Misplaced Pages

#775224

101-655: The Benguela Railway ( Portuguese : Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB) ) is a Cape gauge railway line that runs through Angola from west to east, being the largest and most important railway line in the country. It also connects to Tenke in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) , and to the Cape to Cairo Railway (connecting the city of Kindu (DRC) to the city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa). The line terminates at

202-742: A controlling interest in TCL, which still owned 90% of the Benguela Railway. The structure of the TCL group was complex and fluid, Subsidiaries included: TCL was a partner with the Société Générale de Belgique , a Belgian investment holding, in the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), which exploited copper deposits in Katanga Province . The UMHK was founded in 1906 to develop mines in Katanga. It

303-512: A form of Romance called Mozarabic which introduced a few hundred words from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Berber. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek , mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Portuguese evolved from

404-607: A large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil. The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from

505-624: A native language by vast majorities due to their Portuguese colonial past or as a lingua franca in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the Brazilian borders of Uruguay and Paraguay and in regions of Angola and Namibia. In many other countries, Portuguese is spoken by majorities as a second language. There remain communities of thousands of Portuguese (or Creole ) first language speakers in Goa , Sri Lanka , Kuala Lumpur , Daman and Diu , and other areas due to Portuguese colonization . In East Timor,

606-437: A wizard') (Angola). From South America came batata (' potato '), from Taino ; ananás and abacaxi , from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati , respectively (two species of pineapple ), and pipoca (' popcorn ') from Tupi and tucano (' toucan ') from Guarani tucan . Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English . These are by far

707-597: Is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . It is the official language of Angola , Brazil , Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique , Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe , and has co-official language status in East Timor , Equatorial Guinea and Macau . Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone ( lusófono ). As

808-623: Is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões , one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads . In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language , an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo , Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in

909-694: Is also the origin of the luso- prefix, seen in terms like " Lusophone ". Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe , the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period . The occupiers, mainly Suebi , Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages , quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of

1010-710: Is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon , in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with

1111-412: Is considerably intelligible for lusophones, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian ( Ibero-Romance languages ), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them. Portuñol /Portunhol, a form of code-switching , has a more lively use and

SECTION 10

#1732851584776

1212-504: Is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries. Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and immigration of Brazilians of Japanese descent to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia , it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries in

1313-574: Is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay ( dialeto do pampa ) and Paraguay ( dialeto dos brasiguaios ), and of Portugal with Spain ( barranquenho ), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish. Tanganyika Concessions Tanganyika Concessions Ltd.

1414-476: Is operated by the Société nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo . The railway is Cape gauge , 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ), which is used by most mainline railways in southern Africa. The maximum design speed is 90 km per hour. The design capacity is 20 million tons of cargo and 4 million passengers per year. There are 67 stations and 42 bridges along the route of the railway. The highest point on

1515-681: Is understood by all. Almost 50% of the East Timorese are fluent in Portuguese. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole . Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board

1616-613: Is usually listed as the fifth-most spoken native language , the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers and the second-most spoken Romance language in the world, surpassed only by Spanish . Being the most widely spoken language in South America and the most-spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere , it is also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America , one of

1717-782: The Compagnie du Katanga and the Congo Free State created the Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK) to manage all the territory in Katanga, with profits shared between the Compagnie du Katanga (1/3) and the Free State (2/3). On 8 December 1900 the Comité Spécial du Katanga granted TCL exclusive prospecting rights for five years in an area of 60,000 square miles (160,000 km ) of Katanga adjoining Rhodesia, and an annual subsidy of £10,000. TCL

1818-509: The Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) was formed to exploit the deposits. The Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Bas-Congo au Katanga was founded on 31 October 1906 to build and operate a line linking Bukama to Port Francqui ( Ilebo ) on the Kasai River , from where minerals could be shipped to the Atlantic via Léopoldville ( Kinshasa ). Robert Williams took only a minimal direct stake, while

1919-457: The Benguela railway , which was to carry minerals from the copper belt to the Atlantic port of Lobito near Benguela . The Caminhos de Ferro de Benguela (CFB) was incorporated in Portugal in 1902, with a 99-year concession to build and operate the 1,345 kilometres (836 mi) railway. Its main purpose was to carry minerals for export. It ran from Lobito to Texeira de Sousa ( Luau ), then crossed

2020-673: The Economic Community of West African States , the Southern African Development Community and the European Union . According to The World Factbook ' s country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order): The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 300 million in January 2022. This number does not include

2121-736: The Lobito Atlantic Railway company secured a 30-year concession for railway services. This joint venture involved Trafigura , a Singapore-based company, Mota-Engil , headquartered in Portugal, and Vecturis SA, a Belgium-based rail operator. The concession agreement encompassed the entire 1,300km railway line in Angola, extending to the 400km line into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (up to Kolwezi ), and also includes any potential service extensions in Zambia. To support their operations,

SECTION 20

#1732851584776

2222-607: The Luao River into the Belgian Congo at Dilolo . Construction lasted from 1903 to August 1928. It took another 22 months to complete the 324 miles (521 km) line from Dilolo to Tenke , where it connected with the Katanga network. The line was officially opened on 1 July 1931. The Benguela railway was less successful than had been hoped, and most of the minerals were carried east by the Chemin de Fer du Bas-Congo au Katanga (BCK) and

2323-789: The Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, French, German, and Italian), and Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, French and Arabic), in addition to being the official legal language in the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , also in Community of Portuguese Language Countries , an international organization formed essentially by lusophone countries . Modern Standard European Portuguese ( português padrão or português continental )

2424-507: The Republic of the Congo , Senegal , Namibia , Eswatini , South Africa , Ivory Coast , and Mauritius . In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe . Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020. In such countries, Portuguese is spoken either as

2525-575: The West Iberian branch of the Romance languages , and it has special ties with the following members of this group: Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian ) share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are fully mutually intelligible, and Spanish

2626-452: The Zambezi river with exclusive rights for prospecting and locating 1,000 claims. The Zambesia Exploring Company Limited (ZE) acquired the majority of the shares, and ZE and TCL were run as one company. Tanganyika Concessions share prices were very unstable in the early years. During one period of a few days the price went from 2 1 ⁄ 4 to 13 pounds per share and then crashed. In 1900

2727-551: The port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, from where Angola exports a wide variety of products, including minerals (from the Copperbelt region), food, industrial components and livestock. The section from Lobito to Luau is run by the Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. It crosses the Luao River , which lies on the border, to Dilolo (DRC) . From there to Tenke, the railway

2828-756: The pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal , which included the Gallaeci , Lusitanians , Celtici and Cynetes . Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish . Altogether these are over 3,000 words, verbs, toponymic names of towns, rivers, surnames, tools, lexicon linked to rural life and natural world. In

2929-507: The -s- form. Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery , it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world. A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to

3030-571: The 10 most influential languages in the world. When the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought with them the Latin language , from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason,

3131-584: The 10 most spoken languages in Africa , and an official language of the European Union , Mercosul , the Organization of American States , the Economic Community of West African States , the African Union , and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries , an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations. In 1997, a comprehensive academic study ranked Portuguese as one of

Benguela railway - Misplaced Pages Continue

3232-410: The 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, catana (' cutlass ') from Japanese katana , chá ('tea') from Chinese chá , and canja ('chicken-soup, piece of cake') from Malay . From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade , and

3333-715: The 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania ) was conquered by the Germanic , Suebi and Visigoths . As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500 Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to: The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde , Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from

3434-440: The 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia . They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)- , and include common words such as aldeia ('village') from الضيعة aḍ-ḍayʿa , alface ('lettuce') from الخسة al-khassa , armazém ('warehouse') from المخزن al-makhzan , and azeite ('olive oil') from الزيت az-zayt . Starting in

3535-651: The 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León , which had by then assumed reign over Galicia . In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania , much as Occitan

