Official language politics in Cape Verde
Keywords:
language politics, Cape Verde, colonial period.Abstract
The present work analyzes the official language politics carried on in Cape Verde (Africa) in the colonial period. The administrative-juridic documents of the Portuguese colonial
system are the subject of our analisys (decrees and administrative instructions). The analysis, grounded on the conception of language politics formulated by Calvet (2002; 2005; 2007), reveals that the actions over the languages carried on by the Portuguese colonial administration were related to the construction of the Portuguese Nation-Empire and constituted themselves as answers to the international organisms. This occurred as an attempt to justify the maintenance of the
colonialism, as well as a legal mechanism of State control over the ultramarine populations. These politics are characterized by the imposition of the Portuguese language upon the Cape-Verdians.