152-582: The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( Portuguese : Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola , abbr. MPLA ), from 1977–1990 called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (Portuguese: Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola – Partido do Trabalho ), is an Angolan social democratic political party . The MPLA fought against the Portuguese Army in
304-648: A disastrous defeat at the Battle of Kitombo when they tried to invade Kongo in 1670. Control of most of the central highlands was achieved in the 18th century. Further reaching attempts at conquering the interior were undertaken in the 19th century. However, full Portuguese administrative control of the entire territory was not achieved until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1884, the United Kingdom , which up to that time refused to acknowledge that Portugal possessed territorial rights north of Ambriz , concluded
456-524: A form of Romance called Mozarabic which introduced a few hundred words from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Berber. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek , mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Portuguese evolved from
608-483: A huge increase of the European population. The white population increased from 44,083 in 1940 to 172,529 in 1960. With around 1,000 immigrants arriving each month. On the eve of the end of the colonial period, the ethnic European residents numbered 400,000 (1974) (excluding enlisted and commissioned soldiers from the mainland) and the mixed race population was at around 100,000 (many were Cape Verdian migrants working in
760-625: A large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil. The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from
912-448: A legislative assembly. Portuguese Angola was a territory covering 1,246,700 km , an area greater than France and Spain put together. It had 5,198 km of terrestrial borders and a coastline with 1,600 km. Its geography was diverse. From the coastal plain, ranging in width from 25 kilometres in the south to 100–200 kilometers in the north, the land rises in stages towards the high inland plateau covering almost two-thirds of
1064-518: A major enemy of Castile , invaded many Portuguese overseas possessions, including Luanda. The Dutch ruled Luanda from 1640 to 1648 as Fort Aardenburgh. They were seeking black slaves for use in sugarcane plantations of Northeastern Brazil ( Pernambuco , Olinda and Recife ), which they had also seized from Portugal. John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen , conquered the Portuguese possessions of Saint George del Mina , Saint Thomas, and Luanda on
1216-632: A native language by vast majorities due to their Portuguese colonial past or as a lingua franca in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the Brazilian borders of Uruguay and Paraguay and in regions of Angola and Namibia. In many other countries, Portuguese is spoken by majorities as a second language. There remain communities of thousands of Portuguese (or Creole ) first language speakers in Goa , Sri Lanka , Kuala Lumpur , Daman and Diu , and other areas due to Portuguese colonization . In East Timor,
1368-487: A peaceful and mutually profitable relationship with the rulers and nobles of the Kongo Kingdom. Kings such as João I and Afonso I studied Christianity and learned Portuguese , in turn Christianising their nation and sharing the benefits from the slave trade. The Portuguese established small trading posts on the lower Congo , in the area of the present Democratic Republic . A more important trading settlement on
1520-650: A pragmatic hearts and minds policy, the military conflict in Angola was effectively won for the Portuguese. In June 1972, the Portuguese National Assembly approved a new version of its Organic Law on Overseas Territories , in order to grant its African overseas territories a wider political autonomy and to tone down the increasing dissent both internally and abroad. It changed Angola's status from an overseas province to an autonomous state with authority over some internal affairs, while Portugal
1672-436: A professional class protest of Portuguese Armed Forces captains against the 1973 decree law Dec. Lei n. 353/73 . These events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens, overwhelmingly white but some mestiço (mixed race) or black, from Portugal's African territories, creating hundreds of thousands destitute refugees — the retornados . On 11 November 1975 Angola became a sovereign state in accordance with
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#17327657042131824-625: A smaller pro-independence guerrilla organisation established in the East, supported the MPLA. Until 1970, the combined guerrilla forces of MPLA and UNITA in the East Front were successful in pressuring Portuguese Armed Forces (FAP) in the area to the point that the guerrillas were able to cross the Cuanza River and could threaten the territory of Bié , which included an important urban centre in
1976-640: A treaty recognising Portuguese sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo. However, the treaty, meeting with opposition there and in Germany , was not ratified. Agreements concluded with the Congo Free State , the German Empire and France in 1885–1886 fixed the limits of the province, except in the south-east, where the frontier between Barotseland ( north-west Rhodesia ) and Angola was determined by an Anglo-Portuguese agreement of 1891 and
2128-463: A truce with the pro-independence African guerrillas in an effort to promote peace talks and independence. The military-led coup returned democracy to Portugal, ending the unpopular Colonial War where hundreds of thousands of Portuguese soldiers had been conscripted into military service, and replacing the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) regime and its secret police which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms . It started as
2280-437: A wizard') (Angola). From South America came batata (' potato '), from Taino ; ananás and abacaxi , from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati , respectively (two species of pineapple ), and pipoca (' popcorn ') from Tupi and tucano (' toucan ') from Guarani tucan . Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English . These are by far
2432-529: Is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal , and has kept some Celtic phonology. With approximately 236 million native speakers and 27 million second language speakers, Portuguese has approximately 263.8 million total speakers. It is usually listed as
2584-588: Is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões , one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads . In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language , an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo , Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in
2736-729: Is also the origin of the luso- prefix, seen in terms like " Lusophone ". Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe , the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period . The occupiers, mainly Suebi , Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages , quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of
2888-674: Is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon , in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with
3040-412: Is considerably intelligible for lusophones, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian ( Ibero-Romance languages ), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them. Portuñol /Portunhol, a form of code-switching , has a more lively use and