3636-584: The Americas are independent languages. Portuguese, like Catalan , preserves the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. pedra ; Fr. pierre , Sp. piedra , It. pietra , Ro. piatră , from Lat. petra ("stone"); or Port. fogo , Cat. foc , Sard. fogu ; Sp. fuego , It. fuoco , Fr. feu , Ro. foc , from Lat. focus ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese

3737-625: The Congo and the dissolution of the CSK, ownership was: In December 1966 President Mobutu Sese Seko announced that a new company (later named Société Génerale Congolaise de Minerais ( Gécamines ) would take over from UMHK as of 2 January 1967. The new company have headquarters in Lubumbashi and would be owned 55% by the state. 15% would be offered to TCL and 30% would be offered to the public. TCL declined to participate, and eventually Gécamines became 100% state-owned. Williams became involved in building

3838-531: The Germanic sinths ('military expedition') and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths ('council'). Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques , Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia . Between

3939-696: The Hofrat en Nafas Copper Mine in southern Darfur between 1918 and 1922, sinking shafts and boreholes, but eventually abandoned the effort. When the Kilo-Moto gold mines opened in the northeast Congo in 1920 the Nile Congo Divide Syndicate was among the prospecting companies that rushed to the region. They failed to find worthwhile gold deposits, but did find low-grade copper in the Manya area of West Madi County , Uganda. Robert Williams and Cecil Rhodes founded

4040-617: The LAR mineral terminal at the Port of Lobito the following month, with the docking of MV Lindsaylou , a bulk cargo vessel, on 12 July 2024, with cargo later transferred to train cars to journey to the DRC. In the Tolunda rail accident on 22 September 1994, damaged brakes caused a train to plunge into a canyon, killing 300. Portuguese language Portuguese ( endonym : português or língua portuguesa )

4141-407: The Lusophone diaspora , estimated at 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally,

Benguela railway - Misplaced Pages Continue

4242-533: The Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the nine independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language : Angola , Brazil , Cape Verde , East Timor , Equatorial Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique , Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe . Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language. Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French ) in 2011, and in July 2014,

4343-455: The Rhodesian railway to Beira, Mozambique . In 1975 the Benguela railway was closed in the unrest that followed independence. During the subsequent Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) the railway remained closed and the tracks, bridges and rolling stock were destroyed. The railway concession expired in 2001 and ownership passed to the Angolan government. The Benguela Estates Company and the Zambezi Exploring Company, subsidiaries of TCL, controlled

4444-555: The Rhodesian railways at Sakania , while another would connect to the port of Bukama on the Lualaba River . In early 1903 Williams discussed building a railway from Lobito on the Atlantic coast of Angola to the copper mines with the contractors Pauling & Co. , but the costs proved excessive. Instead, the Rhodesian railway was extended north from Bulawayo via the Wankie ( Hwange ) coal fields and Victoria Falls , reaching Kalomo in 1905 and Broken Hill ( Kabwe ) in 1906. The TCL concession in Katanga expired on 28 October 1906 and

4545-483: The Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa . Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation. Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between

4646-421: The Saragura area of the Mwana District in Tanganyika in the 1930s. Saragura Development transferred the Geita Mine to the Geita Gold Mining Company. In 1958 Tanganyika Holdings Ltd. was providing office space and secretarial services to other companies in the group, had a large portfolio of investments including a sizable stake in Kentan, and was conducting an exploration program with companies that were not part of

4747-400: The TCL and Société Générale de Belgique who would fund their exploitation. UMHK was founded as a joint venture between the Compagnie du Katanga , the CSK and TCL. The Compagnie du Katanga was in turn a subsidiary of the Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l'Industrie (CCCI), which was controlled by the Société Générale de Belgique . UMHK became the third largest copper producer in

4848-406: The UMHK had almost 10%, and the state became the main shareholder. The Société Générale de Belgique and the associated Banque d'Outremer purchased a minority share in TCL in 1923. In 1946 the French Government transferred 1,667,961 Ordinary shares of 10s. each in Tanganyika Concessions Ltd to the Bank of England , which the Bank agreed to sell to an Anglo-Belgian group. These were about 19% of

