1

5th Group
Amorim José Salazar
Jaime Rodomo Sofrino
Nurja Agostinho
Paulo Juvêncio Machaieie
Viriato Mateus Matosse

The Sociolinguistics Situation of Mozambique

English Language Teaching Course

Universidade Púnguè
Chimoio
2021
 3

5th Group
Amorim José Salazar
Jaime Rodomo Sofrino
Nurja Agostinho
Paulo Juvêncio Machaieie
Viriato Mateus Matosse

The Sociolinguistics Situation of Mozambique

English Language Teaching Course

Research work for evaluation purposes of

Sociolinguistics subject of forth year 2021 to
be submitted to department of Linguistics
and Translation, under the guidance of the
lecturer,

MBA. Milton Conqui

Universidade Púnguè
Chimoio
2021
 4

Content
Chapter I – Introduction........................................................................................................................4

1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................4

1.2. Objectives.......................................................................................................................................4

1.2.1. General....................................................................................................................................4

1.2.2. Specific....................................................................................................................................4

1.3. Methodology...............................................................................................................................4

Chapter II – Theoretical Framework....................................................................................................5

2. The Sociolinguistic situation of Mozambique.................................................................................5

2.1. Basic concepts...............................................................................................................................5

2.2. Mozambique language status......................................................................................................5

2.2.1. Portuguese: The Official Language Of Mozambique.............................................................5

2.2.2. Bantu Languages Spoken In Mozambique.............................................................................6

2.3. Language & Culture.......................................................................................................................7

2.4. The historical aspects in the context of language diversity in Mozambique..........................7

2.4.1. The restoration of African languages.......................................................................................9

2.5. The management of multilingualism in Mozambique..............................................................10

2.6. Mozambican Portuguese: Variation...........................................................................................12

2.7. Pidgin and Creoles: Status.........................................................................................................13

2.8. The English language..................................................................................................................13

2.9. BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE..........................................................................13

Chapter III – Conclusion.....................................................................................................................15

3. Conclusion........................................................................................................................................15

3.1 Bibliography References..............................................................................................................16

 5

Chapter I – Introduction

1. Introduction
This work analyses historical and contemporary sociolinguistic dynamics behind the
genesis and diversity of Mozambican languages. Focusing on the situation of contact
between Portuguese and African languages, it is shown how the privileged status
ascribed to Portuguese has contributed to increasing the proportion of Mozambican
citizens who can speak this language, including as a first language. This work is going
also to explain the language variation and show the attitudes toward the English
language. It is organized in three major chapters, the first named introduction will
introduce the work presenting introductory aspects, the second named theoretical
framework will do the development of the work, and the last chapter named conclusion
is going to present the concluding remarks of the work.

1.2. Objectives
1.2.1. General
 To comprehend the sociolinguistic situation of Mozambique
1.2.2. Specific
 To explain Mozambique language status;
 To bring the historical context of diversity of languages in Mozambique;
 To describe management of multilingualism in Mozambique.
 To explain the current status of Portuguese in the country
 To indicate the people attitude toward English language

1.3. Methodology
For the accomplishment of this piece of research paper has been used physical material
such as books as well as electronic sources such as PDFs and internet pages.
 6

Chapter II – Theoretical Framework

2. The Sociolinguistic situation of Mozambique
2.1. Basic concepts
a) Language is tool mused by human being for their communication.
b) Society is the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered
community.
c) Sociolinguistics - the study of sociological aspect of language.
d) Bantu means belonging or relating to a group of peoples in central and
southern Africa
e) Culture is a particular society or civilization, especially considered in relation to its
beliefs, way of life, or art.

2.2. Mozambique language status

Mozambique is a multilingual country with more than 40 languages spoken by
approximately 99% of the population. Portuguese is a official language, considered as
the language of national unity (Simons & Fennig, 2017) cited by USAID1.