3192-508: Is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries. Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and immigration of Brazilians of Japanese descent to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia , it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries in
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#17327657042133344-608: Is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay ( dialeto do pampa ) and Paraguay ( dialeto dos brasiguaios ), and of Portugal with Spain ( barranquenho ), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish. Overseas Province of Angola In southwestern Africa , Portuguese Angola
3496-721: Is understood by all. Almost 50% of the East Timorese are fluent in Portuguese. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole . Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board
3648-408: The 32 Battalion , formed by South Africa in order to receive anti-MPLA Angolans. At its first congress in 1977, the MPLA adopted Marxism–Leninism as the party ideology. It added Partido do Trabalho (Labour Party) to its name. After Nito Alves 's attempted coup in 1977, Neto ordered the killing of suspected followers and sympathisers of "orthodox communism" inside and outside the party. During
3800-615: The Alvor Agreement and the newly independent country was proclaimed the People's Republic of Angola . In the 20th century, Portuguese Angola was subject to the Estado Novo regime. In 1951, the Portuguese authorities changed the statute of the territory from a colony to an overseas province of Portugal. Legally, the territory was as much a part of Portugal as Lisbon but as an overseas province enjoyed special derogations to account for its distance from Europe. Most members of
3952-551: The Ambundu ethnic group and the educated intelligentsia of the capital city, Luanda . The party formerly had links to European and Soviet communist parties , but today is a full-member of the Socialist International grouping of social democratic parties. The armed wing of MPLA was the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA). The FAPLA later (1975–1991) became the national armed forces of
4104-858: The Angolan Civil War , the MPLA received military and humanitarian support primarily from the governments of Algeria , Brazil , the Bulgarian People's Republic , East Germany , Cape Verde , Czechoslovak Socialist Republic , the Congo , Cuba , Guinea-Bissau , Mexico , Morocco , the Mozambican People's Republic , Nigeria , North Korea , the Polish People's Republic , China , the Romanian Socialist Republic , São Tomé and Príncipe , Somalia ,
4256-784: The Angolan War of Independence from 1961 to 1974, and defeated the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan Civil War . The party has ruled Angola since the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, being the de facto government throughout the civil war and continuing to rule afterwards. On 10 December 1956, in Estado Novo -ruled Portuguese Angola ,
4408-614: The Congo River system, and the Kwando and Cubango Rivers , both of which drain generally southeast to the Okavango Delta . As the land drops from the plateau, many rapids and waterfalls plunge downward in the rivers. Portuguese Angola had no sizable lakes, besides those formed by dams and reservoirs built by the Portuguese administration. The Portuguese authorities established several national parks and natural reserves across
4560-684: The Cuanza basin in the 1950s, in the Congo basin in the 1960s, and in the exclave of Cabinda in 1968. The Portuguese government granted operating rights for Block Zero to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco , in 1955. Oil production surpassed the exportation of coffee as Angola's largest export in 1973. By the early 1970s, a variety of crops and livestock were produced in Portuguese Angola. In
4712-708: The Economic Community of West African States , the Southern African Development Community and the European Union . According to The World Factbook ' s country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order): The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 300 million in January 2022. This number does not include
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4864-437: The Estado Novo regime's establishment. While these changes were taking place, a few guerrilla nuclei stayed active inside the territory, and continued to campaign outside of Angola against Portuguese rule. The idea of having the independence movements take part in the political structure of the revamped territory's organization was absolutely unthinkable (on both sides). However, the Portuguese authorities were unable to defeat
5016-558: The Iberian Peninsula of Europe . It is the official language of Angola , Brazil , Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique , Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe , and has co-official language status in East Timor , Equatorial Guinea and Macau . Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone ( lusófono ). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers
5168-586: The League of Nations and wrote a scathing report describing the labor system as "virtually state serfdom ", that did not allow Africans time to produce their own food. In addition, when their wages were embezzled and they were denied access to the colonial judicial system. From the mid-1950s until 1974, iron ore was mined in Malanje , Bié , Huambo , and Huíla provinces, and production reached an average of 5.7 million tons per year between 1970 and 1974. Most of
5320-601: The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( MPLA ) began to organize strategies and action plans to fight Portuguese rule and the remunerated system which affected many of the native African people from the countryside, who were relocated from their homes and made to perform compulsory work, almost always unskilled hard labour, in an environment of economic boom . Organised guerrilla warfare began in 1961,
5472-516: The New World , mainly to Brazil , but also to North America. According to Oliver and Atmore, "for 200 years, the colony of Angola developed essentially as a gigantic slave-trading enterprise". Portuguese sailors, explorers, soldiers and merchants had a long-standing policy of conquest and establishment of military and trading outposts in Africa with the conquest of Muslim-ruled Ceuta in 1415 and
5624-574: The Portugal national football team . Since the 1960s, with the latest developments on commercial aviation , the highest ranked football teams of Angola and the other African overseas provinces of Portugal, started to compete in the Taça de Portugal (the Portuguese Cup). Other facilities and organizations for swimming , nautical sports , tennis and wild hunting became widespread. Beginning in
5776-470: The Portuguese Army in the Angolan theatre, the independence guerrilla movements were never fully defeated. From 1966 to 1970, the pro-independence guerrilla movement MPLA expanded their previously limited insurgency operations to the East of Angola. This vast countryside area was far away from the main urban centres and close to foreign countries where the guerrillas were able to take shelter. The UNITA,
5928-507: The Portuguese Empire a sort of federal structure , conferring some degree of autonomy to the "states". In fact, the structural changes and increase in autonomy were extremely limited. The government of the "State of Angola" was the same as the old provincial government, except for some cosmetic changes to personnel and titles. As in Portugal itself, the government of the "State of Angola" was entirely composed of people aligned with