4949-417: The Zambesia Exploring Company (ZEC) in 1891 to explore and extract mineral deposits in Southern Rhodesia. The ZEC followed the guidance of Rhodes, and did nothing without his approval. In 1895 it was reported that the Zambasia Exploring Company had placed a large number of shares in United Rhodesia Goldfields in Paris. The ZEC was a subsidiary of TCL in 1922. The ZEC and TCL recruited thousands of workers from

5050-588: The areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation. Você , a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In a few Brazilian states such as Rio Grande do Sul , Pará, among others, você is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs tu followed by second person verbs, formal language retains

5151-431: The border they found the workings of the ancient Kansanshi copper mine , and on 6 September 1899 staked claims there for TCL. Grey returned to Bulawayo to cable his findings to Williams on 24 November 1899, and indicated that the bulk of the ore seemed to be in Katanga. He described the copper deposits as "scandalously rich". Williams tried unsuccessfully to interest King Leopold II of Belgium in full-scale exploitation of

SECTION 50

#1732851584776

5252-442: The company committed to investing US$ 455,000,000 in Angola and up to US$ 100,000,000 in the DRC. The awarding of the concessions took place in the presence of Presidents João Lourenço of Angola, Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC, and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia. Expected to operate at least 1555 wagons and 30 locomotives in Angola, an initial 275 wagons were ordered by contract from South Africa in June 2024. Operations launched at

5353-406: The construction which commenced on 1 March 1903. Messrs Pauling & Co. and Messrs Griffiths & Co were contracted to build sections of the railway. By 1914, when World War I started, 500 kilometres (310 mi) had been completed. Construction was halted until 1920 after which the railway's connection to Luau at the border to the Belgian Congo was completed in 1929. The primary purpose

5454-526: The copper belt. Leopold was starting to earn high returns from rubber and ivory exports, and resented British criticism of his brutal treatment of the local people, so held back. After TCL had gained the CSK concession, on 15 April 1901 a larger second expedition set out to Kansanshi . Another expedition left for Katanga via Abercorn ( Mbala ), and set up camp at the Kambove mine. Between June and October 1902 prospectors staked 50 claims in Katanga. There were many ancient copper workings, which were located by

5555-417: The country was accepted as a member of the CPLP. Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese ) and of several international organizations, including Mercosul , the Organization of Ibero-American States , the Union of South American Nations , the Organization of American States , the African Union ,

5656-405: The early 1970s, the railway was operated entirely by steam locomotives, oil-fired from the coast to Cubal, and then wood-fired from Cubal to the interior. Wood was supplied by eucalyptus trees grown on company-owned tree plantations . Steam locomotives outnumbered diesels as late as 1987. Soon after Angola gained its independence from Portugal in 1975, the Angolan Civil War broke out. The railway

5757-467: The end of the 20th century, being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects. Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary , but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and

5858-522: The entire Lubumbashi–Lobito route, rather than the Tenke–Lobito section to which it strictly applies. In its heyday, the Benguela Railway was the shortest way to transport mineral riches from the Congo to Europe. The line proved very successful and profitable, especially in the early 1970s after Zambia closed its border with the then Rhodesia . The railway reached an operational peak in 1973 when it transported 3.3 million tons of cargo, generated freight revenues of $ 30 million, and had 14,000 employees. Until

5959-577: The establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu , for example, came kifumate > cafuné ('head caress') (Brazil), kusula > caçula ('youngest child') (Brazil), marimbondo ('tropical wasp') (Brazil), and kubungula > bungular ('to dance like

6060-414: The first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the Estudos Gerais , which later moved to Coimbra ) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially. In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries , the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas . By

6161-501: The form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing, and eventually speech, in Portuguese. Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as a última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela ("the last flower of Latium , naïve and beautiful"). Portuguese

SECTION 60

#1732851584776

6262-413: The formal você , followed by the third person conjugation. Conjugation of verbs in tu has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": tu viste? , in the traditional second person, tu viu? , in the third person, and tu visse? , in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person,

