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
Welsh settlement in the Americas Welsh settlement in the Americas Welsh settlement in the Americas was the result of several individual initiatives to found distinctively Welsh settlements in the New World. It can be seen as part of the more general British colonization of the Americas. A story popularized in the 16th century claimed that the first European to see America was the Welsh prince Madoc in 1170. A son of Owain Gwynedd, prince of Gwynedd, he had supposedly fled his country during a succession crisis with a troop of colonists and sailed west. He eventually landed near the Mississippi River and founded a colony,