6080-806: The Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, French, German, and Italian), and Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, French and Arabic), in addition to being the official legal language in the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , also in Community of Portuguese Language Countries , an international organization formed essentially by lusophone countries . Modern Standard European Portuguese ( português padrão or português continental )
6232-517: The Republic of the Congo , Senegal , Namibia , Eswatini , South Africa , Ivory Coast , and Mauritius . In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe . Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020. In such countries, Portuguese is spoken either as
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6384-666: The Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (Portuguese: Governo revolucionário de Angola no exílio , GRAE) in Kinshasa in an attempt to claim on the international scene the sole representation of forces fighting Portuguese rule in Angola. In 1966, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( UNITA ) also started pro-independence guerrilla operations. Despite the overall military superiority of
6536-593: The Soviet Union , Sudan , Tanzania , Libya and SFR Yugoslavia . While China did briefly support the MPLA, it also actively supported the MPLA's enemies, the FNLA and later UNITA, during the war for independence and the civil war. The switch was the result of tensions between China and the Soviet Union for dominance of the communist bloc, which almost led to war. In the 1992 election , MPLA-PT won 53.74% of
6688-586: The West Iberian branch of the Romance languages , and it has special ties with the following members of this group: Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian ) share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are fully mutually intelligible, and Spanish
6840-615: The fifth-most spoken native language , the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers and the second-most spoken Romance language in the world, surpassed only by Spanish . Being the most widely spoken language in South America and the most-spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere , it is also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America , one of
6992-776: The pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal , which included the Gallaeci , Lusitanians , Celtici and Cynetes . Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish . Altogether these are over 3,000 words, verbs, toponymic names of towns, rivers, surnames, tools, lexicon linked to rural life and natural world. In
7144-462: The -s- form. Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery , it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world. A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to
7296-428: The 10 most influential languages in the world. When the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought with them the Latin language , from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason,
7448-427: The 10 most spoken languages in Africa , and an official language of the European Union , Mercosul , the Organization of American States , the Economic Community of West African States , the African Union , and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries , an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations. In 1997, a comprehensive academic study ranked Portuguese as one of
7600-410: The 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, catana (' cutlass ') from Japanese katana , chá ('tea') from Chinese chá , and canja ('chicken-soup, piece of cake') from Malay . From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade , and
7752-432: The 18th century Portugal gradually managed to colonise the interior highlands. Other polities in the region included the Kingdom of Ndongo , Kingdom of Lunda , and Mbunda Kingdom . Full control of the entire territory was not achieved until the beginning of the 20th century, when agreements with other European powers during the Scramble for Africa fixed the colony's interior borders. The history of Portuguese presence on
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#17327657042137904-426: The 1920s, Portugal's administration showed an increasing interest in developing Angola's economy and social infrastructure. In the 1930s, the Portuguese estimated that there were around 5,000 Mucubal , occupying an area two-thirds the size of Portugal. Between 1939 and 1943, Portuguese army operations against the Mucubal, who they accused of rebellion and cattle-thieving, resulted in hundreds of Mucubal killed. During
8056-409: The 1920s, it became incorporated into the larger colony (later the overseas province ) of Portuguese Angola. The two colonies had initially been contiguous, but later became geographically separated by a narrow corridor of land, which Portugal ceded to Belgium, allowing the Belgian Congo access to the Atlantic Ocean. Following the decolonisation of Portuguese Angola with the 1975 Alvor Agreement ,
8208-452: The 1950s, and the proportion of the age group that went on to secondary school in the early 1970s was an all-time record high enrollment. Primary school attendance was also growing substantially. In general, the quality of teaching at the primary level was acceptable, even with instruction carried on largely by black Africans who sometimes had substandard qualifications. Most secondary school teachers were ethnically Portuguese, especially in
8360-415: The 1950s, motorsport was introduced to Angola. Sport races were organized in cities like Nova Lisboa , Benguela , Sá da Bandeira and Moçâmedes . The International Nova Lisboa 6 Hours sports car race became noted internationally. Football became very popular in Angola during the 20th century. Football was mostly spread to Angola by the Portuguese people who settled in the colonies. This was mostly due to
8512-549: The 1960s, the Portuguese mainland had four public universities, two of them in Lisbon (which compares with the 14 Portuguese public universities today). In 1968, the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola was renamed Universidade de Luanda ( University of Luanda ). From the 1920s onward, city and town expansion and modernization included the construction of several sports facilities for football , rink hockey , basketball , volleyball , handball , athletics , gymnastics and swimming . Several sports clubs were founded across
8664-561: The 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania ) was conquered by the Germanic , Suebi and Visigoths . As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500 Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to: The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde , Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from
8816-440: The 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia . They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)- , and include common words such as aldeia ('village') from الضيعة aḍ-ḍayʿa , alface ('lettuce') from الخسة al-khassa , armazém ('warehouse') from المخزن al-makhzan , and azeite ('olive oil') from الزيت az-zayt . Starting in
8968-432: The 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León , which had by then assumed reign over Galicia . In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania , much as Occitan
