The idea of a museum-monument to the language was conceived by the São Paulo Secretary of Culture in conjunction with the Roberto Marinho Foundation, at a cost of around 37 million reais.

The museum targets the Portuguese speaking population, made up of peoples from many regions and social backgrounds, but who still have not had the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of the origins, the history and the continuous evolution of the language.

[3] It is speculated by many sources that São Paulo was chosen as the site of the museum for its symbolism, as it is the largest Portuguese-speaking city and metropolitan region in the world, with 20 million inhabitants.

Among the partners in the project were Gilberto Gil, IBM Brazil, the Brazilian Postal Service, Rede Globo, Petrobras, Vivo, AES Eletropaulo, Grupo Votorantim and BNDES.

[7] The museum was dedicated on Monday, 20 March 2006, with the presence of the Minister of Culture and singer Gilberto Gil, representing the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Also present were the Minister of Culture of Portugal, Isabel Pires de Lima, the governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the mayor of Lisbon António Carmona Rodrigues, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea-Bissau António Isaac Monteiro, the President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and other representative authorities from all Portuguese-speaking nations.

The purpose of studying and interacting with a language in a museum, cultural and exchange programs, orthographic agreements, and the development of new words show how important it is.

[8]Sílvia Finguerut, director of Patrimony and the Environment for the Roberto Marinho foundation, claimed that there didn't exist a museum in the world dedicated solely to a language.

Finguerut noted the symbolism of the museum's location in the Estação da Luz: During many decades, the foreign immigrants who were reaching São Paulo were disembarking in this station, a place where other languages were meeting with our Portuguese.

And in this space, we find the means of directing people to the study of, and the interest for the language and also of having an intersection of the academic world with daily life.

The exhibition "Português do Brasil" shows the evolution of the Portuguese language from its historical origin from Latin during the conquest of the Romans of the Iberian region to the influences of the current media, such as television and social networks.