Goan (Konkani: गोंयकार Goenkar) is the demonym used to describe the people of the Indian state of Goa,who form an ethno-linguistic group resulting from the assimilation of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Scytho-Dravidian and Negrito ethnic and/or linguistic ancestries. They speak different dialects of Konkani natively. Goan Hindus may refer to themselves as Konkane^{[citation needed]} (Devanagari:कोंकणे), meaning the residents of Konkan. Goanese is an incorrect usage for Goans.

Goans speak the Konkani language, a Prakrit based language belonging to the Southern group of Indo-Aryan Languages. Various dialects of Konkani spoken by the Goans include Bardeskari, Sashtikari, Pednekari, Antruj bhas, whereas Konkani spoken by the Catholics is notably different from those of the Hindus, with a lot of Portuguese influence in its vocabulary. Konkani was suppressed under the Portuguese rule, playing a minor part in education of the past generations. They are mostly multilingual and Marathi has played a significant role for Hindus especially amongst its monolingual lower castes. Most Goans were educated in Portuguese in the past. There is a very small minority of descendants of the Portuguese, most of whom are of mixed descent and speak Portuguese.