9120-533: The Americas are independent languages. Portuguese, like Catalan , preserves the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. pedra ; Fr. pierre , Sp. piedra , It. pietra , Ro. piatră , from Lat. petra ("stone"); or Port. fogo , Cat. foc , Sard. fogu ; Sp. fuego , It. fuoco , Fr. feu , Ro. foc , from Lat. focus ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese
9272-426: The Atlantic coast was erected at Soyo in the territory of the Kongo Kingdom. It is now Angola's northernmost town, apart from the Cabinda exclave . In 1575, the settlement of Luanda was established on the coast south of the Kongo Kingdom. In the 17th century the settlement of Benguela , even farther to the south. From 1580 to the 1820s, well over a million people from present-day Angola were exported as slaves to
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#17327657042139424-408: The Atlantic coastline, Agostinho Neto , the leader of the MPLA, declared the independence of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Angola as the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975, in accordance with the Alvor Accords . UNITA and FNLA together declared Angolan independence in Huambo . These differences reignited civil war between UNITA & FNLA and the MPLA, with the latter winning
9576-542: The CLSTP, forerunner of the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP). In the early 1970s, the MPLA's guerrilla activities were reduced, due to the fierce counter-insurgency campaigns of the Portuguese military . At the same time, internal conflicts caused the movement to temporarily split into three factions (Ala Presidencialista or Presidentialist Wing, Revolta Activa or Active Revolt, and Revolta do Leste or Eastern Revolt). By 1974/75, this situation had been overcome with renewed cooperation, but it scarred
9728-480: The Germanic sinths ('military expedition') and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths ('council'). Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques , Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia . Between
9880-407: The Lusophone diaspora , estimated at 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally,
10032-449: The MPLA government during the war. In November 1980, the MPLA had all but pushed UNITA into the bush, and the South African forces withdrew. The United States Congress barred further U.S. military involvement in the country, against the wishes of President Ronald Reagan , as the representatives feared getting into a situation similar to the Vietnam War . In 1976 the FNLA withdrew its troops to their bases in Zaire . Part of them joined
10184-531: The MPLA were responsible for between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in democide from 1975 to 1987. The MPLA government of Angola has been accused of human rights violations such as arbitrary arrest and detention and torture by international organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch . The MPLA government hired Samuels International Associates Inc in 2008 to help improve Angola's global image and "'facilitate' its meetings with senior U.S. officials". At present, major mass organizations of
10336-401: The MPLA-PT include the Angolan Women's Organization ( Organização da Mulher Angolana or O.M.A.), National Union of Angolan Workers ( União Nacional dos Trabalhadores Angolanos or U.N.T.A.), Agostinho Neto Pioneer Organization ( Organização de Pioneiros de Agostinho Neto or O.P.A.), and the Youth of MPLA ( Juventude do MPLA or J.M.P.L.A.). During both the Portuguese Colonial War and
10488-405: The Portuguese Government of the Estado Novo regime under Marcelo Caetano , the corporatist and authoritarian regime established by António de Oliveira Salazar that had ruled Portugal since the 1930s, was overthrown in the Carnation Revolution , a military uprising in Lisbon . In May of that year, the Junta de Salvação Nacional (the new revolutionary government of Portugal) proclaimed
10640-533: The Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the nine independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language : Angola , Brazil , Cape Verde , East Timor , Equatorial Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique , Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe . Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language. Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French ) in 2011, and in July 2014,
10792-411: The Portuguese cabinet on recommendation of the Overseas Minister. The governor-general had both executive and legislative authority. A Government Council advised the governor-general in the running of the province. The functional cabinet consisted of five secretaries appointed by the Overseas Minister on the advice of the governor. A Legislative Council had limited powers and its main activity was approving
10944-402: The Portuguese. In order to gain the confidence of the local rural populations, and to create conditions for their permanent and productive settlement in the region, the Portuguese authorities organised massive vaccination campaigns, medical check-ups, and water, sanitation and alimentary infrastructure as a way to better contribute to the economic and social development of the people and dissociate
11096-608: The Prime Minister's office in Lisbon, authority extended down to the most remote posts of Angola through a rigid chain of command . The authority of the government of Angola was residual, primarily limited to implementing policies already decided in Europe. In 1967, Angola also sent a number of delegates to the National Assembly in Lisbon. The highest official in the province was the governor-general, appointed by
11248-540: The Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa . Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation. Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between
11400-697: The Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, establishing socialist economic policies and a one-party state . Several thousand Cuban troops remained in the country to combat UNITA fighters and bolster the regime's security. When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union fell, the MPLA abandoned its Marxist–Leninist ideology. On its third congress in December 1990, it declared social democracy to be its official ideology. The MPLA emerged victorious in Angola's 1992 general election, but eight opposition parties rejected
11552-768: The War of Liberation , erupted in the North of the territory when UPA rebels based in Republic of the Congo massacred both white and black civilians in surprise attacks in the countryside. After visiting the United Nations , rebel leader Holden Roberto returned to Kinshasa and organised Bakongo militants. Holden Roberto launched an incursion into Angola on 15 March 1961, leading 4,000 to 5,000 militants. His forces took farms, government outposts, and trading centres, killing everyone they encountered. At least 1,000 whites and an unknown number of blacks were killed. Commenting on
11704-794: The agricultural, commercial and industrial town of Silva Porto . In 1970, the guerrilla movement decided to reinforce the Eastern Front by relocating troops and armament from the North to the East. In 1971, the Portuguese Armed Forces started a successful counter-insurgency military campaign that expelled the three guerrilla movements operating in the East to beyond the frontiers of Angola, the Frente Leste . The last guerrillas lost hundreds of soldiers and left tons of equipment behind, disbanding chaotically to neighbouring countries or, in some cases, joining or surrendering to