According to Index Mundi (2020)2 based on the 2017 national census, the Mozambican
languages are distributed in number of speakers (as native language) as follow:
Makhuwa 26.1%, Portuguese (official) 16.6%, Tsonga 8.6%, Nyanja 8.1, Sena 7.1%,
Lomwe 7.1%, Chuwabo 4.7%, Ndau 3.8%, Tswa 3.8%, other Mozambican languages
11.8%, other 0.5%, unspecified 1.8%.

2.2.1. Portuguese: The Official Language Of Mozambique

Over 50% of the Mozambican population is Portuguese-speaking. From 1498 to 1975,
the region that is now Mozambique's territory was called Portuguese Mozambique. The
long-term use of Portuguese made Mozambique keep the language after gaining self-
rule. The use of the language is particularly visible in the urban regions where 80% of
the residents of urban Mozambique are Portuguese speakers. The more educated
Mozambican people are fluent in the language. The varieties of the language as used in
Mozambique make up the unique Mozambican Portuguese. Portuguese allows
1
USAID VAMOS LER! Language Mapping Study in Mozambique: Final Report, p.12, 2017
2
https://www.indexmundi.com/mozambique/languages.html
 7

Mozambicans, regardless of ethnicity, to communicate and many Mozambican

Portuguese-speakers speak it with accents of the different African languages found in
the country.

2.2.2. Bantu Languages Spoken In Mozambique

The overwhelming majority of Mozambican indigenous languages are recognized as

Bantu languages. According to KIPROP (2017)3, the most popular of these languages is
the Makhuwa language, used by four million Makua people. These people inhabit the
region north of the Zambezi River and more specifically the Nampula Province whose
demographics is completely ethnically Makua. Makhuwa is among the languages of the
Niger-Congo family. The Central Makhuwa dialect has about 3 million speakers, while
the Chirima and Meeto have 1.5 million and 1.3 million users respectively. Tsonga is
another prominent Bantu language in Mozambique. Tsonga includes loan words from
Portuguese, isiZulu, English, and Afrikaans. Tsonga is native to the Tsonga ethnic
community and it is mutually intelligible with Ronga and Tswa. Sena is used in the
Mozambican provinces of Manica, Tete, Zambezia, and Sofala. There are over 1 million
Sena speakers including those who use it as a second language. The Sena dialects of
Podzo and Rue are divergent. The Ndau language has 1.4 million speakers residing in
central Mozambique as well as southeastern Zimbabwe. The main variants of Ndau in
Mozambique are named Danda and Shanga. Ndau enjoys legal status in neighboring
Zimbabwe. Lomwe is another of Mozambique's indigenous languages with over one
million speakers. The Ronga language is mostly heard south of Maputo, and it has
approximately 650,000 speakers. Ronga's alphabet makes use of that of Tsonga which
was introduced by Portuguese settlers and Methodist missionaries. Other native
Mozambican languages include Zulu, Chopi, Makonde, Kimwani, Chuwabu, and Ronga.
Mozambique is among the African States which use Swahili. KIPROP (2017)

2.3. Language & Culture

3
Joseph Kiprop September 1 2017, What Languages Are Spoken In Mozambique?
 8

The culture of Mozambique is in large part derived from its history of Bantu, Swahili,
and Portuguese rule, and has expanded since independence in 1975. The majority of
its inhabitants are black Africans. Its main language is Portuguese. The cultures and
traditions of Islam, Swahili and Bantu speakers co-exist harmoniously in the country.
Ethnic groups makes up a large percentage of the population, and include Shangaan,
Chokwe, Manyoka, Sena and Makua.
Other cultures include Europeans, Euro-Africans and Indians. Even through the country
boasts a variety of languages, social relationships, artistic traditions, Mozambicans
share a common culture in their love and expression of song, poetry, dynamic dance
and performance.4

2.4. The historical aspects in the context of language diversity in Mozambique

European settlements on the southern-most shores of what is now Mozambique began
in 1498 but it is only from the following century that Europeans colonists came in
contact with Bantu speakers. This led to the first attempts at the identification,
delimitation and instrumentalisation of the languages the settlers came in contact with.
Much like elsewhere in the continent, missionaries played a major part in that process.
Initially motivated by their call to translate the Scripture, missionaries tirelessly set to
study the languages and soon coined spelling systems, compiled lexicons and
dictionaries, and elaborated grammars, not to mention Biblical translation.

