European Portuguese

European Portuguese (Portuguese: português europeu, pronounced [puɾtuˈɣez ewɾuˈpew]), also known as Lusitanian Portuguese (Portuguese: português lusitano) or as the Portuguese (language) of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), refers to the dialects of the Portuguese language spoken in Portugal. The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portuguese Portuguese" ("português português") as opposed to Brazilian Portuguese. "Peninsular Portuguese" (Portuguese: português peninsular) and "Iberian Portuguese" (Portuguese: português ibérico) are sometimes used, but they implicitly exclude the varieties of Portuguese spoken in Madeira and the Azores.

Portuguese is a pluricentric language; it is the same language with several interacting codified standard forms in many countries. Portuguese is a Romance language with Celtic, Germanic, Greek, and Arabic influence. It was spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before as Galician-Portuguese. With the formation of Portugal as a country in the 12th century, the language evolved into Portuguese. In the Spanish province of Galicia to the north of Portugal, the native language is Galician. Both Portuguese and Galician are very similar and natives can understand each other as they share the same recent common ancestor. Portuguese and Spanish are different languages, although they share 89% of their lexicon.