Translating the feeling and heritage of "Portugalidade" to proper English term
When translating from Portuguese to English the word "Portugalidade" (ancient "Portucalidade"), that means basically "being Portuguese" or "Portugueseness", in a socio-scientific paper setting, how would one best put it?
- "Being Portuguese"
- "Portugueseness"
- Other?
The word "means to" explain the feeling and heritage of "being Portuguese".
Thank you.
Solution 1:
According to Collins, Britishness is
relating to, denoting, or characteristic of Britain or any of the natives, citizens, or inhabitants of the United Kingdom
So I guess Portugueseness would be ok.
Alternatively, you can use the "official" latin prefix for things related to Portugual: Luso from the ancient roman province Lusitania.
For example, in French, and in some English books, people speaking Portuguese or Brazilian are called "lusophone".
In this case I'd propose the neologism Lusoness ?
At least one reputable source (the official Translation Bureau of Canada), Termium uses
Lusitanity
to translate lusitanité (French) and lusitanidad (Spanish) which is the quality of what is portuguese. (The latest sound a lot like Portugalidade, isn't ?)
Solution 2:
The only reference to portugueseness is from Wiktionary as:
- the quality or state of being Portuguese.
but the term can be found in a number of academic papers:
Investigating Portugueseness: Reflections on Recent Ethnographic Approaches
Sociolinguistic (re)constructions of diaspora portugueseness: Portuguese-Canadian youth in Toronto
*Selective Expressions of Portugueseness.
There is no real reference for portugality and the scarce usage you can find on the net refers mainly to the language.
I think you can use portugueseness to suggest the idea of portugalidade you describe in your question.
Solution 3:
In a socio-scientific paper, I think the phrase "Portuguese identity" would use a more common jargon term from that realm of academia. I think if you look at the literature in English, you'll find identity being employed very often for the concept you are talking about.
However, online dictionaries do not seem to list this academic definition, on cursory searching.