French podcast on the status of the Portuguese language in Africa

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Here's an interesting podcast in French of about 26 minutes in length on the status of the Portuguese language in Africa, specifically in Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, Angola and Mozambique. Actually, I think I can embed it here...






There we go. It's all spoken so I was only able to jot down a few notes while listening. They are:

Guinea-Bissau is the place where Portuguese is weakest, as very few speak it fluently, even in government. They have a Portuguese creole there, used a lot but without a written standard so it's spoken only. Apparently the negative is often formed with ka.

Cabo Verde has a Portuguese creole too, which apparently is closer to standard Portuguese than that in Guinea-Bissau.

Portuguese in Angola is quite strong, and there are four regional languages that receive support/approval from the government too. Some 75% of the population speaks Portuguese.

Mozambique is where Portuguese is the strongest, and schools etc. are all in Portuguese. I have a post here from last month with a lot more information on how much Portuguese is used there - apparently it's used for 90% of urban communication there.

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