PAIGC political victory Military stalemate
147-717: 1960s 1970s The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence ( Portuguese : Guerra de Independência da Guiné-Bissau ), also known as the Bissau-Guinean War of Independence , was an armed independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea from 1963 to 1974. It was fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde ( Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, PAIGC), an armed independence movement backed by Cuba ,
294-431: A "dual command" at all levels of its military apparatus: at every level, leadership was exercised jointly by two men, one military commander and one political commissar . Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor was generally pro-Western and he cooperated closely with Portuguese leaders in attempting to broker a political solution to the conflict. (Brazil, itself a former Portuguese colony, also offered to mediate.) At
441-658: A colonial economy existed on the Guinean mainland, controlled primarily by the Companhia União Fabril and consisting primarily of cash crop exports; traditional Guinean economies were disrupted both by the imperative to cultivate export crops and by Portuguese taxation. Moreover, Portugal was attached even to its most "dispensable" colony, viewing its maintenance as integral to Portugal's hold on other more economically important colonies, particularly Angola and Mozambique. The revolutionary insurgency which ultimately launched
588-485: A forest based hideout independently from the others. Many groups were formed on tribal and religious grounds. These groups began to abuse the locals and people began to flee the “liberated” zones. The central PAIGC command were horrified and considered this military “commandism”. Around October 1963 the Portuguese began to retaliate against PAIGC activity with bomber raids; by the end of 1963 some villages had been abandoned as
735-512: 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
882-567: A large increase in indigenous recruitment into the armed forces. By the early 1970s, an increasing percentage of Guineans were serving as non-commissioned or commissioned officers in Portuguese military forces in Africa. Elite local troops were trained at Portuguese Centres for Commando Instruction, including inside Guinea, where the first such centre was established in 1964, but in many cases in Angola. The Portuguese forces recruited Africans mainly from among
1029-607: 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
1176-509: A means of undermining PAIGC's organizational structure, Cabral was assassinated on 20 January 1973 in Conakry, by disgruntled PAIGC members. PAIGC purged the traitors, and regrouped under the joint leadership of Aristides Pereira and Luís Cabral , Amílcar's half-brother. Rather than disabling the group, the assassination of PAIGC's leader was followed by some of its most ambitious offensives, as it destroyed or took over key Portuguese positions in
1323-410: A mixture of whites, overseas soldiers (African assimilados ), and native or indigenous Africans ( indigenato ). Spínola planned – and fought with Lisbon – to abolish the distinction between and discrimination among metropolitan soldiers and local recruits, undertaking instead to create a regular and coherent African army whose structure mirrored that of the metropolitan army. Africanization fostered
1470-624: 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,
1617-621: A warehouse, and then was transported across the border on foot. PAIGC was countered by the colonial army of the Portuguese Armed Forces stationed in Guinea, which proliferated in the early years of the war. For most of the war, from 1968 until August 1973, General António de Spínola was both governor and military commander in Portuguese Guinea, succeeding General Arnaldo Schultz in both capacities. The strength of his forces in Guinea
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#17328523842001764-437: 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
1911-597: 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
2058-570: 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
2205-694: 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
2352-710: 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
2499-412: 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
2646-504: 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
2793-591: 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. Bissau Bissau ( Portuguese pronunciation: [biˈsaw] )
2940-511: Is the capital and largest city of Guinea-Bissau . As of 2015, it had a population of 492,004. Bissau is located on the Geba River estuary, off the Atlantic Ocean , and is Guinea-Bissau's largest city, major port, its administrative and military center. The term Bissau may have come from the name of a clan N'nssassun, in its plural form Bôssassun. Intchassu (Bôssassu) was the name given to
3087-681: 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
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#17328523842003234-613: 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
3381-443: The Atlantic Ocean . The land surrounding the city is extremely low-lying, and the river is accessible to ocean-going vessels despite its modest discharge for about 80 kilometres (50 mi) beyond the city. Bissau has a tropical savanna climate ( Köppen Aw ), not quite wet enough to qualify as a tropical monsoon climate ( Am ) but much wetter than most climates of its type. Almost no rain falls from November to May, but during