The narration surrounding the arrival of Portuguese the coloniser of Mozambique,

introduced Portuguese as language that would undermine and conquer indigenous
African languages. It should be borne in mind that the linguistic landscape at the time
was very different. Part of that comes from the fluidity of the flow of people from one
place to another, which among other reasons was necessitated by such occurrences as
marriages that brought different linguistic communities into contact. This was well before
1884 where the scramble for Africa culminated in Berlin (NGUGI, 1996). It was in Berlin

4
Siyabona Africa, 2021 in https://www.mozambique.co.za/About_Mozambique-travel/mozambique-
culture.html
 9

that borders were created, mapping the African landscape into different parches where
people of the same tribe suddenly found themselves alienated from each other. Though
the Berlin conference was at the continental scale, newly formed countries were still to
embark on an even more brutal mapping. In South Africa, demarcations were drawn on
the basis of linguistic differences.

Knowledge of the Portuguese language was the main instrument of integration in the
urban environment. This means that “without the right of linguistic capital, you simply do
not get access to the spaces where other important resources are produced and
circulated, and you do not get to have anything to say about what is valuable and what
is not” (HELLER, 2011: 37).

Indigenous education was located away from the city centre and was designed to
gradually transform the primitive indigenous population of the overseas provinces to the
civilized life of educated people. This segregationist colony policy, which limited a large
number of Mozambicans, awoke the revolt of nationalist movements seeking the
country’s independence.

It should also be mentioned that the creation of these homelands along linguistic lines
was aimed at fostering animosity between native people. Each was meant to see the
other as different. This was very conducive for a divide-and-rule strategy. Portuguese is
therefore well set to appear as unifying languages among such diverse language
groups where none would want to be dominated by the other. This was a psychological
blatant lie as indigenous languages had long coexisted and had enriched each other
freely without any threat of dominating or being dominated.
The segregationist policy was also extensive at the level of education, which was
organized as two distinct subsystems: an "official" for the children of the colonialists or
‘assimilados’ and another for the remaining "indigenous.
At the time of the Colonial War, FRELIMO decided to use Portuguese as a lingua franca
among Mozambicans, who were of different origins. This is to maintain unity and
because in Mozambique there are several tribes that speak different languages. In
 10

1975, the government adopted the Portuguese language as its official language. Thus,
Portuguese was adopted almost without problems by Mozambique (after independence)
because of FRELIMO, which had used it at the beginning of the struggle for
independence. Consequently, Portuguese was used in public domains. (LOPES, L.
2012:15)
When Mozambique gained independence in 1975, “the percentage of speakers of
Portuguese was very low (about 25%), the majority of which were speakers of
Portuguese as a second language with only a small percentage claiming the language
as their mother tongue” (GONÇALVES, 2005:187). Despite this, the new government
led by FRELIMO adopted a policy whereby Portuguese was declared the official
language and the language of national unity, thus, the language truly became a
language of prestige (GONÇALVES, 2001: 978).

2.4.1. The restoration of African languages

The first publications of note on Southern-African native languages date back to the
early 19th century; by the end of the century, an African-language literature and press
was blooming, centred around the main missions stations. The missions promoted the
use of local varieties in native education, which constituted then one of their preserves.

