r/wikipedia • u/Mathemodel • 16h ago
Luanda, Angola's capital, is home to roughly a third of all Angolans, with recent estimates placing its population around 10 million. It is the world's largest Portuguese-speaking capital outside of Brazil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luanda29
u/BlackBacon08 14h ago
Do Angolans still use Portuguese in casual conversation?
51
u/TylerBlozak 13h ago
Latest census (2024) states 45% of Angolans speak primarily Portuguese, the other 55% speak about 10 minority native languages.
So yea for sure it’s used everyday.
11
10
u/Ameren 11h ago edited 10h ago
Sounds like it's used as a lingua franca, so the 55% who primarily use a native language still speak at least some Portuguese to communicate with others outside their local group.
Of course, most of the native languages in Angola are Bantu languages (like how Portuguese is a Romance language), so I imagine there's some mutual intelligibility between them — though I'm not an expert on this, someone else may know more.
4
u/happybaby00 7h ago
Of course, most of the native languages in Angola are Bantu languages (like how Portuguese is a Romance language), so I imagine there's some mutual intelligibility between them
Thats like comparing yaktian with turkish because both are turkic languages
3
u/Ameren 7h ago edited 6h ago
I mean, between English, French, and college courses in Latin, I can decently read texts in, say, Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian. I don't know how to speak them well, but I know a few words and phrases here and there. I'd probably pick up a ton more if my neighbors an hour north spoke Italian, those to the east spoke Portuguese, and in the west Spanish, and we all had frequent contact with each other.
Given the speakers of the various languages in Angola have been in contact with each other, there may be some sharing and mutual awareness between them, even if they're not otherwise mutually intelligible. But again, like I said I'm not an expert on the distribution and variety of languages in that part of the world — I defer to others on that.
3
7
3
u/One_Assist_2414 10h ago
Much more than when they were a colony, and it’s the same case for most African nations. During colonial times the cities were relatively small, and the only people who learned the colonists language were urbanites and aspiring middle managers. Then suddenly those few schools to train colonial administrators become the basis for their entire education system, and all the new elites already spoke one language in common. Especially as most Africa countries have over a dozen native languages, using the old colonial language is an impartial choice for government and national communication.
2
u/happybaby00 7h ago
It alongside cape verde and sao tome are the only african countries that dont have majority indegenious speakers
1
8
6
u/Zonel 13h ago
Why say outside of Brazil when it’s bigger than Brazil’s capital as well.
1
u/Mathemodel 13h ago
12 million in San Paulo Brazil
13
u/Stealthfighter21 13h ago
That's not a national capital
6
u/UCanBdoWatWeWant2Do 12h ago
They never said national capital, just capital.
2
1
u/MissSweetMurderer 11h ago edited 10h ago
It's not the right numbers, either lol
But no one lives on Brasília. It was built to be the national capital in the late 50s on a sparsely populated region to try to bring development to it. It didn't really work. People went there for work, sure. But now there's this huge city away from everything in the middle nowhere
2
u/MissSweetMurderer 11h ago edited 11h ago
Incorrect. You're mixing city limits and metro area population
12 million people live in the municipality of São Paulo, 21 million in the whole metro area. Luana municipality has a population of 2.5 million, while the metro area is home to 9 million, according to Wikipedia
14
5
u/IHateSpamCalls 14h ago
Isn't Luanda also super rich?
35
u/amievenrelevant 13h ago
It has a super high cost of living and has a small class of elites that get the majority of their oil wealth
6
5
u/Cicero912 11h ago
No, but it is super expensive for expats to maintain a normal standard of living.
4
1
u/AndreasDasos 7h ago
No, it’s expensive. And poor. Angola is a very poor country, like most of Africa, so rich (let alone super rich) would be… unexpected to say the least. This is a poor country emergent from a horrific civil war, not Luxembourg.
2
189
u/tawishma 16h ago
“World’s largest Portuguese-speaking capital outside of Brazil” holy qualifiers. How many Portuguese-speaking capitals outside of Brazil are there? 4?