Portuguese is part of the family of Latin languages, including Ibero-Romance languages, such as Spanish (or "Castilian"), Catalan and Galician. His accent is closer to Catalan and Galician (which shares the same roots) and the pronunciation of certain words has some peculiarities: the letter ç (with the cedilla) is used before the "a", the "o" and the "u" (as in French); the circumflex accent is used on the vowels for the pronunciation of the closed vowels ("â" as Câmara, "ê" as pêssego - and as "summer" - and "ô" as avô - and as "eau"); the acute accent (') is used for the pronunciation of open vowels (the grave accent is rarely used), such as' á' (água), 'é' (p- or 'head') and 'ó' ( as mó); the tilde (~) is used on the letters ã (as mãe or pão) and õ (as põe) to indicate a nasal pronunciation of these vowels; Portuguese uses many oral diphthongs, such as "ai" (pai), "ei" (as lei), "oi" (as boi), "ui" (as Rui), and "iu" (as viu); the letter "s" is pronounced like "ch" at the end of the words (as francés or pessoas) or before a consonant (as estar or esperança). When the letter "s" is at the beginning of the words (like sapo) or in case of double consonant (like passado), it is pronounced like the French word "sac". If the letter "s" is between two vowels (like casa) it is pronounced like the letter "z" (like "zero"). Portuguese has two official standards: the Portuguese standard and the Brazilian standard (no, the "Brazilian" does not exist!). Each official standard has differences in emphasis (more open in Brazil than in Portugal), vocabulary and some syntactic structures. In addition to these two official standards, Portuguese also has a great variety of accents and a great wealth of vocabulary, especially in Portuguese-speaking African countries, as well as in Asia or Oceania.