The immediate response by the Mozambican government at the dawn of democracy, to

introduce bilingualism education the previously marginalised indigenous Mozambican
languages should therefore be understood in the same reality that however dominant
the European language is are the linguistic map of Mozambique , the country is a
multilingual one and the constitution ought to recognise that. In fact, the language policy
is towards the promotion of multilingualism and not just the recognition. That promotion
envisages the development of indigenous languages to the same level of functioning in
education, commerce, science, technology etc. as Portuguese. Research, on the
contrary, suggests that the development of indigenous languages is reaching a
stalemate if not retrogressing.
 11

2.5. The management of multilingualism in Mozambique

Although Portuguese is official language, in education, it operates from the first year of
schooling to doctoral level at university. The choice obviously would default on one’s
home language a luxury that a native Mozambican child could only dream of then and
unfortunately now. The luxury that is increasingly becoming alien to the Mozambican
child as the hegemony of Portuguese language unleashes its subtleties. Whatever the
future, nonetheless, African languages would still remain a defining factor in the
multilingual state of Mozambique.

Colonial governance in Mozambique was made on the basis of policies that

marginalized the majority of the black population (BOLETIM DA REPÚBLICA, 1976: 2).
The Portuguese government did not give any recognition to the more than 20 local
African languages spoken by black Mozambicans, and these languages were prohibited
to be spoken in public, chiefly in the cities.
Mozambicans are really forcing themselves to speak a correct Portuguese and are
trying to preserve it in a state very close to the norm of Portuguese, because only in that
way will it be possible to attach the objectives planned for/in its adoption in the process
of national unity.

Mozambique excluded the use of local African languages in official and urban
environments because these languages were connoted with tribalism, divisionism
and retrogression, and they would not be functional and formally adequate for building
a modern nation. This political decision shows that “the linkage of language to ethnicity
and nationalism, language attitudes, and language planning and development was
decisive for the maintenance of Portuguese as the urban and the official language.
Transnational and operational reasons have contributed to the choice of Portuguese in
detriment to local African languages (GONÇALVES, 2010). Language here becomes
the ideological control mechanism, which establishes state hegemony (MOYO,
2003:29). Portuguese assumed the role of a new identity marker that linked its speakers
indexically to progressand modernization. Here, as pointed by SILVERSTEIN (1998:
 12

130), we can see that “language, like any social semiotic, is indexical in its most
essential modality”.
However, what is less understood is how the very same temporal discourses that
excluded African languages from modernity are equally determining of how these
languages are perceived in the more pluralist and multicultural situation of
contemporary Mozambique. In the early 1990, with the democratization of the country,
local African languages won “new orders of visibility” (KERFOOT AND HYLTENSTAM,
2017) characterized by the increasing use of these once marginalized languages in
official contexts and urban spaces. However, despite this, Portuguese continues, in fact,
to be the messianic language of the state, being associated with the rhetoric of
modernity, anti traditionalism, urbanization and co-optation of elites, clearly articulating
a historical continuity with colonial Portuguese. While local African languages may have
won extended recognition, they remain inserted in historicist discourses associated with
the past, with traditional values, tribalism, regionalism, and at times even
conservationism, as well as features of Mozambican heritage. This post-independence
ideology justifies that postcolonial states are "first and foremost products of colonialism"
(AHLUWALIA, 2001: 71).

Different alignments of language temporalities that define different understandings of

multilingualism as for particular purposes of governance” (STROUD and GUISSEMO,
2015: 9), just as it happened in Mozambique where the local African languages went
through several stages before gaining some recognition by the government and,
therefore, subsequent use and visibility in the public spaces traditionally dominated by
Portuguese.

It can be say that currently in Mozambique notions of temporality and visibility through
which local African languages and Portuguese have figured are part of the narrative of
modernity and progress (STROUD and GUISSEMO, 2015: 18). This study also makes it
clear that the challenges of democracy, as well as those of globalization bring a new
ideology of management of multilingualism in which the local African languages play an
important role in the development.
 13

Therefore, these languages need to have a greater space for autonomy through
engagement in acts of Linguistic Citizenship (see, for example, STROUD 2001, 2009)
and must not always appear as shadows of the Portuguese language. As happened
earlier in Malawi, local African languages should be recognized in Mozambique for the
crucial role they play in national development, at various levels, as languages of
instruction, as well as for communication in agricultural, health and home craft activities
that affect people’s lives in rural areas (see MOYO, 2003: 35).