11856-423: The arbitration award of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy in 1905. During the period of Portuguese colonial rule of Angola, cities, towns and trading posts were founded, railways were opened, ports were built, and a Westernised society was being gradually developed, despite the deep traditional tribal heritage in Angola which the minority European rulers were neither willing nor interested in eradicating. From
12008-588: The areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation. Você , a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In a few Brazilian states such as Rio Grande do Sul , Pará, among others, você is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs tu followed by second person verbs, formal language retains
12160-528: The campaign, 3,529 were taken prisoner, 20% of whom were women and children, and imprisoned in concentration camps . Many died in captivity from undernourishment, violence and forced labor . Around 600 were sent to Sao Tome and Principe . Hundreds were also sent to a camp in Damba , where 26% died. In 1951, the Portuguese Colony of Angola became an overseas province of Portugal. In the late 1950s
12312-406: The company saw no benefit to mechanizing its operations, because local labour was so inexpensive. Work was done with shovels into the 1970s. Even the voluntary contract workers, or contratados, were exploited and had to build their own housing and often cheated of their wages. However Diamang, which was exempt from taxes and grew affluent in the 1930s also realized that in a remote area like Lunda,
12464-725: The country was accepted as a member of the CPLP. Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese ) and of several international organizations, including Mercosul , the Organization of Ibero-American States , the Union of South American Nations , the Organization of American States , the African Union ,
12616-770: The country when the MPLA took control of the government. In 1961, the MPLA joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), its fraternal party in Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde , in direct combat against the Portuguese empire in Africa. The following year, the expanded umbrella group Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP) replaced FRAIN, adding FRELIMO of Mozambique and
12768-561: The country, with an average altitude of between 1,200 and 1,600 metres. Angola's two highest peaks were located in these central highlands. They were Moco Mountain (2,620 m) and Meco Mountain (2,538 m). Most of Angola's rivers rose in the central mountains. Of the many rivers that drain to the Atlantic Ocean, the Cuanza and Cunene were the most important. Other major streams included the Kwango River , which drains north to
12920-449: The coup, Cuban forces stationed in Angola sided with the MPLA leadership against the coup organizers. Estimates for the number of Alves' followers killed by Cuban and MPLA troops in the aftermath range from 2,000 — 70,000 dead, with some placing the death toll at 18,000. After the violent internal conflict called Fractionism , the MPLA declared that it would follow the socialist, not the communist, model. But it did maintain close ties with
13072-490: The election as rigged. UNITA sent negotiators to Luanda, where they were killed. As a consequence, hostilities erupted in the city, and immediately spread to other parts of the country. Tens of thousands of UNITA and FNLA sympathizers were subsequently killed nationwide by MPLA forces, in what is known as the Halloween Massacre . The civil war resumed. The war continued until 2002, when UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi
13224-467: The end of the 20th century, being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects. Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary , but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and
13376-401: The entire territory, among them were some of the largest and oldest sports organizations of Angola, like Sporting Clube de Luanda , established in 1920 as a branch of Sporting Clube de Portugal . Several sportsmen, especially football players, that achieved wide notability in Portuguese sports were from Angola. José Águas , Rui Jordão and Jacinto João were examples of that, and excelled in
13528-472: The establishment of bases in present-day Morocco and the Gulf of Guinea . The Portuguese had Catholic beliefs and their military expeditions included from the very beginning the conversion of foreign peoples. In the 17th century, conflicting economic interests led to a military confrontation with the Kongo Kingdom. Portugal defeated the Kongo Kingdom in the Battle of Mbwila on 29 October, 1665, but suffered
13680-648: The establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu , for example, came kifumate > cafuné ('head caress') (Brazil), kusula > caçula ('youngest child') (Brazil), marimbondo ('tropical wasp') (Brazil), and kubungula > bungular ('to dance like
13832-532: The first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the Estudos Gerais , which later moved to Coimbra ) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially. In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries , the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas . By
13984-501: The form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing, and eventually speech, in Portuguese. Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela ("the last flower of Latium , naïve and beautiful"). Portuguese
14136-466: The formal você , followed by the third person conjugation. Conjugation of verbs in tu has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": tu viste? , in the traditional second person, tu viu? , in the third person, and tu visse? , in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person,
14288-530: The formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word cristão , "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India , Sri Lanka , Malaysia , and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period
14440-416: The government of Angola were from Portugal, but a few were Angolan. Nearly all members of the bureaucracy were from Portugal, as most Angolans did not have the necessary qualifications to obtain positions. The government of Angola, as it was in Portugal, was highly centralised. Power was concentrated in the executive branch , and all elections where they occurred were carried out using indirect methods. From
14592-544: The guerrillas as a whole during the Portuguese Colonial War , particularly in Portuguese Guinea , and suffered heavy casualties in the 13 years of conflict. Throughout the colonial war Portugal faced increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions from most of the international community . The war was becoming even more unpopular in Portuguese society due to its length and costs,
14744-602: The incursion, Roberto said, "this time the slaves did not cower". They massacred everything. The effective military in Angola were composed of approximately 6,500 men: 5,000 black Africans and 1,500 white Europeans sent from Portugal. After these events the Portuguese Government , under the dictatorial Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and later Marcelo Caetano , sent thousands of troops from Europe to perform counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. In 1963 Holden Roberto established
