Brazilian Portuguese the last decades of the 20th century, due to the popularity of Brazilian music and Brazilian soap operas. Since Brazil joined Mercosul, the South American free trade zone, Portuguese has been increasingly studied as a foreign language in Spanish-speaking partner countries. Many words of Brazilian origin (also used in other Portuguese-speaking countries) have also entered into English: samba, bossa nova, cruzeiro, milreis and capoeira. While originally Angolan, the word "samba" only became famous worldwide because of its popularity in Brazil. After independence in 1822, Brazilian idioms with African and Amerindian influences were brought to Portugal by returning Portuguese Brazilians ("luso-brasileiros"
Brazilian Portuguese informal BP has developed – both in phonetics and grammar – in its own particular way. Accordingly, the formal register of Brazilian Portuguese has a written and spoken form. The written formal register (FW) is used in almost all printed media and written communication, is uniform throughout the country and is the "Portuguese" officially taught at school. The spoken formal register (FS) is essentially a phonetic rendering of the written form. (FS) is used in very formal situations, such as speeches or ceremonies or when reading directly out of a text. While (FS) is necessarily uniform in lexicon and grammar,