2.6. Mozambican Portuguese: Variation

Mozambique is a country where multiple languages are in contact with one another, and
where social context and social factors such as age, gender, education, and occupation,
govern the manner and extent to which they are used. Moreover, it is also a country
where indigenized varieties of the vehicular Portuguese language are emerging among
growing L1 and L2 speakers population. (S. ASHBY & S. BARBOSA 2011:4)

Bantu phonological constraints exert varying of interferences in the varieties of

Portuguese spoken in Mozambique, leading to different phonology realization in
different parts and peculiar vocabulary incorporated to it.

S. ASHBY & S. BARBOSA (2011) argue that, the different MP varieties exhibit varying
forms and degrees of Bantu substratum interference, including the monothongization of
diphthongs, vowel and consonant sequence simplification, glide epenthesis, syncope,
apocope, apheresis, the voicing dissimilation and dissimilation and juxtaposition of
consonants, aspirated devoiced consonants in word-final position, whistled fricatives,
palatization and denasalization. Individually and overall, these descriptions offer
testimony of the phenomena that characterize different spoken varieties of Mozambican
Portuguese and contribute toward a more balanced understanding of the linguistic
variation that sets MP apart from other varieties of Portuguese. (S. ASHBY & S.
BARBOSA (2011:25)

GONÇALVES (1996) apud HENRIKSEN (2015:3) points out that Mozambican

Portuguese is characterised by the coining of new words, as well as extensive
borrowings not only from the Bantu languages, but also from English; although it still
 14

draws on the European Portuguese, new semantic values and syntactic properties have
developed.

2.7. Pidgin and Creoles: Status

Pereira (2006) apud Timbane (2018:27) clarifies that in Mozambique there were no
creoles because (a) African (mother) languages were used in everyday life in all
contexts, in addition to specific situations of communication with the Portuguese; (b)
there were many intermediaries bilinguals as missionaries and merchants; (c) the
territorial extension is vast, given the small number of its (Portuguese) speakers
compared to the number of speakers of Bantu languages; (d) the stability and isolation
of rural groups and little mobility strengthened the Bantu languages among
autochthonous populations (Pereira, 2006 apud Timbane 2018). There were no pidgins
or creoles, that is, the Mozambicans did not need an emergency code because there
was insistence on the use of the Bantu languages.

2.8. The English language

As pointed out by HENRIKSEN (2015:6), attitudes to the English language are very
positive in Mozambique, due to the fact that it is the most spoken foreign language
taught and learned in the Country, the main working language at the level of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Commonwealth of Nations, the
African Union (AU), of which Mozambique is part of and also the main Lingua Franca
used by other international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN).

2.9. BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

According to the Mozambican MINEDH, primary education will become fully bilingual,
starting in 2017, and will include 16 Mozambican languages, followed by Portuguese as
a foreign language. The timing of the introduction of Portuguese-only instruction is not
uniformly implemented and is not yet finalized. For the past 12 years, as mentioned by
USAID VAMOS LER! (2017:12), some versions of bilingual education programming
have been carried out in parts of Mozambique, which means that some materials
 15

development and teacher training has already been completed. Thus far, the program
has been limited to about 16 languages (chosen through political processes, and due to
the fact that those languages already had orthographies – although some of the
orthographies are still under review for finalization) in around 700 schools, including 128
schools in Nampula and Zambezia provinces.
According to Mr. Vicente Bisqué from the Curriculum and Research branch of the
MINEDH, there is considerable demand for L1 education among local stakeholders, and
use of L1s is growing in radio and in local politics. However, the current bilingual
program faces major challenges in its ability to scale up due to the stress it puts on the
education management systems, the need for the development of local language
materials and teacher training for bilingual education, and high rates of student
absenteeism. The main structure of the current bilingual program is as follows:
 Grades 1–3: Language of instruction in L1 (reading and mathematics are taught
in L1)
 Grades 1–3: Introduction to oral Portuguese, physical education classes in
Portuguese (to increase oral vocabulary knowledge of verbs and other key
words)
 Grade 3: Introduction to reading and writing in Portuguese
 Grade 4: Transition to LOI in Portuguese
 Grades 4–7: Continued teaching of L1 as a subject. (USAID VAMOS LER! 2017,
p.12)
 16

