Portuguese people
The Portuguese people (Portuguese: Portugueses – masculine – or Portuguesas) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation indigenous to Portugal, a country in the west of the Iberian Peninsula in the south-west of Europe, who share a common culture, ancestry and language.[92][93][94]
For a specific analysis of the population of Portugal, see Demographics of Portugal.
Portuguese: Portugueses, Portuguesas
c. 5,000,000 (includes Portuguese nationals and their descendants down to the third generation; excludes more distant ancestry)[1]
500,000[23]
244,217[27]
200,000[30]
184,774[31]
152,616[37]
151,028[38]
80,654[41]
40,000 (Burgher)[51]
35,633[56]
22,318 (ancestry)[9]
20,853[57]
19,000[60]
18,000[61]
10,400[78]
9,542[79]
9,000 [80]
7,971[83]
6,400[86]
5,700[87]
5,700[88]
4,945[89]
The political origin of the Portuguese state can be traced back to the founding of the County of Portugal in 868. However, it was not until the Battle of São Mamede (1128) that Portugal gained international recognition as a kingdom through the Treaty of Zamora and the papal bull Manifestis Probatum. This establishment of the Portuguese state in the 12th century paved the way for the Portuguese people to unite as a nation.[95][96][97]
The Portuguese played an important role in sailing, and explored several distant lands previously unknown to Europeans in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania (southwest Pacific Ocean). In 1415, with the conquest of Ceuta, the Portuguese began to play a significant role in the Age of Discovery, which culminated in a colonial empire, considered as one of the first global empires and one of the world's major economic, political and military powers in the 15th and 16th centuries, with territories that are now part of numerous countries.[98][99][100] Portugal helped to the subsequent domination of Western civilization by other neighboring European nations.[101][102][103][100]
Due to the large historical extent from the 16th century of the Portuguese Empire and the subsequent colonization of territories in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as historical and recent emigration, Portuguese dispersed to different parts of the world.[104]
Ancestry[edit]
The Portuguese people's heritage largely derives from the Indo-European (Lusitanians, Conii)[105][106][107] and Celtic peoples (Gallaecians, Turduli and Celtici),[108][109][110] who were later Romanized after the conquest of the region by the ancient Romans.[111][112][113] As a result of Roman colonization, the Portuguese language – the native language of the overwhelming majority of Portuguese people – stems from Vulgar Latin.[114]
A number of male lineages descend from Germanic tribes who arrived as ruling elites after the Roman period, starting in 409.[115] These included the Suebi, Buri, Hasdingi Vandals and Visigoths. The pastoral North Caucasus' Alans left small traces in a few central-southern areas (e.g. Alenquer, from "Alen Kerke" or "Temple of the Alans").[116][117][118][119]
The Umayyad conquest of Iberia, between the early 8th century until the 12th century, also left small Moorish, Jewish and Saqaliba genetic contributions in the country.[120][121][111][112][122]
Other minor – as well as later – influences include small Viking settlements between the 9th and 11th centuries, made by Norsemen who raided coastal areas mainly in the northern regions of Douro and Minho.[123][124][125][126] There is also low-incidence, pre-Roman influence from ancient Phoenicians and Greeks in southern coastal areas.[127]
Name[edit]
The name Portugal, from which the Portuguese take their name, is a compound name that comes from the Latin word Portus (meaning port) and a second word Cale, whose meaning and origin are unclear. Cale is probably a reminder of the Gallaeci (also known as Callaeci), a Celtic tribe that lived in the area today part of Northern Portugal.
There is also the possibility that the name comes from the early settlement of Cale (today's Gaia), situated on the mouth of the Douro River on the Atlantic coast (Portus Cale). The name Cale seems to come from the Celts – perhaps from one of their specifications, Cailleach – but which, in everyday life, was synonymous with shelter, anchorage or door.[128] Among other theories, some suggest that Cale may stem from the Greek word for "beautiful" kalós. Another theory for Portugal postulates a French derivation, Portus Gallus[129] "port of the Gauls".
