Many around the world not only are unaware of the relevancy of the Portuguese language, but are also sometimes unaware of its existence, often misleading it for spanish. Although both languages share a lot of vocabulary, grammar and are part of the same family, they have many differences and have been independent from each other for 800 years. But this is doomed to change as Portuguese is on track to climb even more on the hierarchy of world languages where it now takes the 7th spot.
As of 2022, there are 32 countries where Portuguese is taught in public schools as a mandatory or optional subject, with an interesting detail to Uruguay, Argentina or Venezuela where it’s been made a mandatory subject throughout high school in the last decade. It is expected that by the end of the century around 500M people will speak Portuguese around the world.
These numbers and their geographical distribution point to Portuguese turning into a language capable of unifying the southern hemisphere, mainly south America and the south of Africa. Also growing in English speaking countries, especially the United States, the future is bright for this old language.