Languages ​​of Angola

The languages ​​of Angola are predominantly Bantu and Portuguese , with small minorities speaking Khoisan languages .

Portuguese is the only official language. Due to the cultural, social and political mechanisms that go back to colonial history, the number of Portuguese speakers is large and growing. A 1996 study of statistics by the Angolan National Institute found that Portuguese is native to 26% of the population. However, it is likely that this figure is somewhat exaggerated, given the inaccessibility to rural areas where Portuguese is less spoken. It is spoken as a second language by many more throughout the country, and the younger urban generation is moving towards the dominant and exclusive use of Portuguese. In the enclave of the province of Cabinda , where many speak French the same or better than Portuguese. Congo , who were exiled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, usually speak French and Lingala better than Portuguese and Congo.

After gaining independence, the government chose 6 Bantu languages, which will develop as national languages. These are the southern Mbundu , the northern Mbundu , Congo , Chokwe , Kwanyama (oshivambo and Mbunda, the last of which has been replaced by the Ngangela language, which is a general term for peoples east of the central part of the highlands). Umbunda is the most populous Bantu language spoken by a third of the population. Kimbunda is spoken around the capital of Luanda. Congo is spoken in the north of the country, including in the Cabinda enclave.

Spoken Khoisan languages ​​consist of two families: Khung and Khoe, although the latter is spoken by several hundred people. Most Khoisans fled to South Africa after the end of the civil war. The extinct quadi may have been a distant relative of khoi, and the quisi is completely unknown; their carriers were neither Khoisan nor Bantu.

Several Cubans who remained in Angola as a result of Cuban military intervention (or the development of cooperation in the field of education and health) spoke Spanish, but their descendants (almost all of them from mixed marriages) did not reach this point. Africans from Mali, Nigeria, Senegal speak English and French, and their native African languages, and at least some have studied Portuguese. A (very few) - the number of Angolans and Lebanese, a generation of speakers of Arabic and / or French. The foreign language, which the Angolans mainly learned, is English, but among the Congo people (in the north-west and in Cabinda), French is often more important. Due to the increase in Angolan-Chinese kinship, the Chinese community of about 300,000 people currently uses Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese).