Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to contribute to understanding what is the present role of the Portuguese language in different regions of Angola. Besides being the official language of the country, it is mother tongue for a considerable number of speakers, but it is second language for most of the population.

Paper long abstract:

Portuguese in Angola

The Portuguese arrive in Angola with the colonization of the territory that is today Angola,

in the late fifteenth century, 1482. With the landing of the first navigators at the mouth of the Congo, a political scenario of the colonization of the current Angolan territory, which by the way, came to be extended until the middle of the twentieth century, therefore, 1975.

Since Portuguese was the language of colonization, there were policies in their teaching and consequent expansion, giving rise to the process of regression of Angolan African languages, with a view to cultural and linguistic assimilation of everything that was Portuguese (language, politics and culture) and the de-assimilation of African cultures of Angola, creating the status of "assimilated" for those who whoever adhered to the Portuguese language and culture and denied his African identity. The people came to have the status of assimilated, consequently enjoyed some benefits with its new status.

The inherited burden of colonization (assimilation of Portuguese and de-assimilation of

languages of Angola, mostly bantu), is still visible, as a result of the Portuguese even with the independence of Angola, have seen their status as a language recognized, on the one hand due to multilingualism and the cultural diversity of Angola, of the other part; because it was the language that had been adopted for centuries. This paper aims to contribute to understanding what is the present role of the Portuguese language in different regions of Angola: L1, L2, L3?