Portuguese

Portuguese is both a language and an ethnonym referring to the people of Portugal and to communities around the world whose primary language is Portuguese. The language is a Romance language of the Ibero-Romance sub-branch, descended from Latin brought to the western Iberian Peninsula during the Roman era and shaped in what is now northern Portugal and Galicia. It emerged as a distinct language in the medieval period and spread globally through exploration and colonization.

Today, Portuguese is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, East Timor, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea. It is spoken by over 260 million native speakers and used as a lingua franca across many formerly Portuguese territories. The language has two dominant standard varieties: European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, with numerous regional varieties across Africa and Asia.

The writing system uses the Latin alphabet and diacritics. A standardized orthography, the Acordo Ortográfico de 1990, aimed to harmonize spelling across lusophone countries, though adoption varies by country. Core features include gendered nouns, conjugated verbs that encode person and number, and a rich system of tenses and moods; phonology includes nasal vowels and a contrast between open and closed vowels that differs by dialect.

The Portuguese people form an ethnolinguistic group native to Portugal and Lusophone communities worldwide, with rich literary, musical, and culinary traditions that reflect a long history of maritime exploration and exchange.