During the Middle Ages, the area around Cale became known through the Visigoths as Portucale. Portucale could have evolved in the 7th and 8th centuries, to become Portugale, or Portugal, from the 9th century. The term denoted the area between the Douro and Minho rivers.[130]
In Portugal, research and development (R&D) units belong mainly to state universities and autonomous state research institutes carry out science and technology through a network. However, there are also non-state research institutes and some private projects.[616][617]
In the country's history the University of Lisbon, established in 1290 as a Studium Generale played a significant role. During the Age of Discovery a prime role was given to the study of technical requirements for navigation: clearly a topic of great importance in Portugal at this period, when control of sea trade was the primary source of Portuguese wealth. It was in this very period that major Portuguese contributions to the scientific world appeared, most notably the Caravel – a light and fast ship designed for coastal navigation and the Portolan – a maritime map used since the early Middle Ages for navigation. The Portuguese were also responsible for the introduction of the Compass rose on maps[618] and for the improvement of devices and techniques for guidance and navigation, such as the cross-staff.[619]
Other contributions include the nonius, the nautical astrolabe, the boat and the Black Maple Sword. During these times João Faras identified the Southern Cross while Francisco de Pina, in Asia, is credited for the invention of the modern Vietnamese alphabet (Quốc ngữ), often misattributed to French Alexandre de Rhodes.[620] In Viet Nam was also active botanist João de Loureiro.
In the 18th century, one of the oldest learned societies of Portugal, the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, was founded in 1779. During this time the Passarola was conceived. It was also during the 18th century that natural philosopher Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan was active and that Bento de Moura Portugal improved Thomas Savery's steam engine.
Within the Portuguese Empire, the Portuguese established in 1792 the oldest engineering school of Latin America (the Real Academia de Artilharia, Fortificação e Desenho), as well as the oldest medical college of Asia (the Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Goa) in 1842.
During the late 19th century the Portuguese Bartolomeu de Gusmão introduced the Pyreliophore and Maximiliano Augusto Herrmann developed the Herrmann wall telephone. It was also the time in which spectrography pioneer Francisco Miranda da Costa Lobo and telectroscope pioneer Adriano de Paiva were active.
In 1949, the Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, an early developer of the cerebral angiography, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Modern contributions to the scientific community coming from Portugal include, among others, the drug Zebinix, the All-on-4 method (dentistry), the Multibanco, the Coloradd and the Prepaid mobile phone.
After WWII major Portuguese scientific and technical institutions emerged; among them is worth citing the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) an international centre for biomedical research and founded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) in 1961 and ranked as one of the Top Ten best Places for post-docs, by The Scientist – Faculty of 1000.
Other major instituitions include the Champalimaud Foundation, created at the bequest of Portuguese industrialist and entrepreneur, António de Sommer Champalimaud that focuses on the fields of neuroscience and oncology, and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Braga.
Despite its small size, In 2001 Portugal was ranked 28th among countries that contributed to the top 1% of the world's highly cited publications and Portugal was ranked 32nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2022.[621][622]
Within Europe and the European Union (EU), Portugal has full membership into several pan-European scientific organizations like the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), ITER, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Portuguese scientists and technicians work in all of those organizations. In the period 2005–2007, Portugal was the EU member state with the highest growth rate in research and development (R&D) investment as a percentage of the GDP – a 46% growth. Portugal's R&D investment equals 1.2% of Portuguese GDP. This was the 15th largest allocation of funds as a percentage of the GDP for R&D, among the 27 EU member states in 2007.[623]
Overall, the Portuguese contributed in numerous scientific fields. Some examples of notable Portuguese people who had made important contributions to science and technology, becoming in their time internationally known within their respective field, include:
Other notable Portuguese scientists include:
Moreover, due to the rich History of Portugal and the numerous civilisations that have inhabited the national territory, archaeology, first introduced by André de Resende in the 16th century, has been thoroughly studied. Among some of the Portuguese contributors to archaeology and historiography there are Estácio da Veiga, José Leite de Vasconcelos, Irisalva Moita, Luís Raposo, Samuel Schwarz, Miriam Halpern Pereira, Raquel Varelaand João de Barros. Manuel Valadares, pioneer in the use of X-rays for art restoration and paleoethnobotanist António Rodrigo Pinto da Silva also contributed to the study of Portuguese History.