6363-415: The formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word cristão , "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India , Sri Lanka , Malaysia , and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period

6464-663: The government of the Belgian Congo to build a railway from Broken Hill to the Katanga Border. The Rhodesia-Katanga Junction Railway & Mineral Company was formed for this purpose, and also took over the Kansanshi mine and TCL's other copperbelt holdings. The company became the Rhodesia-Katanga Company in 1929. TCL learned that gold prospectors were having success in the area near Mgusu , southwest of Lake Victoria , and in 1934 formed Kentan Gold Area Limited to develop these finds. It did so through its subsidiaries Saragura Development Company Limited and Geita Gold Mining Company Limited. The Saragura Development Company explored holdings in

6565-429: The group. On 7 October 1958 Kentan Gold Area and Zambesia Exploring announced that they were discussing amalgamation. The Geita Gold Mining Company was set up to operate the Geita Gold Mine in Tanganyika, which was transferred to it from the Sagura Development Company, a subsidiary of Kentan Gold Areas. Production began in 1936. A 1937 report said it hoped to soon start crushing 500 tons per day, and could well become

6666-406: The kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools. The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established você as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of tu has been expanding ever since

6767-435: The language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture and Celtic culture , part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages. In Latin, the Portuguese language is known as lusitana or (latina) lusitanica , after the Lusitanians , a pre-Celtic tribe that lived in the territory of present-day Portugal and Spain that adopted the Latin language as Roman settlers moved in. This

6868-426: The largest agricultural enterprise in Angola. By 1933 they held 475,678 acres (192,500 ha) in the highlands, worth £214,000. The Benguela railway wanted to expand wheat production in the Ovimbundu region for export to the world market, and in 1932 made a considerable investment in developing more suitable strains of wheat for the government to distribute to Ovimbundu producers. TCL made an agreement in 1908 with

6969-420: The largest gold producer in East Africa. The company had built a road from the mine to Lake Victoria , where it had built a jetty. It had built housing, medical facilities, set up a private wireless station and subsidized a weekly air service. Gold milling began in Geita in December 1938. In the early 1950s Geita employed about 2,000 men and produced more than half of the gold mined in Tanganyika, although this

7070-436: The medieval language spoken in the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia , which the County of Portugal once formed part of. This variety has been retrospectively named Galician-Portuguese , Old Portuguese, or Old Galician by linguists. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from

7171-496: The mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities. The Portuguese expanded across South America, across Africa to the Pacific Ocean, taking their language with them. Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to

7272-549: The minority Swiss Romansh language in many equivalent words such as maun ("hand"), bun ("good"), or chaun ("dog"). The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that preserves the clitic case mesoclisis : cf. dar-te-ei (I'll give thee), amar-te-ei (I'll love you), contactá-los-ei (I'll contact them). Like Galician , it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: eu estivera (I had been), eu vivera (I had lived), vós vivêreis (you had lived). Romanian also has this tense, but uses

7373-1168: The most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: colchete / crochê ('bracket'/'crochet'), paletó ('jacket'), batom ('lipstick'), and filé / filete ('steak'/'slice'), rua ('street'), respectively, from French crochet , paletot , bâton , filet , rue ; and bife ('steak'), futebol , revólver , stock / estoque , folclore , from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore." Examples from other European languages: macarrão ('pasta'), piloto ('pilot'), carroça ('carriage'), and barraca ('barrack'), from Italian maccherone , pilota , carrozza , and baracca ; melena ('hair lock'), fiambre ('wet-cured ham') (in Portugal, in contrast with presunto 'dry-cured ham' from Latin prae-exsuctus 'dehydrated') or ('canned ham') (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured ( presunto cozido ) and dry-cured ( presunto cru )), or castelhano ('Castilian'), from Spanish melena ('mane'), fiambre and castellano. Portuguese belongs to

7474-462: The newspaper The Portugal News publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America . Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide. Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina , Uruguay and Paraguay , Portuguese

