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LANGUAGES

The linguistic diversity of Mozambique is one of its main cultural characteristics. Although Portuguese is the country’s official language, an enormous variety of tongues are spoken. For the majority of the population, these national languages are their mother tongues, and are the languages most used in daily communication.

According to Table 9.1, the most frequently spoken mother tongue in Mozambique is Emakhuwa (26.3%). In second place is Xichangana (11.4%) and in third is Elomwe (7.9%). Table 9.2 shows the percentage distribution of the population aged 5 and above by age groups, and by the language spoken most frequently at home. Comparing this with the data in Table 9.1 one notes that, in general, the results are similar. This shows that it is not frequent to use a language different from the mother tongue for communication at home. It is worth mentioning the low proportion of people for whom Portuguese is their mother tongue (6.5%); a rather higher percentage (8.8%) use Portuguese to speak at home.

TABLE 9.1: Percentage distribution of the population aged 5 and above by major age groups, and by mother tongue, Mozambique, 1997

 
N (000) 12,536.8 5,680.1 5,430.6 1,426.1
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
    Portuguese 6.5 8.5 5.5 2.1
    Emakhuwa 26.3 24.8 28.0 25.6
    Xichangana 11.4 11.8 10.2 14.1
    Elomwe 7.9 7.4 8.6 6.8
    Cisena 7.0 6.9 7.2 6.7
    Echuwabo 6.3 6.1 6.6 5.9
       Other Mozambican languages 33.0 32.7 32.2 37.5
Other foreign languages 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.6
    None 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0
        Unknown 1.3 1.5 1.2 0.7

TABLE 9.2: Percentage distribution of the  population aged 5 and above, by major age groups, and by the language spoken most frequently at home, Mozambique, 1997

 

 
N (000) 12,536.8 5,680.1 5,430.6 1,426.1
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
    Portuguese 8.8 9.5 9.4 3.3
    Emakhuwa 26.1 24.7 27.6 25.6
    Xichangana 11.3 11.8 10.1 14.2
    Elomwe 7.6 7.3 8.3 6.6
    Cisena 6.8 6.7 6.8 6.6
    Echuwabo 5.8 5.7 5.8 5.6
     Other Mozambican languages 32.0 32.4 30.2 36.8
  Other foreign languages 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.4
  None 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
    Unknown 1.3 1.5 1.3 0.8

 

Table 9.3 shows the distribution of the population by mother tongue and by language spoken most frequently at home, according to area of residence. In rural areas, the national languages are almost completely dominant: the percentage of people who have Portuguese as their mother tongue or as the language spoken most frequently at home is very small: 2.0% and 1.4%, respectively. In the urban areas

 

TABLE 9.3: Percentage distribution of the population aged 5 and above by mother tongue and by language spoken most frequently at home, and by area of residence, Mozambique, 1997

 
N (000) 12,536.8 3,757.7 8,779.1 12,536.8 3,757.7 8,779.1
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
    Portuguese 6.5 17.0 2.0 8.8 26.1 1.4
    Emakhuwa 26.3 18.4 29.6 26.1 17.0 29.9
    Xichangana 11.4 16.8 9.0 11.3 16.6 9.0
    Elomwe 7.9 3.5 9.7 7.6 2.8 9.7
    Cisena 7.0 6.3 7.3 6.8 5.6 7.3
    Echuwabo 6.3 4.0 7.3 5.8 2.5 7.1
        Other Mozambican languages 33.0 32.0 33.5 32.0 27.5 33.9
        Other foreign languages 0.4 0.6 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3
       None 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
      Unknown 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.4 1.3

 

these percentages rise to 17.0% and 26.1%, respectively. Thus the great majority of people who have Portuguese as their mother tongue live in the country’s urban areas, and it is mainly urban citizens who speak Portuguese at home.

Table 9.4 shows that 39.6% of the Mozambican population know how to speak Portuguese. The percentage is much higher among men than among women (50.4% against 29.7%). Among children (5-9 years), the percentages are much less than among youths and middle aged people. As one might expect, among the most elderly people, the percentages are very low, particularly for women. This may be related to the fact that most of these people had no formal education, the main source of learning Portuguese.

TABLE 9.4: Gross rates of knowledge of the Portuguese language among the population aged 5 and above, by sex, and by age and area of residence, Mozambique, 1997

Total 39.6 50.4 29.7
5 - 9 23.0 23.7 22.3
10 - 14 48.6 52.0 44.9
15 - 19 52.5 62.7 43.2
20 - 24 47.6 61.4 37.2
25 - 29 45.8 62.0 33.3
30 - 34 48.4 66.9 32.6
35 - 39 43.1 65.0 23.9
40 - 44 37.7 59.2 18.5
45 - 49 31.8 51.6 13.8
50 - 54 27.0 45.8 11.1
55 - 59 24.1 40.2 9.0
60 - 64 22.0 37.1 8.3
65 - 69 17.5 29.7 6.3
70 - 74 15.8 26.0 6.2
75 - 79 13.2 21.8 4.9
80 e + 11.3 18.7 4.7
Urban 72.4 80.7 64.2
Rural 25.4 36.6 15.6
 
Note: The calculations exclude those cases in which it is unknown whether they can speak Portuguese.


Table 9.4 also shows the percentages of people who know how to speak Portuguese by area of residence; this is higher in urban than in  rural areas (72.4% against 25.4%). In the rural areas only 15.6% of women know how to speak Portuguese. The main factor determining this difference seems to be to be the higher proportion of people with formal education in the urban areas.