3528-760: The Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP) during a conference in Morocco. The main goal of the organization was cooperation among the different national liberation movements in the Portuguese Empire . Also in 1961 PAIGC commenced sabotage operations in Guinea-Bissau. At the start of hostilities the Portuguese had only two infantry companies in Guinea Bissau and these concentrated in
3675-673: 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
3822-513: The Geba river , and was rivaling if not eclipsing Cacheu in importance. Bacompulco died in 1696. King Incinhate emerged from the ensuing succession dispute despite tacit Portuguese opposition, and relations rapidly deteriorated. When Captain-General Pinheiro tried to enforce Portugal's monopoly in defiance of the Papel policy of free trade, Incinhate surrounded the incomplete fort and threatened to massacre
3969-453: The Heckler & Koch HK21 to enhance their mobility in the difficult, swampy terrain. Between 1968 and 1972, the Portuguese forces increased their offensive posture, in the form of raids into PAIGC-controlled territory. At this time Portuguese forces also adopted unorthodox means of countering the insurgents, including attacks on the political structure of the nationalist movement. Nonetheless,
4116-808: The National Lyceum Kwame N'Krumah and the Bethel-Bissau Adventist School. The main higher education institutions in the city are the Amílcar Cabral University , the Catholic University of Guinea Bissau , and the Jean Piaget University of Guinea-Bissau . The city of Bissau still has two international schools: Attractions include the Portuguese-built Fortaleza de São José da Amura barracks from
4263-789: 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 )
4410-555: 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
4557-576: The Soviet Union , Yugoslavia and Brazil . The war is commonly referred to as "Portugal's Vietnam " because it was a protracted guerrilla war which had extremely high costs in men and material and which created significant internal political turmoil in Portugal. After the assassination of PAIGC leader Amílcar Cabral in January 1973, the military conflict reached a stalemate : Portuguese forces were largely confined to major cities and various fortified bases and were patently unable to dislodge PAIGC from
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-581: The UN General Assembly passed, by 93 votes to seven, a resolution which welcomed "the recent accession to independence of the people of Guinea-Bissau", recognised the state's sovereignty , condemned Portugal's continued presence in parts of the territory, and called on the UN Security Council to take "all effective steps to restore the territorial integrity of the Republic". Evidence published by
4851-530: The US Army 's ' search and destroy ' operations in Vietnam " – and in liberated areas they were "widely hated for their brutality and ruthlessness". In addition, at the outset of the war, Portugal recruited local militias – 18 companies by 1966 – to organise the "self-defence" of local populations, thus freeing the expeditionary army for offensive operations. Once Spínola was appointed, recruiting selectively from among
4998-575: 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
5145-756: 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
5292-423: The three Portuguese wars in Africa rendered it an embarrassment to the outgoing regime; and the coup was organised by the left-wing Armed Forces Movement ( Movimento das Forças Armadas ), the core of which "took shape" first among military officers in Guinea-Bissau. Spínola, who had been at the head of the Portuguese effort in Guinea-Bissau, himself became president of the new National Salvation Junta . In May,
5439-507: 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
5586-571: 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,
5733-584: 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
5880-460: 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
6027-846: The 18th century, containing Amílcar Cabral 's mausoleum , the Pidjiguiti Memorial to the dockers killed in the Bissau Dockers' Strike on August 3, 1959, the Guinea-Bissau National Arts Institute, Bissau New Stadium and local beaches . Many buildings in the city were ruined during the Guinea-Bissau Civil War (1998–1999), including the Guinea-Bissau Presidential Palace and the Bissau French Cultural Centre (now rebuilt), and
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence - Misplaced Pages Continue
6174-715: 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
6321-440: 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
6468-651: 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
6615-533: 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
6762-447: The Carnation Revolution, disturbed only once by a mild exchange of gunfire on 27 May, which had been precipitated by "a mutual confusion". Indeed, a semi-formal withdrawal of Portuguese troops began before the Algiers accord was signed, with 41 camps evacuated by 24 August. The core 600 African Special Commandos were demobilised on 20 August. Portuguese language Portuguese ( endonym : português or língua portuguesa )