14896-559: The iron ore was shipped to Japan , West Germany , and the United Kingdom , and earned almost US$ 50 million a year in export revenue. During 1966–67 a major iron ore terminal was built by the Portuguese at Saco, the bay just 12 km North of Moçâmedes (Namibe). The client was the Compania Mineira do Lobito , the Lobito Mining Company, which developed an iron ore mine inland at Cassinga . The construction of
15048-406: The kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools. The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established você as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of tu has been expanding ever since
15200-557: The language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture and Celtic culture , part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages. In Latin, the Portuguese language is known as lusitana or (latina) lusitanica , after the Lusitanians , a pre-Celtic tribe that lived in the territory of present-day Portugal and Spain that adopted the Latin language as Roman settlers moved in. This
15352-465: The latter being noted for its production of foodstuffs and rubber. The colonial power, Portugal, becoming ever richer and more powerful, would not tolerate the growth of these neighbouring states and subjugated them one by one, enabling Portuguese hegemony over much of the area. During the period of the Iberian Union (1580–1640), Portugal lost influence and power and made new enemies. The Dutch ,
15504-436: The medieval language spoken in the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia , which the County of Portugal once formed part of. This variety has been retrospectively named Galician-Portuguese , Old Portuguese, or Old Galician by linguists. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from
15656-610: The mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities. The Portuguese expanded across South America, across Africa to the Pacific Ocean, taking their language with them. Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to
15808-521: The mine installations and a 300 km railway were commissioned to Krupp of Germany and the modern harbour terminal to SETH, a Portuguese company owned by Højgaard & Schultz of Denmark. The small fishing town of Moçâmedes hosted construction workers, foreign engineers and their families for two years. The Ore Terminal was completed on time within one year and the first 250,000 ton ore carrier docked and loaded with ore in 1967. The Portuguese discovered petroleum in Angola in 1955. Production began in
15960-549: The minority Swiss Romansh language in many equivalent words such as maun ("hand"), bun ("good"), or chaun ("dog"). The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that preserves the clitic case mesoclisis : cf. dar-te-ei (I'll give thee), amar-te-ei (I'll love you), contactá-los-ei (I'll contact them). Like Galician , it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: eu estivera (I had been), eu vivera (I had lived), vós vivêreis (you had lived). Romanian also has this tense, but uses
16112-1119: The most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: colchete / crochê ('bracket'/'crochet'), paletó ('jacket'), batom ('lipstick'), and filé / filete ('steak'/'slice'), rua ('street'), respectively, from French crochet , paletot , bâton , filet , rue ; and bife ('steak'), futebol , revólver , stock / estoque , folclore , from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore." Examples from other European languages: macarrão ('pasta'), piloto ('pilot'), carroça ('carriage'), and barraca ('barrack'), from Italian maccherone , pilota , carrozza , and baracca ; melena ('hair lock'), fiambre ('wet-cured ham') (in Portugal, in contrast with presunto 'dry-cured ham' from Latin prae-exsuctus 'dehydrated') or ('canned ham') (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured ( presunto cozido ) and dry-cured ( presunto cru )), or castelhano ('Castilian'), from Spanish melena ('mane'), fiambre and castellano. Portuguese belongs to
16264-462: The newspaper The Portugal News publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America . Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide. Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina , Uruguay and Paraguay , Portuguese
16416-610: The north of the country), Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people), Switzerland (550,000 in 2019, learning + mother tongue), Venezuela (554,000), and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey ). In some parts of former Portuguese India , namely Goa and Daman and Diu , the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Approximately 2% of
16568-591: The north, cassava , coffee , and cotton were grown; in the central highlands, maize was cultivated; and in the south, where rainfall is lowest, cattle herding was prevalent. In addition, there were large plantations run by Portuguese that produced palm oil , sugarcane , bananas , and sisal . These crops were grown by commercial farmers, primarily Portuguese, and by peasant farmers, who sold some of their surplus to local Portuguese traders in exchange for supplies. The commercial farmers were dominant in marketing these crops, however, and enjoyed substantial support from
16720-417: The number of Portuguese speakers is quickly increasing as Portuguese and Brazilian teachers are making great strides in teaching Portuguese in the schools all over the island. Additionally, there are many large Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities all over the world. According to estimates by UNESCO , Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to
16872-486: The only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese. Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay . Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela , Zambia ,
17024-400: The overseas province's Portuguese government in the form of technical assistance , irrigation facilities, and financial credit. They produced the great majority of the crops that were marketed in Angola's urban centres or exported for several countries. Fishing in Portuguese Angola was a major and growing industry. In the early 1970s, there were about 700 fishing boats , and the annual catch
17176-489: The overseas territories profited from this new educational developments and change in policy at Lisbon . Starting in the early 1950s, the access to basic, secondary and technical education was expanded and its availability was being increasingly opened to both the African indigenes and the ethnic Portuguese of the territories. Education beyond the primary level became available to an increasing number of black Africans since
17328-471: The party. The Carnation Revolution in Lisbon , Portugal in 1974 established a military government. It promptly ceased anti-independence fighting in Angola and agreed to transfer power to a coalition of three pro-independence Angolan movements. The coalition quickly broke down and the newly independent Angola broke into a state of civil war . Maintaining control over Luanda and the lucrative oil fields of
17480-464: The peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. Some Germanic words from that period are part of the Portuguese lexicon, together with place names, surnames, and first names. With the Umayyad conquest beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak
17632-640: The people of Macau, China are fluent speakers of Portuguese. Additionally, the language is being very actively studied in the Chinese school system right up to the doctorate level. The Kristang people in Malaysia speak Kristang , a Portuguese-Malay creole; however, the Portuguese language itself is not widely spoken in the country. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (in Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa , with
