Brazilian Portuguese signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a 6-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies co-existed. All of the CPLP countries have signed the reform. In Brazil, this reform has been in force since January 2016. Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries have since begun using the new orthography. Regional varieties of Brazilian Portuguese, while remaining mutually intelligible, may diverge from each other in matters such as vowel pronunciation and speech intonation. The existence of Portuguese in Brazil is a legacy of the Portuguese colonization of the Americas. The first wave of Portuguese-speaking immigrants settled in
Portuguese colonization of the Americas Crown of England. To that end, in 1499 and 1500, the Portuguese mariner João Fernandes Lavrador visited the northeast Atlantic coast and Greenland, which accounts for the appearance of "Labrador" on topographical maps of the period. Subsequently, in 1501 and 1502, the Corte-Real brothers explored and charted Greenland and what is today the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, claiming these lands as part of fortnight the Portuguese Empire. Fragmentary evidence also suggests a previous expedition in 1473 by João Vaz Corte-Real, their father, with other Europeans, to "Terra Nova do Bacalhau" ("Newfoundland of the Codfish") in North America. The