Portugees

Portugees is the Dutch term used for things related to Portugal, including the Portuguese language and the people of Portugal. In Dutch usage, Portugees can refer to a Portuguese person as well as to the language.

Portuguese (Português) is an Ibero-Romance language that developed from Galician-Portuguese in the medieval northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. It spread globally during the Age of Exploration and is now spoken as a first language in Portugal and Brazil, with significant communities in Africa and Asia. It is also widely learned as a second language. The language is part of the Lusophone world, a cultural and linguistic community that includes several countries where Portuguese is an official language.

Geographic distribution and status: Portuguese is one of the world's major languages, with roughly 260 million native speakers and over 300 million total speakers. It is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor, and Macau. It is used in international organizations and in education, media, and daily life across these regions.

Varieties and writing system: The two principal standard varieties are European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, with additional varieties in Africa and Asia. Differences appear in pronunciation, vocabulary, and some grammar, but mutual intelligibility remains high. Portuguese uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics. Orthographic rules were harmonized by the Orthographic Agreement of 1990, with gradual adoption in different countries over subsequent decades.

Cultural note: Portuguese has a rich literary and cultural tradition, with prominent authors such as Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, and João Ubaldo Ribeiro contributing to world literature.