The Portuguese Language

Wanderlino Arruda

Messenger of love,
keel of hope,
witness of many battles,
companion of many yearnings
in the greatest melting pot,
that history has ever seen.

You’re a mixture, a perpetual mixture
of Lusos, Celts, Fenicians,
Greeks and Cartaginians.
You’re the Iberian melting
together of Romans and Arians,
Alanos and Godos, brave people of Germany.

Mother language of a universal land,
the melting together of old Arabians,
battles and work of the African race,
mixed blood of the Americas.

You’re a history of many conquests,
of war and of peace,
of joy and of sadness,
of oppression and of freedom.
Above all, O, Portuguese Language,
you’re the greatest song of the race
made by men and women
that extended your frontiers.

The most humble,
you are sovereign and master
with the formation of a new race
the Lusitan people!