|
Portuguese is spoken in a number of African countries and is the official language in six African states: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea. There are Portuguese-speaking communities in most countries of Southern Africa, a mixture of Portuguese settlers and Angolans and Mozambicans who left their countries during the civil wars. A rough estimate has it that there are about 14 million people who use Portuguese as their sole mother tongue across Africa, 〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.bbportuguese.com/the-future-of-portuguese.html )〕 but depending on the criteria applied, the number might be considerably higher, since many Africans speak Portuguese as a second laguage, in contries like Angola and Mozambique, where Portuguese is an official language, but also in countries like South Africa and Senegal, thanks to migrants coming from Portuguese speaking countries. Some staticis data base claim over 30 million Portuguese speakers in the Continent. Like French and English, Portuguese has become a post-colonial language in Africa and one of the working languages of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Portuguese co-exists in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Principe with Portuguese-based creoles (Upper Guinea and Gulf of Guinea Creoles), and in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau with autochthonous African languages (mainly Niger–Congo family). In Africa, Portuguese experiences pressure and possibly competition from French and English. Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe are all members of La Francophonie and Mozambique is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and has observer status at La Francophonie. Conversely, Equatorial Guinea has announced its decision to introduce Portuguese as its third official language, in addition to Spanish and French, and has made a request for membership in the CPLP. Mauritius and Senegal have also joined the CPLP as associate observer members. ==Geographic distribution== The nation-states with Portuguese as an official language in Africa are referred to by the acronym PALOP () and include the following: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Portuguese is a primarily urban language having a reduced presence in rural areas, except for in Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, where the language is more widespread. South Africa also has approximately 300,000 speakers of Portuguese, primarily settlers from Madeira and white Angolans and Mozambicans who emigrated from 1975 onwards, following the independence of the former colonies. The civil wars in Angola and Mozambique also resulted in more recent migrations of refugees (some of whom speak Portuguese) to neighbouring countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa. Other migrations involved returning Afro-Brazilian ex-slaves to places such as Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Angola and Mozambique. There are also some returning white Portuguese African refugees and their descendants from Brazil, Portugal, and South Africa to their former African controlled territories, mostly to Angola (up to 500,000) and Mozambique (350,000), and most importantly, there is the arrival of Portuguese post-colonial settlers in Angola in the recent years, because of Portugal's economic interests and the Angolan economic boom. Senegal has its own Lusophone connection with a significant community of Cape Verdeans in Dakar and speakers of Guinea-Bissau Creole in its southern region of Casamance, which was once part of the Portuguese colonial empire. Portuguese is taught as a foreign language throughout the country.〔(Over 17,000 Senegalese learning Portuguese ) 〕 In 2008, Senegal became an observer nation in the CPLP. Equatorial Guinea, at one point a Portuguese colony, is home to a Portuguese-based Creole and is a member nation in the CPLP. Portuguese is now an official language in Equatorial Guinea, although it is practically not used. Mauritius, a multilingual island in the Indian Ocean, has strong cultural ties with Mozambique. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to encounter the island. In 2006, Mauritius joined the CPLP as an associate member. As a fellow member of the SADC, Zambia has introduced Portuguese language instruction in its primary school system, partially due to the presence of a large Angolan population there.〔(Zambia to introduce Portuguese into school curriculum )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Portuguese in Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|