Portuguese-based creole languages used to distinguish locally born black people of African descent from those who had been brought from Africa as slaves. In time, however, this generic sense was lost, and the word "crioulo" or its derivatives (like "Creole" and its equivalents in other languages) became the name of several specific Upper Guinean communities and their languages: the Guinean people and their Kriol language, Cape Verdean people and their Kriolu language, all of which still today have very vigorous use, suppressing the importance of official standard Portuguese. The oldest Portuguese-based creole are the so-called "crioulos" of Upper Guinea, born around the Portuguese
Portuguese vocabulary brought along by the Suebi who settled in Gallaecia (Northern Portugal and Galicia) in the 5th century, and also by the Visigoths who annexed the Suebic Kingdom in 585 and ruled until the 8th century AD. Other words were incorporated to Portuguese during the Middle Ages, mostly proceeding from French and Occitan languages, as both cultures had a massive impact in Portuguese during the 12th and 13th centuries. Some everyday vocabulary, towns and placenames have Frankish-derived etymology, by influence of French in that period. Examples are: flanco- (flank) from Old French flanc, of Germanic origin, probably Frankish *hlanca, from Proto-Germanic