7575-600: The north of the country), Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people), Switzerland (550,000 in 2019, learning + mother tongue), Venezuela (554,000), and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey ). In some parts of former Portuguese India , namely Goa and Daman and Diu , the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Approximately 2% of

7676-417: The number of Portuguese speakers is quickly increasing as Portuguese and Brazilian teachers are making great strides in teaching Portuguese in the schools all over the island. Additionally, there are many large Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities all over the world. According to estimates by UNESCO , Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to

7777-481: The only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese. Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay . Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela , Zambia ,

7878-459: The peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. Some Germanic words from that period are part of the Portuguese lexicon, together with place names, surnames, and first names. With the Umayyad conquest beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak

7979-621: The people of Macau, China are fluent speakers of Portuguese. Additionally, the language is being very actively studied in the Chinese school system right up to the doctorate level. The Kristang people in Malaysia speak Kristang , a Portuguese-Malay creole; however, the Portuguese language itself is not widely spoken in the country. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (in Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa , with

8080-456: The population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively, with approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside. Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census. Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole

8181-542: The railway is 1,854 metres (6,083 ft). The railway line roughly follows old trade routes between the ancient trading centre of Benguela and its hinterland of the Bié plateau. In 1899, the Portuguese government initiated the construction of the railway to give access to the central Angolan plateau and the mineral wealth of the then Congo Free State . A concession, running for 99 years, was granted to Sir Robert Williams on 28 November 1902. His Benguela Railway Company took over

8282-917: The railway was reconstructed between 2006 and 2014 by the China Railway Construction Corporation at a cost of $ 1.83 billion. 100,000 Angolans were employed on the railway reconstruction. Trains reached Huambo in 2011, Kuito in 2012, and Luau near the Congolese border in 2013. The rebuilt railway was formally inaugurated in February 2015. According to Jornal de Angola in May 2012, Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. employed 1,321 workers, and transported 129,430 passengers and 5,640 tons of goods in 2011. Two trains per day run between Lobito and Benguela, one per week to Huambo, and three per week between Lobito and Cubal . On 5 March 2018, ore transport

8383-539: The result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal , and has kept some Celtic phonology. With approximately 236 million native speakers and 27 million second language speakers, Portuguese has approximately 263.8 million total speakers. It

8484-471: The simple method of asking local people where they could find copper. The CSK created the Compagnie de Chemin de fer du Katanga (CFK) in 1902. It had a capital of 1,000,000 francs. The Congo Free State held 2,400 shares and Robert Williams held 1,600 shares. Théodore Heyvaert was president and Robert Williams was vice-president. The CFK was to build links to the region where the city of Elisabethville ( Lubumbashi ) would be founded. One line would connect to

8585-693: The voting power of all shareholders. As of 1946 TCL held 20% of the voting power in Union Minière du Haut-Katanga and 90% of the voting power in the Benguela Railway. In 1950 the company headquarters were moved to Salisbury, Rhodesia ( Harare , Zimbabwe). As of 1978 the headquarters were in Nassau, Bahamas , and shareholders included the Oppenheimer Group , the Rockefeller Group and other American interests. In 1981 Société Générale de Belgique acquired

8686-470: The world, the largest cobalt and radium producer and one of the largest producers of germanium. Ownership was complicated and often changed. The Société Générale effectively controlled the UMHK from its inception to 1960. As of 1946 TCL held 20% of the voting power in the UMHK. The president of TCL sat on the UMHK board, as did one TCL administrator. In 1960, just before independence of the Democratic Republic of

8787-506: The world. Portuguese, being a language spread on all continents, has official status in several international organizations. It is one of twenty official languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO, the Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, French and English), and one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency . Portuguese is a working language in nonprofit organisations such as

8888-622: The world. The museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire, but restored and reopened in 2020. Portuguese is spoken by approximately 200 million people in South America, 30 million in Africa, 15 million in Europe, 5 million in North America and 0.33 million in Asia and Oceania. It is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal, Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%). Around 75% of