Chapter III – Conclusion

3. Conclusion
As the final remarks on this paper it can be assumed that Mozambique is a multilingual
country since there are more than 40 languages spoken in here. Portuguese is the
official language, considered as the language of national unity. The emergence of
Portuguese as the official language was not a huge problem because intending to
maintain unity at the time of the Colonial War, FRELIMO decided to use Portuguese as
a lingua franca among Mozambicans and in 1975, the government adopted the
Portuguese language as its official language with ease.

Currently the Bantu languages, that are indeed governing the Mozambican inhabitants
since so long ago, exert an influence on the Portuguese spoken in Mozambique, this
leads to different spoken varieties of Mozambican Portuguese and contribute to set
Mozambican Portuguese apart from other varieties of Portuguese. The extensive
borrowings not only from the Bantu languages, but also from English bring new
semantic values and syntactic properties to the Portuguese.

Regarding to the status of English language in Mozambique, it has to be said that the
attitudes toward it are very positive in Mozambique. And it makes sense since the
country can be described as an island as it is surrounded by only English speaking
countries.
 17

3.1 Bibliography References

1. AHLUWALIA, Pal (2001). Politics and Postcolonial Theory. African Inflections.
London: Routledge.
2. BOLETIM DA REPÚBLICA (1976). Suplemento, I(14), Quinta-feira, 5 de
Fevereiro de 1976.
3. GONÇALVES, Perpétua (2010). A génese do Português de Moçambique.
Lisboa: INCM.
4. HENRIKSEN, Sarita. Globalisation, Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in
Mozambique. CS-DC’15 World e-conference, Sep 2015, Tempe, United States.
ffhal-01291121f
5. KERFOOT, Caroline and HYLTENSTAM, Kenneth (2017). Introduction:
Entanglement and KIPROP, Joseph, What Languages Are Spoken In
Mozambique?, September 1 2017
6. LOPES, Lívia (2012), O Português como língua franca: O caso de
Moçambique; Dissertação Língua e Cultura portuguesa Faculdade de Letras,
Universidade de Utreque
7. MOYO, Themba (2003), The Democratisation of Indigenous Languages. The
Case of Malawi. In SINFREE Makoni and ULRIKE Meinhof (eds.), Africa
andApplied Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
8. NGUGI, W. T. (1996). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African
literature. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers STROUD, C. (2001),
African mother tongue programmes and the politics of language: Linguistic
citizenship versus linguistic human rights. Journal of Multilingual and
Multicultural Developments, 339-355.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434630108666440
9. ORDERS OF VISIBILITY. In Caroline Kerfoot and Kenneth Hyltenstam (eds.),
Entangled Discourses: South-North Orders ofVisibility. New York: Routledge, pp.
1–13.
10. SIYABONA AFRICA, 2021 in
https://www.mozambique.co.za/About_Mozambique-travel/mozambique-
culture.html accessed on 25th July 2021
 18

11. STROUD, Christopher (2015), Linguistic Citizenship as Utopia. Multilingual

Margins, 2(2): 22–39.
12. S. Ashby & S. Barbosa Bantu Substratum interference in Mozambican
Portuguese, Africana Linguística 17(2011), Lisboa
13. ´TIMBANE, A. A. (2018). A Variação Linguística do Português Moçambicano:
uma Análise Sociolinguística da Variedade em Uso. Revista Internacional
Em Língua Portuguesa, (32), 19–38. https://doi.org/10.31492/2184-
2043.RILP2017.32/pp.19-38
14. USAID VAMOS LER! Language Mapping Study in Mozambique: Final Report,
p.12, 2017
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July 2021