Portingale to Portugee

Still employed derisively, particularly in certain locales and in specific situations, the variously spelled term "portagee" has a long history. Beginning with a relatively naïve confusion over the English pronunciation and spelling of the singular and plural forms of "português" and "portugueses," the word "Portuguese" turned (by a sort of back-formation) into "Portugee." Significantly, the term "portagee" seems not to have started out as a derisive ethnic slur, but became one, almost exclusively, over three or four centuries. It was even used, interchangeably with the term "Dago" at times, to refer to "dark" foreigners, usually taken to be of southern European origin

Computer Science · Galician and Iberian cultural studies · Medieval Iberian Studies · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies