PORTUGUESE PEOPLE

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 religion.

Ethnic composition of the Portuguese

Ancestry

Modern day Portuguese are an Iberian ethnic group and their ancestry is largely similar to other Iberian peoples. It is largely consistent with the geographic position of the Iberian peninsula, located on the extreme southwest of Europe. There are clear connections with the Mediterranean peoples as well as with those of Atlantic and Western Europe. Dark brown hair and eyes predominate in the most of Portuguese people - a Mediterranean Caucasoid characteristic. However, blond hair and blue or green eyes are also found, particularly in the North, where Germanic and Celt presences are larger.

A Paleolithic and Neolithic basis of Iberian ancestry

Recent development of methodologies for defining population structure using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism markers has led a 2006 study to conclude that there is clear and consistent division between ''“northern” and “southern” European population groups'', strongly suggesting a close genetic relationship between Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards, whereas all European populations north of the Alps and the Pyrenees (except for Ashkenazi jews) seem to fall squarely into a separate "Northern" population group.^[1] However, a similar 2007 study found that the most prominent genetic stratifications in Europe run from the north to the south-east [northern Europe-Balkans], while there are other weaker stratifications such as east-west and north-south. This latter study concludes that Iberians cluster with other southern European populations while pointing to a strong Paleolithic element in the Iberian gene-pool, suggesting that the region holds the most ancient European ancestry.^[2]
Indeed, the Paleolithic component in Iberian ancestry had already been ascertained by means of Y-chromosome and mtDNA analysis, a methodology which does not provide strong inferences on genetic population structure but is useful in tracing parts of the routes of migration in the populating of Europe. Both Y-chromosome haplogroups R1b and Mtdna haplogroup H, reach frequencies above 50% in most of Iberia, R1b peaking at 90% in the Basque region. This shows the strong ancestral bond between Iberia and the rest of western Europe. It is thought that Northern Iberia was an Ice Age refuge at the end of the last glaciation 45,000 years ago from which human beings later colonized the rest of western Europe. ^[3] Mtdna analysis also points to some pre-historic population movements into Iberia from North Africa, probably during the Capsian diffusion[2]. However a recent and thorough study revealed that the North-African Berber immigrants ''constituted a long-lasting and continuous community'' not limited to Capsian or Moorish expansion^[4].
Autosomal studies using a small number of classical genetic markers, supported by more recent analysis of Microsatellite data, have not only lent support for a large Neolithic element in the European genome, but have also been the basis for the demic diffusion model from the near east. Broad gradients across Europe, largely on a South East/North West cline using a small number of classical genetic markers would thus link the populations of Western Europe (including Iberia) by a common "paleolithic" ancestry and those of eastern (and particularly south eastern) Europe by a common "neolithic" ancestry ^[5]
Nevertheless the demic diffusion model remains controversial, to the degree that studies of ancient Mtdna point to the total absence of Neolithic contribution to modern European populations.

The Atlantic

Experts such as Barry Cunliffe, Bryan Sykes and Stephen Oppenheimer have put forward theories, supported by genetic and archaeological studies, pointing to Iberia as the main origin of the people that re-populated Atlantic Europe in the post-glacial period, during the Paleolithic and the Neolithic times. They argue that the evidence shows that this prehistoric genetic source remains the predominant one in the region.

The genetic 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 (al-Andalus) on the genetic make up of the Iberian population. Recent studies agree that there is a genetic relationship between (particularly southern) Iberia and North Africa 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^[6],^[7] and Haplotype Va^[8] 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 colonisation and, particularly in Southern Portugal, African slavery.^[9],^[10]
Nevertheless, the North African element in modern day Iberians' ancestry is minor when compared to the pre-Islamic ancestral basis [3].
However the most recent and thorough study about Y-chromosome Lineages from Portugal revealed ''The mtDNA and Y data indicate that the Berber presence in that region dates prior to the Moorish expansion in 711 AD [...] Our data indicates that male Berbers, unlike sub-Saharan immigrants, constituted a long-lasting and continuous community in the country''^[4].

Other Historical Influences

The ancestry of modern Portuguese has been influenced by the many peoples which have passed on its territory throughout history. These peoples include the Iberians, Celts (Celtiberians), Phoenicians (Punics), Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Suebi, Visigoths, Alans,Buri, Byzantines, Berbers and Arabs (Moors), Jews (Sephardim or Marranos).
Portugal was a recipient of immigration from Portuguese settlers who returned from the former Colonies in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bisseau and Cape Verde), in the seventies. Recently, there has been a large surge in immigration from Eastern Europe.

