What are some important facts about Brazil?

Answer 1

Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world.

It is the country with the largest known variety of insect and arachnid life.

Brazil's official language is Portuguese, which is spoken by the majority of the population. It is considered to be a separate dialect from the dialect spoken in Portugal (European Portuguese), and is known as Brazilian Portuguese.

Its currency is the Real (plural: Reais), and it's symbol is R$. It's decimal form is centavo (Portuguese for cents). In Brazil something that costs 5 Reais and 25 centavos would be shown as R$ 5,25.

Brazil's name comes from a type of tree (Pau-Brasil) that was very popular for exportation by the Portuguese due to its red coluring that was great for dyeing.

The most widely-spoken native language in Brazil is Tupi-Guarani. It is often used in Brazilian Portuguese (and perhaps in European Portuguese, I don't know) in names, both when it comes to places as well as to things:

• jacaré (crocodile; Tupi for "the one who looks sideways")
• perereca (frog; from Tupi for "one who walks by leaping")
• Tucano
• Jabutí (tortoise)
• Pipoca (popcorn)
• Jabuticaba (a type of fruit)
• Piauí, Paratí, Maceió, Tremembé, Maranhão, Pernambuco (city/town names)

Brazil also has a very strong African influence to its culture and language due to the slave trade. The most common loan-words come from the Bantu languages.

Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. It also has a larger Lebanese population than Lebanon itself.