Languages of Angola
| Languages of Angola | |
|---|---|
| Official languages | Portuguese |
| National languages | All recognized languages of Angola are "national languages" |
| Main foreign languages | English, French |
The languages of Angola are predominantly Bantu and Portuguese, with a small minority of !Kung and Khoe speakers. About 39 languages are spoken in Angola.
Portuguese is the sole official language. Due to cultural, social and political mechanisms which date back to the colonial history, the number of native Portuguese speakers is large and growing. A 2012 study by the Angolan National Institute for Statistics found that Portuguese is the mother tongue of 39% of the population. It is spoken as a second language by many more throughout the country, and younger urban generations are moving towards the dominant or exclusive use of Portuguese. The 2014 population census found that about 71% of the nearly 25.8 million inhabitants of Angola speak Portuguese at home.
In urban areas, 85% of the population declared to speak Portuguese at home in the 2014 census, against 49% in rural areas. Portuguese was quickly adopted by Angolans in mid-twentieth century as a lingua franca among the various ethnic groups. After the Angolan Civil War, many people moved to the cities where they learned Portuguese. When they returned to the countryside, more people were speaking Portuguese as a first language. The variant of the Portuguese language used in Angola is known as Angolan Portuguese. Phonetically, this variant is very similar to the Brazilian variant with some notable exceptions. In some respects, Angolan Portuguese resembles that of a pidgin.
However, in Cabinda, wedged between two French-speaking countries — the DRC and the Congo — many people speak French as well as, or better than, Portuguese. In fact, of the literate population, 90 percent speak French while 10 percent speak Portuguese. Also, the Angolan Bakongo who were exiled in the Democratic Republic of the Congo usually speak better French and Lingala than Portuguese and Kikongo.
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