O português no mundo e a sua estandardização: entre a realidade de uma língua pluricêntrica e o desejo de uma língua internacional

To answer the ontological and political questions of what is Portuguese and what people want it to be, we will highlight the reality of a pluricentric language and the desire for an international language, and we will discuss the need for a full pluricentric standardization of the Portuguese language. A markedly bicentric language, between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, is already witnessing the rise of other national centers, particularly Mozambican Portuguese and Angolan Portuguese. Demographic and demolinguistic indicators allow us to predict an important change towards greater pluricentricity of Portuguese during the second half of the 21th century, accompanied by a strong growth in population and in Portuguese speakers, especially in Angola and Mozambique, and a decrease in population in Portugal and in Brazil. We will present the results of our sociolectometrical study about lexical, constructional and attitudinal indicators of bicentricity diverging between European and Brazilian Portuguese in the last 70 years. We will then analyse the possibilities of a more international management of the Portuguese language and the creation of a common international standard. Finally, we will argue in favor of a pluricentric codification, not only of spelling, but, above all, of the grammar and of the dictionaries of Portuguese.