James Dewey and Dr. Willis C. Fails, Spanish and Portuguese
Mozambique, located on the southeast African coast, gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Since that time, the Mozambican government has faced numerous problems such as a sixteen-year civil war, famines, flooding, and extreme poverty. In addition, the government faces unique linguistic challenges including how to unite and educate a nation that speaks at least twenty different African languages (Firmino 336). Through my research I wanted to gain a more complete understanding of Mozambique’s socio-linguistic history since its independence, with a special focus on the country’s official laws regarding language.
According to the Mozambican constitution, revised and updated in 1990, “in the Republic of Mozambique, Portuguese is the official language” (Constituição 8). However, the writers of the constitution were very aware of the need to acknowledge the African languages spoken throughout Mozambique. These languages were severely denigrated during Portuguese colonialism (Lopes 15) and in establishing a new government the Mozambican lawmakers intended to reverse such attitudes. Thus, the constitution also states, “The State values the national languages and promotes their development and their increasing implementation as vehicular languages in the education of the citizens” (8). Despite this explicit concern for native language instruction, the Mozambican educational system since independence has given instruction in the Portuguese language. When I arrived in Mozambique, however, there was excitement among many educators because the government had announced that instruction in the African languages would begin in the coming school year in selected primary schools—although not many were sure how this would happen.
Besides the problems listed above (war, national disaster, poverty), what further obstacles block the implementation of Mozambican languages as instructional languages in the public schools? First, historically there have been very few texts published in Xichangana or Cisena or Emakhuwa or the other Mozambican languages. Of the few texts that are published, most are religious materials (Bibles and songbooks) or basic grammars. Second, with at least twenty different languages spoken throughout the country, the decision of which languages to use in the public schools is a difficult one. Mozambique’s current population is estimated as 19 million (Factbook). Emakhuwa is the most-spoken African language in Mozambique with roughly 3 million speakers (Firmino 81). As the intent is to promote Mozambique’s indigenous languages and cultures, the government will be hard-pressed to say yes to one and no to another. Third, Mozambique currently struggles with nation-threatening issues that tend to backseat linguistic quandaries. If a legislator has the choice between funding for emergency relief or textbooks in twenty different languages, which will he choose? Fourth, much of the jargon involved in subjects like information technology, the sciences, and the humanities is missing in these African languages, or rather, the terms used in these languages are borrowed straight from either Portuguese or English. This is not to say the languages are incapable of such descriptions, but that actual linguistic practice has been to use the Portuguese or English terms. Fourth, the educators themselves, for the most part, speak Portuguese, were educated in Portuguese, and gained their current positions in part because of their proficiency in Portuguese. Due to its colonial history, the Portuguese language in Mozambique carries a certain prestige which educators may find difficult to relinquish. Finally, one of the greatest challenges of incorporating the African languages into the public schools seems so simple it can easily be overlooked: if a Mozambican knows how to read an African language, they usually know how to read Portuguese. In other words, very few literate Mozambicans are literate only in their mother tongue. Considering these factors, it is no wonder that the Mozambican government has shied away from the issue in the past, and it will be fascinating to observe their attempts at native language instruction in the future.
One of my favorite findings was a push to recognize Mozambican Portuguese as a valid, distinct dialect of the Portuguese language. This linguistic argument suggests that by claiming Portuguese as their own, Mozambicans no longer need to suspiciously eye Portuguese as the colonizers’ or oppressors’ language. By delighting in their own slang terms and distinct usages, and embracing the syntactic, phonological, and lexical differences between their Portuguese and Brazilian or Continental dialects, Mozambicans can choose to view Portuguese as a national and even an African language (Lopes 39).
Looking back, I think I tried to take on too much. Unsure of what resources would be available, I left my research topic too open. If I could go back again, I would try to narrow my topic and perhaps only research the linguistic aspects of the Mozambican constitution or the current debate over native language instruction or the nature of bilingualism in the Mozambican context. Also, one of the main parts of my research I planned to focus on proved to be a dead end. I had heard rumors that during the Marxist government of the 1970s and 80s, the government forbade the learning of English. I was never able to confirm this rumor although some people thought I was referring to the colonial policy of Portuguese-only instruction.