can understand spoken Spanish without being fluent speakers.