6909-617: The Cuban military mission was small – it averaged 50–60 men at any time, primarily artillerymen – and Cabral declined its repeated offers to take a more active role in combat. Other Eastern Bloc countries – Poland, Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , and Romania – "engaged minimally" with PAIGC, providing limited non-military support in the form of propaganda support and scholarships for technical training and political education. A similar dynamic adhered in PAIGC's relationships with Yugoslavia and Sweden. Between mid-1969 and mid-1975 PAIGC received 45.2 million Swedish kronor in aid from
7056-480: 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
7203-455: The Kingdom of Bissau and permanently incorporated it into Portuguese Guinea . In 1941 the capital was transferred from Bolama to Bissau. 1959 saw the bloody repression of a dockworkers' strike, a key event that pushed the nationalists towards armed resistance. After the declaration of independence by the anti-colonial guerrillas of PAIGC in 1973, the capital of the rebel territories was declared to be Madina do Boe , while Bissau remained
7350-407: 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,
7497-432: The PAIGC continued to increase its strength, and began to heavily press Portuguese defense forces. In 1970 the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) began to use weapons similar to those the US was using in the Vietnam War : napalm and defoliants in order to find the insurgents or at least deny them the cover and concealment needed for rebel ambushes. In general, the PAIGC in Guinea was the best armed, trained, and led of all
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#17328523842007644-475: The PAIGC from Yugoslavia began in after 1968, in the form of military equipment, tactical, technical, and political training for PAIGC leadership, and medical aid. Yugoslavia also built a well-equipped hospital in Boké for PAIGC fighters, which was staffed by both Yugoslav and Cuban doctors, which was the flagship of the PAIGC health services. In late November 1970, Portugal launched Operation Green Sea , an amphibious attack on Guinea-Conakry designed to capture
7791-433: The PAIGC had carried out 147 attacks on Portuguese barracks and army encampments, and effectively controlled 2/3 of Portuguese Guinea. The next year, Portugal began a new campaign against the guerrillas with the arrival of the new governor of the colony, General António de Spínola . General Spínola instituted a series of civil and military reforms, intended to first contain, then roll back the PAIGC and its control of much of
7938-426: The PAIGC leadership, including Cabral, and to topple Guinean President Ahmed Sékou Touré , ideally to be replaced by a leader more willing to cooperate with the Portuguese and to obstruct PAIGC's supply lines . Chabal views the operation as "ill-timed and ill-prepared" and as "desperate": the Portuguese operatives were dispersed and expelled from Conakry, and, having revivified Third World political support for PAIGC,
8085-533: 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,
8232-455: The Portuguese armed forces serving in Guinea as part of an Africanisation strategy. The Portuguese conducted many search and destroy operations against the PAIGC 20 km from the frontier. On one occasion five helicopters landed 50 white plus some African soldiers. Thirty-six FARP men under Bobo, commander of the Sambuya zone, drew the Portuguese forces into a wooded area. Bobo launched an ambush at 1700 hours, inflicted casualties, and forced
8379-421: The Portuguese colonies", partly due to its inhospitable climate and apparent dearth of natural and mineral resources. There were few European settlers in Guinea, and the footprint even of the Portuguese administration was minimal and "crude", remaining centralised under the governor. Portugal invested little in the colony and made only minor gestures towards promoting its economic and social development. Nonetheless,
8526-494: The Portuguese newspaper Expresso in 1994 suggests that the Portuguese regime held secret diplomatic talks with PAIGC in London on 26–27 March 1974. However, diplomatic progress accelerated the following month, when the regime was overthrown in a military coup during the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. The war in Guinea-Bissau has been viewed as a factor which contributed to the coup and revolution: its status as "the most intense, destructive, and materially pointless" of
8673-520: The Portuguese regime. Scores of cadres were trained in Conakry and sent to the Guinean countryside to mobilise the population, while the political leadership launched a diplomatic offensive that secured the full cooperation of the government in Conakry, the "tacit support" of the Senegalese government, and contacts with several other liberation movements and left-wing political parties. On April 18, 1961 PAIGC together with FRELIMO of Mozambique, MPLA of Angola and MLSTP of São Tomé and Príncipe formed
8820-434: The Portuguese to withdraw. The PAIGC claimed the Portuguese suffered five dead and several wounded against their own four wounded. In 1966 the Portuguese attempted four large unsuccessful search-and-destroy sweeps of Iracunda. Each included several hundred conscripts with automatic weapons, mortars, bazookas, and air support. Warned by the peasants or by their own reconnaissance patrols, the PAIGC pulled back, loosely encircled
8967-440: The Portuguese, and launched night attacks to break up the column. The insurgents would sometimes feint at the end of the line to distract attention from the main attack elsewhere. The PAIGC considered the conscripts inept in the jungle. In Mar 1968 the PAIGC conducted an attack against the main Portuguese airfield just outside Bissau . The airfield was protected by wire, minefields and blockhouses. Thirteen volunteers infiltrated to
