Lusitanic - Etymology

Etymology

The term derives from the name of one tribe, the Lusitani, that lived in the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula, prior to the Roman conquest; the lands they inhabited were known as Lusitania. The Lusitani were mentioned for the first time, by Livy, as Carthaginian mercenaries who incorporated the army of Hannibal, when he fought the Romans.

After the conquest of the peninsula (25-20 BC) Augustus divided it into the southwestern Hispania Baetica and the western Hispania Lusitania that included the territories of Asturia and Gallaecia, Celtic regions. In 27 BC the Emperor Augustus made a smaller division of the province: Asturia and Gallaecia were ceded to the jurisdiction of the new Provincia Tarraconensis, the former remained as Provincia Lusitania et Vettones. The Roman province of Lusitania comprised what is now central and south Portugal and parts of modern day north-central Spain.

Other definitions include Galicia, because Portuguese and Galician share close linguistic and cultural ties, Celt ties; having both derived from the ancient Portuguese-Galician and the term is cultural classification, rather than a Historic-Geographical definition. However, in the Roman times, the Gallaeci were not part of the Lusitania province.

Despite all this, the language was born in the old Gallaecia which comprise what is now Galicia and the region where Portugal was born, north Portugal.

The term is used like the ones used in other countries that were derived from the long-standing custom among many European countries to revive the Roman names of their country or the name of tribes who lived in it in Roman times, with establishing a "Roman Connection" being considered a way of gaining respectability and legitimacy. In the case of Portugal, use of the term "Lusitan" and its derivatives is attested, for example, in the first Portuguese dictionary "Dictionarium ex Lusitanico in Latinum Sermonem" published in 1569 or the epic poem Os Lusíadas published in 1572 . A rival Roman-era term available to the Portuguese was Iberia - but since it referred to the entire peninsula it could be used, and was indeed used, also by the Spanish.

Portuguese use of "Lusitania" is parallel to the use of Gallia in France, Britannia in England, Caledonia in Scotland, Hibernia in Ireland, Batavia in the Netherlands, Helvetia in Switzerland and Germania in Germany (called "Deutschland" in its own inhabitants' languague). Belgium got its actual present name from the Roman Belgica.