Paper short abstract:

In Mozambique, after a period where local languages were marginalized, more positive attitudes are currently arising. Despite this progress, Portuguese is still the prestige language, and Bantu languages show evidence of language loss and attrition.

Paper long abstract:

In Mozambique, we have witnessed important changes in the language situation over the last 30 years, which challenge some generalizations and predictions previously made by linguists. These changes concern socio-economic and socio-cultural levels, as well as the linguistic competence in local African languages and Portuguese.

After a period where local languages were marginalized, more positive attitudes are currently arising and expanding. This upgrading and legitimization of local languages can be observed in different domains: in education and cultural practices as well as in the labour market.

Despite this progress, competence in Portuguese is still an essential condition for social and economic upward mobility. As a consequence of the privileged status of Portuguese, Bantu languages are not transmitted to the next generation and/or the competence in these languages show evidence of language attrition. Therefore, although these languages are currently the mother tongues of more than 85% of the population, this percentage does not correspond to a homogeneous speech community.

The fact that the number of native speakers of Portuguese has increased from 1.2% (1980) to 10.7% (2007) also represents a new challenge for linguists, who must now study the competence in Portuguese of a new generation, whose parents are typically L2 speakers of this language.

In this paper, after reviewing studies on the language situation in Mozambique, I present arguments and statistical data on the issues addressed above.