8989-582: Was 90% owned by Tanganyika Concessions (Tanks), a London-based holding company. Société Générale de Belgique purchased a minority share in Tanks in 1923 and acquired a controlling interest in 1981. The Belgian company remained the controlling owner of the railway when the concession expired in 2001, at which point ownership of the railway passed to the Angolan government. After the Angolan Civil War ended in 2002,

9090-510: Was also to participate in building a railway to carry material and equipment to the mines and to take away the extracted minerals. The Société Générale participated in setting up the UMHK under the direction of Jean Jadot . The UMHK was the result of a compromise between the Free State and the Compagnie de Katanga as owners of the mineral deposit (through the CSK), the TCL who had found the mines, and

9191-529: Was authorized to exploit the mines that were found with CSK for 30 years. The term was eventually extended to 89 years. The CSK reserved the rights to 60% of the profits from any mines that might be opened. Williams sent an exploratory team which set out for the Congo-Zambesi watershed on 5 April 1899. There were five Europeans and 35 Africans led by the geologist George Grey (1868–1911), younger brother of Sir Edward Grey . About´10 miles (16 km) south of

9292-424: Was charged with promoting and ensuring respect. There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many territories including Andorra (17.1%), Bermuda , Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census), France (1,625,000 people), Japan (400,000 people), Jersey , Luxembourg (about 25% of the population as of 2021), Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in

9393-600: Was created on 20 January 1899 by Robert Williams, an associate of Cecil Rhodes . Originally all the shareholders were British. Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick , was one of the shareholders. The purpose was to exploit minerals in Northern Rhodesia and in the Congo Free State. Williams intended to secure a mining concession that the British South Africa Company had granted on 26 May 1898. It covered more than 2,000 square miles (5,200 km ) north of

9494-465: Was heavily damaged during the war and progressively fell into disuse. The workshops in Huambo were destroyed. Ballast cars had to be coupled to the front of locomotives to detonate mines. By 1992, only 340 km (210 mi) of the railway remained in operation. When the 99-year concession expired in 2001, only 34 km (21 mi) remained in service, along the coast from Benguela to Lobito. The railway

9595-523: Was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende , in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin ,

9696-512: Was much less than the peak production before World War II (1939–1945). Geita struggled with financial problems until it closed in 1965, and seems to have been a net liability to TCL. The mine produced over 1 million ounces of gold between 1936 and 1966. As of 2021 it was owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti . The Nile Congo Divide Syndicate prospected for gold and tin in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Uganda . The syndicate explored

9797-509: Was restarted from the Tenke Fungurume Mine , in the DRC, from where copper and cobalt are extracted, and the cargo transported to the port of Lobito . From that date the railway went into full operation, connecting the city of Tenke to the city of Lobito. In April 2023 the Angolan government confirmed funding to build a new 260km railway from Luena on the Benguela Railway to Saurimo, the capital of Lunda Sul province. On July 4, 2023,

9898-550: Was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs lh and nh , used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese , presumably by Gerald of Braga , a monk from Moissac , who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal . In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created

9999-585: Was the loss of intervocalic l and n , sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. salire ("to exit"), tenere ("to have"), catena ("jail"), Port. sair , ter , cadeia . When the elided consonant was n , it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. manum ("hand"), ranam ("frog"), bonum ("good"), Old Portuguese mão , rãa , bõo (Portuguese: mão , rã , bom ). This process

10100-462: Was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings -anem , -anum and -onem became -ão in most cases, cf. Lat. canis ("dog"), germanus ("brother"), ratio ("reason") with Modern Port. cão , irmão , razão , and their plurals -anes , -anos , -ones normally became -ães , -ãos , -ões , cf. cães , irmãos , razões . This also occurs in

10201-463: Was to facilitate export trade, while "the domestic Angolan traffic would be of secondary importance." Passenger trains also ran between Lubumbashi and Lobito, connecting with passenger ship services to Europe. This provided a shorter route for Europeans working in the Katangan and Zambian Copperbelt, and the name "Benguela Railway", or also "Katanga-Benguela railway", was sometimes used loosely to refer to

#775224