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Portuguese people
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The Portuguese people (; literally the Portuguese) are the ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Portuguese is their native language and Roman Catholicism is their predominant nominal religion.
Ethnic composition of the PortugueseModern Portuguese are an Iberian ethnic group and their ancestry is very similar to other western and southern European peoples, particularly from the Iberian Peninsula, with whom it shares ancestry and has cultural proximity. It is largely consistent with the geographic position of the western part of the Iberian peninsula, located on the extreme southwest of continental Europe. There are clear connections with the Mediterranean peoples as well as with those of Atlantic and Western Europe.
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The Portuguese people (; literally the Portuguese) are the ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Portuguese is their native language and Roman Catholicism is their predominant nominal religion.
Ethnic composition of the PortugueseModern Portuguese are an Iberian ethnic group and their ancestry is very similar to other western and southern European peoples, particularly from the Iberian Peninsula, with whom it shares ancestry and has cultural proximity. It is largely consistent with the geographic position of the western part of the Iberian peninsula, located on the extreme southwest of continental Europe. There are clear connections with the Mediterranean peoples as well as with those of Atlantic and Western Europe. Dark brown hair and dark hazel and brown eyes predominate in a majority of Portuguese people; however, blond hair and blue or green eyes are also found with some frequency.
Ancestry
Historical originsThe Portuguese are a southwestern European population, predominantly Mediterranean and Atlantic European.
The earliest modern humans inhabiting Portugal are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. Current interpretation of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data suggests that modern-day Portuguese traces largely a significant amount of these lineages to the paleolithic peoples which began arriving to the European continent between the end of the last glaciation around 45,000 years ago.
Northern Iberia is believed to have been a major Ice-age refuge from which Paleolithic humans later colonized Europe. Migrations from what is now Northern Iberia during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, links modern Iberians to the populations of much of Western Europe and particularly the British Isles and Atlantic Europe. Recent books published by geneticists Bryan Sykes, Stephen Oppenheimer and Spencer Wells have argued the large Paleolithic and Mesolithic Iberian influence in the modern day Irish, Welsh and Scottish gene-pool as well as parts of the English. Indeed, Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b (of Paleolithic origin) is the most common haplogroup in practically all of the Iberian peninsula and western Europe. Within the R1b haplogroup there are modal haplotypes. One of the best-characterized of these haplotypes is the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH). This haplotype reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula and in the British Isles. In Iberia it reaches 33% in Portugal.
The Neolithic colonization of Europe from Western Asia and the Middle East beginning around 10,000 years ago reached Iberia, as most of the rest of the continent although, according to the demic diffusion model, its impact was most in the southern and eastern regions of the European continent.
Starting in the 3rd millennium BC as well as in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later followed by others that can be identified as Celts.
Eventually urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization.
These two processes defined Iberia's, and Portugal's, cultural landscape - Mediterranean towards the southeast and a Continental in the northwest, as historian José Mattoso describes it.
Given the origins from Paleolithic and Neolithic settlers as well as Indo-European migrations, one can say that the Portuguese ethnic origin is mainly a mixture of pre-Roman Pre-Indo-Europeans (such as, in other parts of Iberia, the Iberians, Tartessians and Aquitanians), Pre-Celtic, Proto-Celtic and Celtic peoples, producing peoples such as the Lusitanians of Lusitania, the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Gallaecia, the Celtici and the Cynetes of the Alentejo and the Algarve.
The Romans were an important influence on Portuguese culture, considering the Portuguese language itself derives from Latin.
Other influences included the Phoenicians/Carthaginians (small semi-permanent commercial coastal establishments in the south before 200 BC), the Vandals and the Sarmatian Alans (both migrated to North Africa, while some were partially integrated by the Visigoths and Suevi), and the Visigoths and Suevi (including the Buri, permanently established in the eray 5th century), along with, in the period of the Al-Andalus, minor numbers of Arabs, Berbers, Saqaliba and Jews who also settled in what is today Portuguese territory.
For the Y-chromosome and MtDNA lineages of the Portuguese and other peoples see and [https://www5.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html this one].
The legacy of Muslim rule There exists a number of studies which focus on the genetic impact of the eight centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula on the genetic make up of the Iberian population. Recent studies agree that there is some genetic relationship between Iberia (mainly far southern regions) and some North African Populations as a result of this period of history, Iberia is the only region in Europe with a significant presence of the typically North West African Y-chromosome haplotypes E-M81, and Haplotype Va, although this influence may be the result of ancient demic processes that predate the Islamic presence, and may constitute the result of some common western Mediterranean population background.
Iberia is also the region in Europe with the highest frequency of the female mediated mtDNA haplogroup L of Sub-Saharan origin, as a result of Berber colonization and, particularly on specific locations in the south, modern African slavery.,
Nevertheless, the North African or just African element in modern day Iberians' ancestry is quite trivial when compared to the pre-Islamic ancestral basis, and the Gibraltar Strait seems to have functioned more as a genetic barrier than a bridge.
Historical groups and influencesThe ancestry of modern Portuguese has been influenced by the many peoples which have passed on its territory throughout history. These peoples include the Pre-Indo-European peoples of Iberia, Proto-Celts and Celts (such as the Lusitanians, Calaicians, Celtici, Cynetes and other Pre-Roman Peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, such as other minor local tribes as the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi and Zoelae), Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Suebi, Visigoths, Alans, Buri, Byzantines, Saqaliba, Berbers and Arabs, Jews.
Demography
Demographics of PortugalThere are around 10 to 10.2 million native Portuguese in Portugal, out of a total population of 10.75 million (estimate).