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#17328523842009114-483: 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
9261-612: The Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. The success of PAIGC guerilla operations forced the Exército Português do Ultramar (Portuguese overseas armed forces) deployed in Portuguese Guinea on the defensive at an early stage; the latter were forced to limit their response to defending territories and cities already held. Unlike Portugal's other African territories, successful small-unit Portuguese counterinsurgency tactics were slow to evolve in Guinea. Defensive operations, where soldiers were dispersed in small numbers to guard critical buildings, farms, or infrastructure were particularly devastating to
9408-522: The Swedish state, representing two-thirds of the Swedish assistance to African liberation movements during this period. Sweden was the most important donor of non-military material for PAIGC during the latter phase of the liberation war. Finally, PAIGC received significant support from the Bissau-Guinean diaspora , which burgeoned as a result of mass displacement during a 1964 PAIGC offensive and during Portuguese bombing campaigns in 1965 and 1967. By 1970, an estimated 106,000 Guineans – almost 20 per cent of
9555-450: The aftermath, it reiterated its commitment to national liberation, but with a new emphasis on the political mobilisation of the rural peasantry. Cabral ordered the party to go underground and its political cadres to organise in exile in Conakry , the capital of the newly independent Republic of Guinea on the southern border of Portuguese Guinea. Between 1960 and 1963, PAIGC was "totally transformed" as it prepared for armed struggle against
9702-449: The area with his pregnant sister, six wives, and subjects of his father's kingdom. The kingdom was composed of seven clans, descended from the sister and six wives. The Bossassun clan, which descends from the sister, inherited the throne. The Kingdom of Bissau was highly stratified. The king's coronation involved the practice of binding and beating the king, as the king should know what punishment felt like before administering it, as well as
9849-452: The area, however, remained in the hands of the Papel kings. In 1869, as part of an effort to more efficiently govern the territory, Bissau was raised to the status of commune. The decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century saw fierce resistance on the part of the Papels to colonial 'pacification campaigns.' In 1915 after 30 years of war, the Portuguese under the command of Officer Teixeira Pinto and warlord Abdul Injai defeated
9996-588: 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
10143-688: The beginning of 1972, although territorial boundaries remained blurry, most of the country belonged to one of PAIGC's liberated zones; by the end of the year, a de facto balance of power or even "situation of routine" had developed between Portuguese and PAIGC forces. Meanwhile, however, PAIGC had launched a flurry of political activity – having judged in roughly 1971 that independence was feasible and even imminent, its leadership had begun preparing for independence, including by creating new domestic political structures (with elections held in 1972) and by conducting an intense diplomatic offensive abroad. After years of attempts by Portugal to attack or capture Cabral as
10290-415: The border with Guinea-Conakry, and declared the independence of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau . The Assembly comprised 120 delegates, overwhelmingly from PAIGC, who had been appointed following elections held by PAIGC in 1972 in the so-called liberated zones – areas which PAIGC controlled with little Portuguese interference. During the Boé congress, the Assembly also nominated Luís Cabral as president at
10437-559: The chief products. Bissau is also the main city of the fishing and agricultural industry in the country. Bissau is served by Osvaldo Vieira International Airport , the country's sole international airport, which currently offers flights from six different airlines. The main highway connecting Bissau to the rest of the nation and the continent is the Trans–West African Coastal Highway . There are also many smaller national highways that connect to other big cities such as Bafatá and Gabu . The main secondary school institutions in Bissau are
10584-602: The city center is still underdeveloped. Because of the large population of Muslims in Bissau, Ramadan is also an important celebration. Football is the most popular sport in the country, as well as in the city. Many teams are based in the city, such as: UD Internacional , SC de Bissau , SC Portos de Bissau , Sport Bissau e Benfica , and FC Cuntum . Stadiums that are located in the city are Estádio Lino Correia and Estádio 24 de Setembro . The main religions are Muslim (50%), then Christian (34%) and animist (7.9%). Among
10731-458: The colonial capital. The city was attacked in 1968 and 1971 by nationalist forces. When Portugal granted independence, following the military coup of April 25 in Lisbon , Bissau became the capital of the newly independent state. Bissau was the scene of intense fighting during the beginning and end of the Guinea-Bissau Civil War in 1998 and 1999. Much of the infrastructure was destroyed and most of
