section_path: Phonology
section_name: Phonology
paragraph_text: Phonology
  
  Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as Franco-Provençal and Catalan, whereas that of Spanish is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese).
  
  Portuguese can have as many as 9 oral vowels, as many as 2 semivowels, and as many as 21 consonants; some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of oral vowels. Galician-Portuguese developed in the region of the former Roman province of Gallaecia, from the Vulgar Latin (common Latin) that had been introduced by Roman soldiers, colonists and magistrates during the time of the Roman Empire. Although the process may have been slower than in other regions, after a period of bilingualism, the centuries of contact with Vulgar Latin completely extinguished the native languages, and a variety of Latin with a few Gallaecian features evolved.
  
  Gallaecian and Lusitanian influences were absorbed into the local dialect of Vulgar Latin; this can be detected in some Galician-Portuguese words, as well as in placenames of Celtic and Iberian origin.
  
  An early form of Galician-Portuguese was already spoken in the Kingdom of the Suebi, and by the year 800 Galician-Portuguese had already become the vernacular of northwestern Iberia. The first known phonetic changes in Vulgar Latin, which began the evolution to Galician-Portuguese, took place during the rule of the Germanic groups, the Suebi (411–585) and Visigoths (585–711). The Galician-Portuguese "inflected infinitive" (or "personal infinitive") and the nasal vowels may have evolved under the influence of local Celtic (as in Old French). The nasal vowels would thus be a phonologic characteristic of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gallaecia, but they are not attested in writing until after the 6th and 7th centuries.