17784-502: The population from the guerrillas and their influence. On 31 December 1972, the Development Plan of the East ( Plano de Desenvolvimento do Leste ) included in its first stage 466 development enterprises (150 were completed and 316 were being built). Nineteen health centres had been built and 26 were being constructed. 51 new schools were operating and 82 were being constructed By 1972, after the Frente Leste , complemented by
17936-463: The population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively, with approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside. Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census. Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole
18088-478: The provincial budget. Finally, an Economic and Social Council had to be consulted on all draft legislation, and the governor-general had to justify his decision to Lisbon if he ignored its advice. In 1972, the Portuguese National Assembly changed Angola's status from an overseas province to an autonomous state with authority over some internal affairs; Portugal was to retain responsibility for defense and foreign relations. In 1973, elections were held in Angola for
18240-421: The region developed a slave trade with the help of local Imbangala and Mbundu peoples, who were notable slave hunters . Trade was mostly with the Portuguese colony of Brazil in the New World . Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the ports of Luanda and Benguela. By this time, Angola, a Portuguese colony, was in fact more like a colony of Brazil, another Portuguese colony. A strong Brazilian influence
18392-602: The same year that a law was passed to improve the working conditions of the largely unskilled native workforce, which was demanding more rights. In 1961, the Portuguese Government indeed abolished a number of basic legal provisions which discriminated against black people, like the Estatuto do Indigenato (Decree-Law 43: 893 of 6 September 1961). However, the conflict, conversely known as the Colonial War or
18544-501: The short-lived Republic of Cabinda unilaterally declared its independence. However, Cabinda was soon overpowered and re-annexed by the newly proclaimed People's Republic of Angola and never achieved international recognition . Portuguese explorers and settlers founded trading posts and forts along the coast of Africa beginning in the 15th century, and reached the Angolan coast in the 16th. Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda", and
18696-495: The slave trade was abolished in 1836. In 1844, Angola's ports were opened to legal foreign shipping. By 1850, Luanda was one of the most developed cities outside Mainland Portugal in the Portuguese Empire : it was full of trading companies, exporting (together with Benguela ) palm and peanut oil, wax, copal , timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, and cocoa, among many other products. Maize, tobacco, dried meat and cassava flour also began to be produced locally. The Angolan bourgeoisie
18848-406: The south where the white population was more established. All of these cities had European majorities from 50% to 60%. The capital of the territory was Luanda, officially called São Paulo de Luanda. Other cities and towns were: The exclave of Cabinda was to the north. Portuguese Congo (Cabinda) was established a Portuguese protectorate by the 1885 Treaty of Simulambuco . Sometime during
19000-491: The supply of workers was not inexhaustible and so the workers there were somewhat better treated than on some of the other mines or on the sugar plantations . On the whole, African laborers performed brutal work in poor conditions for very little pay that they were frequently cheated of. The American sociologist Edward Ross visited rural Angola in 1924 on behalf of the Temporary Slavery Commission of
19152-677: The territory of contemporary Angola lasted from the arrival of the explorer Diogo Cão in 1484 until the decolonization of the territory in November 1975. Over these five centuries, several different situations existed. When in 1484 Diogo Cão and other explorers reached the Kongo Kingdom at the end of the 15th century, its present territory comprised a number of separate peoples, some organized as kingdoms or tribal federations of varying sizes. The Portuguese were interested in trade, principally in slave trade . They therefore maintained
19304-484: The territory). The total population was around 5.9 million at that time. Luanda grew from a town of 61,208 with 14.6% of those inhabitants being white in 1940, to a major cosmopolitan city of 475,328 in 1970 with 124,814 Europeans (26.3%) and around 50,000 mixed race inhabitants. Most of the other large cities in Angola had around the same ratio of Europeans at the time, with the exception of Sá da Bandeira ( Lubango ), Moçâmedes ( Namibe ) and Porto Alexandre ( Tombua ) in
19456-401: The territory: Bicauri , Cameia , Cangandala , Iona , Mupa , Namibe and Quiçama . Iona was Angola's oldest and largest national park, it was proclaimed as a reserve in 1937 and upgraded to a national park in 1964. Angola was a territory that underwent a great deal of progress after 1950. The Portuguese government built dams, roads, schools, etc. There was also an economic boom that led to
19608-819: The underground Angolan Communist Party (PCA) merged with the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUAA) to form the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, with Viriato da Cruz , the president of the PCA, as secretary general. Other groups later merged into MPLA, such as the Movement for the National Independence of Angola (MINA) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Angola (FDLA). The MPLA's core base includes
19760-420: The upper hand. Agostinho Neto became the first president upon independence. He was succeeded after his death in 1979 by José Eduardo dos Santos . In 1974–1976, South Africa and Zaire intervened militarily in favor of FNLA and UNITA. The United States strongly aided the two groups. Cuba in turn intervened in 1975 to aid the MPLA against South African intervention, and the Soviet Union aided both Cuba and
19912-763: The urban centers. Two state-run university institutions were founded in Portuguese Africa in 1962 by the Portuguese Ministry of the Overseas Provinces headed by Adriano Moreira —the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola in Portuguese Angola and the Estudos Gerais Universitários de Moçambique in Portuguese Mozambique —awarding a wide range of degrees from engineering to medicine. In
20064-463: The vast countryside, which taught black Africans in Portuguese language and culture. As a consequence, each of the missions established its own school system, although all were subject to ultimate control and support by the Portuguese. In mainland Portugal, the homeland of the colonial authorities who ruled in the territory from the 16th century until 1975, by the end of the 19th century the illiteracy rates were at over 80 percent and higher education
20216-491: The vote. The largest opposition party, UNITA, secured 44% of the vote and 90 parliamentary seats. The tight race was the MPLA's worst showing at the polls in 30 years. However, nearly all opposition parties considered the result to be a fake. Portuguese language Portuguese ( endonym : português or língua portuguesa ) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from
