So similar to the distinction between European and Latin American Spanish - Castellano and Spanish?
Spaniards speak Spanish. Castellano is from a specific region of Spain (Castilla)
I've been thinking about an idea that I haven't really seen discussed before.
What if Portugal started a movement to adopt "Lusitano" as an alternative glotonym for European Portuguese?
I'm not arguing that European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are different languages. From a linguistic point of view, there isn't even a completely objective definition of what counts as a language. The distinction between a language and a dialect is often influenced by history and politics.
My point is purely practical.
"Lusitano" could simply become a synonym for European Portuguese. Officially, the language could still be Portuguese. The goal wouldn't be to separate the languages, but to give European Portuguese a unique and recognizable name.
The biggest advantage would be discoverability.
Today, almost nobody who wants to learn Portuguese is actually looking for "Portuguese". They're looking for either European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese.
The same applies to books, movies, subtitles, software, dictionaries, courses, YouTube videos, AI models, and pretty much any other type of content. People usually have a clear preference for one variety, and if they can't find it, they'll often switch to English instead.
The problem is that searching for "Portuguese" overwhelmingly returns Brazilian content. If you're trying to find European Portuguese resources, you're competing with a language variety that has many times more speakers and content.
For example, someone searching for "learn Portuguese" or "Portuguese grammar" will usually have to dig through page after page of Brazilian content before finding resources for European Portuguese.
Compare that with Catalan. It has only around 10 million speakers, yet if you search for "Catalan", you immediately find Catalan resources. The name itself identifies exactly what you're looking for.
If "Lusitano" became widely adopted, people could search for things like "learn Lusitano", "Lusitano grammar", "Lusitano subtitles", or "Lusitano dictionary" and immediately find the right content, without competing with Brazilian Portuguese.
I think this is one of those ideas that would only work if people actually decided to use it. Governments and language academies rarely invent names that catch on by themselves. They usually become official after people have already started using them.
So maybe this is something that could start as a grassroots movement. Websites, creators, language schools, software developers, and learners could begin using "Lusitano" alongside "European Portuguese". If enough people adopted it, it could eventually become a recognized alternative glotonym.
What do you think? Is this a terrible idea, or could it actually solve a real problem?
So similar to the distinction between European and Latin American Spanish - Castellano and Spanish?
Spaniards speak Spanish. Castellano is from a specific region of Spain (Castilla)
Well, the country is called Portugal and the language is named after it. Why doesn’t Brazil change and call their variety Brazilian instead ? Either options are impractical of course, though I have met Brazilians in favour of that idea. I do face the same issue as you though, I’m never quite sure if the information I find online pertains to pt-BR, pt-PT, or both.
That's why I'm not proposing to change the name of the language, but just the glottonym for European Portuguese. Basically, we would say "Lusitano" instead of "European Portuguese", it's still portuguese, we would just use a shorter more identifiable term for "European Portuguese".
Why doesn’t Brazil change and call their variety Brazilian instead?
We call our variety Brazilian.
No, might as well just call Brazilian Portuguese, Brazilian instead.
Lusitan Portuguese it is, then /s
Just search for "European Portuguese" if that's what you're looking for. What about Angolan Portuguese? I'm pretty sure it's much harder to find resources for learning it online than for European Portuguese.
Most content don't make a distinction, which is understandable because it's a hassle to write "European Portuguese" That's why we should have a shorter synonym for European Portuguese.
This is worst idea I've ever heard, for many reasons but mainly because it's the start of a separation between the variants, which doesn't make any sense (more on this below).
If the language in Portugal was Lusitano, then what language would Brazil and Angola, Mozambique, etc, have?
It would either be called Brazilian/Angolan/Mozambican/Cape Verdian/... or Portuguese. If it's the former, then the name of the language "Portuguese" is lost forever and the language would be artificially split into many variants.
And if the answer to the question is "Portuguese", this would just be confusing ("so, in Portugal they speak Lusitano but in Brazil, Angola, etc, they speak Portuguese?? WTF...")
Here's an excellent video by a Brazilian linguistic expert arguing why the two variants (PT-PT and PT-BR) should not be separate languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLh5cPnPAZE
Your problem could be solved by adding the word "European" to the search. Also... "Today, almost nobody who wants to learn Portuguese is actually looking for "Portuguese". They're looking for either European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese." That's poorly phrased. Like people are not looking for Portuguese, they're looking for Portuguese. What?
We do already say that in Brazil sometimes, though it's perceived as a mild cultism.
Downvotes? lol just Google it https://diariodeumlinguista.com/tag/portugues-lusitano/
I think this is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist
"Lusitanian" is already used as the label for the ancient language of the actual Lusitanian people. So this rebranding could work as a commercial term, maybe, but it's not a good fit for a technical term (not that confusing language names don't exist…).
Well, that's why I asked for suggestions. Also, it's not the first time a term is reused for other meanings. For example, "latino" is someone who speaks a romance language, but it's also someone who is from Latin America. Palestinian used to be the term for the Jewish people who lived in Palestine, before Israel. Now it's used for the Arabs who live in Palestine. We can come up with a different term. Maybe this is a cultural barrier, because in Portugal we strongly associate luso- with Portuguese (eg. Luso-descendente). Maybe such association doesn't exist in English. BTW, we could use "língua lusa", "luso" (lusian) or "lusoportuguês"
I think the simplest would be Portuguese for Portugal and Brazilian for Brazil
Agreed, this would make more sense.
That's a bit hard to achieve politically and Brazil has no incentive to do it, they already dominate the term "portuguese". Using Lusitano/Lusitanian for EP doesn't require splitting the language, doesn't require Brazil to agree with it. The problem with the glottonyms "European Portuguese" and "Brazilian Portuguese" is they are a hassle to write, so much people just go with "Portuguese" without making the distinction. Lusitanian would be shorter, so it provides an easy way to differentiate European Portuguese.
Glotónima é a tua mãe. Portugal isn’t Lusitânia, our language is named after our country, nothing to change there
Yeah, as someone who is studying European Portuguese, I’ve found plenty of resources online for European Portuguese, especially since Portugal has recently become a popular destination for expats. Finding films, TV shows, and other media artifacts in general is more challenging, due to the difference in size and population, but I don’t see how an effort to try and popularize a new term would change that.
The content exists, it's just that it's often not easy to identify because not everyone writes "European Portuguese" and "Brazilian Portuguese" to make the disctinction. Lusitanian would be a shorter term for the european variant of the Portuguese language that we could always use to identify it.
Lol. No. We are not changing the name of our language obviously.
We are not changing the name of our language obviously.
That's not what I'm proposing.
Is this a terrible idea
Yes. Your idea makes absolutely no sense, the language is literally named after the country. As are each of the variants, would you also like to rename all of those?
could it actually solve a real problem?
There is no real problem. If the "problem" is that you can't find resources for the Portuguese variant you want, that sounds more like a skill issue. Just search for European Portuguese. What if I wantef to learn specifically "Australian English" but I was too lazy to write "Australian" when I looked it up? Would that also mean we'd have to rename all other variants of English? What about French? Etc
And btw Lusitania was an actual Roman province that existed centuries ago and encompassed a big part of Portugal and part of Spain (and the capital was actually in modern-day Spain). It does not exist anymore. Lusitanian was also an actual language that existed centuries ago. It does not exist anymore. Yes Portuguese say they're descendants of the Lusitanians, but we are not Lusitanians nor do we speak Lusitanian.