Angolan Portuguese

Angolan Portuguese is the group of dialects and accents of the Portuguese language used in Angola, occupying a position between the European and Brazilian standards of the language. It is spoken across the country, most visibly in the capital, Luanda, where indigenous languages are now practically absent from daily speech. According to 2016 CIA figures, about 12.3 million people, some 47 percent of Angola's population, speak Portuguese as a first language, and the 2014 national census found that 71 percent speak Portuguese at home, many alongside a Bantu language, with usage reaching 85 percent in urban areas against 49 percent in rural ones. Its phonology leans on European Portuguese as the prestige form while also showing traits closer to Brazilian Portuguese through historical ties between the two, and Bantu languages have shaped both its pronunciation and vocabulary, often simplifying diphthongs into single vowels in vernacular speech. Portuguese is Angola's official language, regulated by the Academia Angolana de Letras, and Angola has the second highest number of Portuguese speakers of any country after Brazil.