Demography

Main articles: Demographics of Portugal

There are around 10 million native Portuguese in Portugal, out of a total population of 10.75 million (estimate).

Native minority languages in Portugal

A 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 Portugal

People from the former colonies (namely Brazil, Africa, 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 of about 25,000 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

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. About 35 million Brazilians have recent Portuguese background, due to massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Significant Portuguese minorities (and of Portuguese descent until the 3rd degree) exist in:

Europe:	The Americas:	Africa (Portuguese Africans):	Asia and Oceania:
★ France (nearly 1 million) ★ Luxembourg (Portuguese Luxembourger: 15% of the population) ★ Germany ★ Switzerland ★ Belgium ★ Andorra ★ United Kingdom (Portuguese British)	★ Brazil (Portuguese-Brazilian) ★ United States of America (Portuguese American) ★ Canada (Portuguese Canadians) ★ Barbados ★ Venezuela	★ South Africa (Portuguese-South Africans: about 500,000) ★ Angola (Portuguese Angolans) ★ Mozambique (Portuguese Mozambicans) ★ Cape Verde ★ São Tomé and Príncipe ★ Guinea-Bissau ★ Namibia	★ Macau (China) ★ Australia ★ India (mainly in Goa) ★ East Timor ★ Malaysia ★ Sri Lanka ★ United Arab Emirates

Portuguese Sephardic Jews (mostly descendants) are also important in Israel, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Brazil^[12] 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 around 650,000 Portuguese settlers living in their overseas African provinces. Many Portuguese returned to Portugal as the country's African possessions gained independence in the 1975, while others moved south to South Africa, which now has the largest Portuguese population in Africa.
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, 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 succeded 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 (IBGE)
	'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

If we take the White population of Brazil in 1872 (3.7 million), almost all of them will be of Portuguese ancestry, since other Europeans (mostly Italians) only migrate to Brazil in large numbers after the 1870's. The mulatto population (those of mixed Portuguese and African heritage) were 4 million, with a total of 7.7 million Brazilians of some Portuguese heritage in 1872^[13].
From 1870 until 1990, close to 1.5 million Portuguese migrated to Brazil ^[14], and nowadays their descendants are about 30 million people, as big as the Italo-Brazilian population which is about 25 million people ^[15].
However, only 15% of Brazilians consider themselves to be of Portuguese heritage, so we can note that most Brazilians either do not take distant ancestral links into consideration when discussing their heritage, simply consider Portuguese ancestry as self-evident to their Brazilian identity or prefer to emphasise non-Portuguese ancestors.
Brazilians with unmixed Portuguese ancestry are therefore a minority, yet comparable to Italian-Brazilians in number.

References

1.
European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations
2. Measuring European Population Stratification using Microarray Genotype Data [1]
3. Summarized Percent Frequencies of R1b, R1a, I1b
★ (xM26), E3b1 and J2e
4. Y-chromosome Lineages from Portugal, Madeira and Açores Record Elements of Sephardim and Berber Ancestry
5. [www.mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/7/1361/T03]
6.
Phylogeny and frequency distributions of Hg E and its main subclades
7.
Origin, Diffusion, and Differentiation of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups E and J
8.
North African Berber and Arab influences in the western Mediterranean revealed by Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes.
9. According to a summary study by Pereira et al. 2005, sub-Saharan mtDNA L haplogroups were found at rates of 0.62% in a German-Danish sample, 1% in the British, 3.83% in Iberians (Portuguese and Spanish), 2.38% in Albanians, 2.86% in Sardinians and 0.94% in Sicilians
Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe
10.
African female heritage in Iberia: a reassessment of mtDNA lineage distribution in present times
11. Y-chromosome Lineages from Portugal, Madeira and Açores Record Elements of Sephardim and Berber Ancestry
12. Portuguese Jews in Brazil - in Portuguese
13. Evolution of Brazilian population according to colour - 1872/1991; in Portuguese
14. Portuguese immigrants in Brazil - in Portuguese
15. Number of Italo-Brazilians - in Portuguese

External links

★ Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)

★

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