20368-450: The votes and 129 out of 227 seats in parliament; however, eight opposition parties rejected the 1992 elections as rigged . In the next election , delayed until 2008 due to the civil war, the MPLA won 81.64% of the vote and 191 out of 220 parliamentary seats. In the 2012 legislative election , the party won 71.84% of the vote and 175 of 220 parliamentary seats. In the 2022 general election , MPLA won 124 parliamentary seats and about 51% of
20520-538: The west coast of Africa. After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal reestablished its authority over the lost territories of the Portuguese Empire . The Portuguese started to develop townships, trading posts, logging camps , and small processing factories. From 1764 onwards, there was a gradual change from a slave-based society to one based on production for domestic consumption and export. Portuguese Brazil became independent in 1822, and
20672-515: The world. Portuguese, being a language spread on all continents, has official status in several international organizations. It is one of twenty official languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO, the Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, French and English), and one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency . Portuguese is a working language in nonprofit organisations such as
20824-533: The world. The museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire, but restored and reopened in 2020. Portuguese is spoken by approximately 200 million people in South America, 30 million in Africa, 15 million in Europe, 5 million in North America and 0.33 million in Asia and Oceania. It is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal, Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%). Around 75% of
20976-498: The worsening of diplomatic relations with other United Nations members, and the role it played as a factor in the perpetuation of the Estado Novo regime. It was this escalation that would lead directly to the mutiny of members of the Portuguese armed forces in the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 – an event that would lead to the independence of all of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. On 25 April 1974,
21128-588: Was a historical colony of the Portuguese Empire (1575–1951), the overseas province Portuguese West Africa of Estado Novo Portugal (1951–1972), and the State of Angola of the Portuguese Empire (1972–1975). It became the independent People's Republic of Angola in 1975. In the 16th and 17th century Portugal ruled along the coast and engaged in military conflicts with the Kingdom of Kongo , but in
21280-572: Was also exercised by the Jesuits in religion and education. The philosophy of war gradually gave way to the philosophy of trade. The great trade routes and the agreements that made them possible were the driving force for activities between the different areas; warlike states become states ready to produce and to sell. In the Brazilian Highlands , Planalto or high plains, the most important states were those of Bié and Bailundo ,
21432-515: Was born. From the 1920s to the 1960s, strong economic growth, abundant natural resources and development of infrastructure, led to the arrival of even more Portuguese settlers from the metropole . Diamond mining began in 1912, when the first gems were discovered by Portuguese prospectors in a stream of the Lunda region , in the northeast. In 1917, the Companhia de Diamantes de Angola ( Diamang )
21584-424: Was charged with promoting and ensuring respect. There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many territories including Andorra (17.1%), Bermuda , Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census), France (1,625,000 people), Japan (400,000 people), Jersey , Luxembourg (about 25% of the population as of 2021), Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in
21736-485: Was granted the concession for diamond mining and prospecting in Portuguese Angola. Diamang had exclusive mining and labor rights in a huge concession in Angola and used this monopoly to become the colony's largest commercial operator and also its leading revenue generator. Its wealth was generated by African laborers, many of whom were forcibly recruited to work on the mines with Lunda's aggressive state-company recruitment methods (See also chivalo/ shibalo ). as late as 1947,
21888-407: Was killed. The two parties agreed to a ceasefire, and a plan was laid out for UNITA to demobilize and become a political party. More than 500,000 civilians were killed during the civil war. Human rights observers have accused the MPLA of "genocidal atrocities," "systematic extermination," "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity during the civil war." Political scientist Rudolph Rummel estimated that
22040-537: Was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende , in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin ,
22192-406: Was more than 300,000 tons. Including the catch of foreign fishing fleets in Angolan waters, the combined annual catch was estimated at over 1 million tons. The Portuguese territory of Angola was a net exporter of fish products, and the ports of Moçâmedes , Luanda and Benguela were among the most important fishing harbours in the region. Non-urban black African access to educational opportunities
22344-416: Was reserved for a small percentage of the population. 68.1 percent of mainland Portugal's population was still classified as illiterate by the 1930 census. Mainland Portugal's literacy rate by the 1940s and early 1950s was low by North American and Western European standards at the time. Only in the 1960s did the country make public education available for all children between the ages of six and twelve, and
22496-554: Was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs lh and nh , used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese , presumably by Gerald of Braga , a monk from Moissac , who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal . In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created
22648-585: Was the loss of intervocalic l and n , sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. salire ("to exit"), tenere ("to have"), catena ("jail"), Port. sair , ter , cadeia . When the elided consonant was n , it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. manum ("hand"), ranam ("frog"), bonum ("good"), Old Portuguese mão , rãa , bõo (Portuguese: mão , rã , bom ). This process
22800-462: Was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings -anem , -anum and -onem became -ão in most cases, cf. Lat. canis ("dog"), germanus ("brother"), ratio ("reason") with Modern Port. cão , irmão , razão , and their plurals -anes , -anos , -ones normally became -ães , -ãos , -ões , cf. cães , irmãos , razões . This also occurs in
22952-520: Was to retain responsibility for defense and foreign relations. However, the intent was by no means to grant Angolan independence, but was instead to "win the hearts and minds" of the Angolans, convincing them to remain permanently a part of an intercontinental Portugal. Renaming Angola (like Mozambique ) in November 1972 (in effect 1 January 1973) "Estado" (state) was part of an apparent effort to give
23104-434: Was very limited for most of the colonial period , most were not able to speak Portuguese and did not have knowledge of Portuguese culture and history . Until the 1950s, educational facilities run by the Portuguese colonial government were largely restricted to the urban areas. Responsibility for educating rural Africans were commissioned by the authorities to several Roman Catholic and Protestant missions based across
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