The Judeo-Portuguese language was vernacular to the Jews in Portugal before the sixteenth century and also in many places of the Judeus da Nação Portuguesa diaspora. Texts were written in Hebrew letters (aljamiado português) or in Latin script.
As Portuguese Jews intermixed with other expelled Sephardim, it influenced the Judeo-Spanish or Ladino language, but was distinct from it, since the Portuguese Jewry was never expelled, but rather forced to convert to Christianity, through a mass baptism decreed by King Manuel I in 1497. Many of New Christians, also known as conversos or marranos, continued to observe Judaism in secret. When the Inquisition was established in Portugal in 1536, a migratory movement to France, the Netherlands (especially Amsterdam), Northern Germany (especially Hamburg), and later to England and the Americas began.
Due to close similarity of Portuguese, Judeo-Portuguese died out in Portugal, surviving in the every-day usage in the diaspora until the early 19th century. It also influenced Papiamento and Saramaccan.
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