Native minority languages in PortugalA small minority of about 15,000 speak the Astur-Leonese Mirandese language in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso and Mogadouro - even if all of the speakers are bilingual with Portuguese.
An even smaller minority of no more than 2,000 people speak Barranquenho, a dialect of Portuguese heavily influenced by Extremaduran, spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos (in the border between Extremadura and Andalusia, in Spain, and Portugal).
Ethnic minorities in PortugalPeople from the former colonies (namely Brazil, Africa - Afro-Portuguese, and parts of India) have, in the last two to three decades, migrated to Portugal. More recently, a great number of Slavs, especially Ukrainians (now the biggest ethnic minority), are also migrating to Portugal. There is also a small Chinese minority.
There is also a small minority of Gypsies (Ciganos) of about 40,000 people and an even smaller minority of Jews of about 5,000 persons (some Ashkenazi, the majority Sephardi, such as the Belmonte Jews).
Minorities of Portuguese descent> Country
| Total | | Total | 5,485,373 | | Europe | 1,386,292 | | France | 798,837 | | Germany | 170,000 | | Switzerland | 152,826 | | United Kingdom | 80,000 | | Spain | 126,651 | | Luxembourg | 54,490 | | Belgium | 38,000 | | Rest of Europe | 28,422 | | Americas | 3,281,853 | | United States | 1,442,077 | | Brazil | 1,200,000 | | Venezuela | 550,000 | | Canada | 415,000 | | Bermuda | 2,400 | | Rest of the Americas | 24,776 | | Africa | 731,228 | | South Africa | 300,000 | | Angola | 367,908 | | Mozambique | 54,355 | | Rest of Africa | 8,965 | | Asia | 30,000 | | Oceania | 56,000 |
In the whole world there are easily more than one hundred million people with recognizable Portuguese ancestors, due to the colonial expansion and world-wide immigration of Portuguese from the 16th century onwards to India, the Americas, Macau and East-Timor, Malaysia, Indonesia and Africa. Between 1886 and 1966, Portugal lost to emigration more than any West European country except Ireland. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, nearly two million Portuguese left Europe to live in Brazil and the United States. About 35 million Brazilians have relatively recent Portuguese background, due to massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Significant verified Portuguese minorities exist in: (see table)
Portuguese Sephardic Jews (mostly descendants) are also important in Israel, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Venezuela, Brazil and Turkey.
In the United States, there are Portuguese communities in New Jersey, the New England states, and California. In the Pacific, Hawaii has a sizable Portuguese element that goes back 150 years (see Portuguese Americans and Luso Americans). Canada, particularly Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, has developed a significant Portuguese community since 1940 (see Portuguese Canadians). Argentina and Uruguay had Portuguese immigration in the early 20th century. Portuguese fishermen dispersed across the Caribbean islands, especially Bermuda and the island of Barbados where there is high influence from the Portuguese community.
In the early twentieth century the Portuguese government encouraged European emigration to Angola and Mozambique, and by the 1970s there were up to 1 million Portuguese settlers living in their overseas African provinces. An estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the country's African possessions gained independence in 1975, while others moved to Brazil and south to South Africa.
As of 1989, some 4,000,000 Portuguese were living abroad, mainly in France, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States.
As a result of interracial marriage and cultural influence, there are Portuguese influenced people with their own culture and Portuguese based dialects in parts of the world other than former Portuguese colonies, most notably in Malaysia and Singapore (see Kristang people), Barbados, Aruba, Curaçao, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana (see Portuguese immigrants in Guyana), Equatorial Guinea and Sri Lanka (see Burgher people and Portuguese Burghers).
How many Brazilians have Portuguese ancestry?There are no exact figures about the number of Brazilians of Portuguese descent, as the Portuguese immigration to Brazil is as old a phenomenon as the country's colonization and happened in different immigration waves during the last centuries (see Portuguese-Brazilian and White Latin American).
Portuguese immigration to Brazil from the beginning of colonization, in 1500, until present day in 1990
Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics |
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Decade |
Nationality |
1500-1700 |
1701-1760 |
1808-1817 |
1827-1829 |
1837-1841 |
1856-1857 |
1881-1900 |
1901-1930 |
1931-1950 |
1951-1960 |
1961-1967 |
1981-1991 |
Portuguese |
100,000 |
600,000 |
24,000 |
2,004 |
629 |
16,108 |
316,204 |
754,147 |
148,699 |
235,635 |
54,767 |
4,605 |
Even with Portuguese heritage, many Portuguese-Brazilians identify themselves as being simply Brazilians, since Portuguese culture was a dominant cultural influence in the formation of Brazil (like many British Americans in the United States who will never describe themselves as of British extraction, but only as "Americans").
In 1872, there were 3.7 million Whites in Brazil (the vast majority of them of Portuguese ancestry), 4.1 million mixed-race people (mostly of Portuguese-African-Native American ancestry) and 1.9 million Blacks. These numbers give the percentage of 80% of people with total or partial Portuguese ancestry in Brazil in the 1870s.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a new large wave of immigrants from Portugal arrived. From 1881 to 1991, over 1.5 million Portuguese immigrated to Brazil. In 1906, for example, there were 133,393 Portuguese-born people living in Rio de Janeiro, comprising 16% of the city's population. Rio is, still today, considered the largest "Portuguese city" outside of Portugal itself.
Genetic studies also confirm the strong Portuguese racial influence in Brazilians. According to a study, at least half of the Brazilian population's Y Chromosome comes from Portugal. Black Brazilians have an average of 48% non-African genes, most of them may come from Portuguese ancestors.
See also
External links
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