10878-632: 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 ,
11025-404: The edge of the field and fired into the base, damaging planes on the ground, hangars, and other installations. They then withdrew with no casualties. The Portuguese stationed an infantry company at Madina do Boé in the east near the border with Guinea . With few inhabitants and structures to protect, and a long permeable frontier to guard, the company ended up just protecting themselves. Despite
11172-467: 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
11319-639: 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
11466-501: The eve of the Portuguese withdrawal in 1974, the total Portuguese force in the territory numbered about 31,000 fighters, of whom 24,800 were black and 6,200 white. PAIGC officially launched its armed struggle inside Guinea in early 1963, despite difficult conditions and very limited weapons supplies. PAIGC cadres, stationed south of the Geba River estuary, attacked Portuguese garrisons in Tite and Catió – bases deliberately established in
11613-859: The existing militias, created Special Militias of local combatants organised in combat groups, structured similarly to the Portuguese army (in companies divided into platoons ), and operating fairly autonomously. In 1968, he proposed to create five such Special Militias, but Lisbon had authorised only two by 1970, concerned both about financial constraints and about the "informality of procedures" introduced by Africanization. According to post-war estimates, locally recruited troops in Guinea numbered 1,000 in 1961 (21.1% of all Portuguese troops there), 3,229 (14.9%) in 1967, and 6,425 (20.1%) in 1973. Many thousands more locals were included in Portuguese-aligned militias. In all, there were "at least on paper, upwards of 17,000" African fighters in Guinea; on one estimate, upon
11760-478: The fact that native Guineans in the 'liberated territories' ceased payment of debts to Portuguese landowners as well as payment of taxes to the colonial administration. The branch stores of the Companhia União Fabril (CUF), Mario Lima Whanon , and Manuel Pinto Brandão companies were seized and inventoried by the PAIGC in the areas they controlled, while the use of Portuguese currency in the areas under guerilla control
11907-487: The fact there was no real benefit to keeping them there, the authorities refused to withdraw the unit until 1969. As feared, the PAIGC used the withdrawal as a PR opportunity with foreign journalists. In mid-1969 the PAIGC launched Operation Tenaz against Portuguese positions around Bafata, north of the River Corubal. They started by secretly depositing ammunition in dumps to the rear of areas of engagement. Reconnaissance
12054-621: 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
12201-406: The first sub- Saharan African liberation movement to achieve independence – if only indirectly – through armed struggle. Portuguese Guinea (as well as the nearby Portuguese Cape Verde archipelago) had been claimed as a Portuguese territory since 1446 and was a major trading post for commodities and African slaves during the 18th century. However, the mainland was not fully "pacified" until
12348-501: 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
12495-462: 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,
12642-519: 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
12789-526: The guerrilla movements. After 1968 PAIGC forces were increasingly supplied with modern Soviet weapons and equipment, most notably SA-7 rocket launchers and radar-controlled AA cannons. These weapons effectively undermined Portuguese air superiority, preventing the destruction by air of PAIGC encampments in territory it controlled. By 1970 the PAIGC even had candidates training in the Soviet Union , learning to fly MIGs and to operate Soviet-supplied amphibious assault crafts and APCs . Considerable support to
12936-425: The head of a fifteen-member council of state. Spínola and other Portuguese commanders told the press that the liberated zones were a myth, that the entire territory remained under the control of Portuguese forces, and that the declaration of independence had been issued outside Guinea. Nonetheless, before the end of the year, the new Republic of Guinea-Bissau had been recognised by at least 57 states. On 2 November,
13083-523: The inhabitants. Pinheiro later died in Papel custody. Unable to enforce a trading monopoly or collect duties from foreign shipping, the Portuguese soon abandoned the fort. They returned in 1753 but, faced with determined Papel resistance, were unable to build a new fort and left two years later. The fort was rebuilt by the Grão Pará and Maranhão Company in 1775 to better project Portuguese power and store more slaves for shipment to Brazil . Real control of
13230-406: 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
13377-476: The king of Bissau Bacompolco refused them permission to build a fort, he did grant them a trading factory, from which they shipped thousands of slaves, among other things. In response the Portuguese Conselho Ultramarino [ pt ] established the captaincy-general of Bissau, and by 1696 the town had a fort , a church, and a hospital. It was the main emporium for trade on and south of
13524-544: 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
13671-419: The late 1930s, by which time the Portuguese regime of António de Oliveira Salazar was preoccupied with the development of its Angolan and Mozambican colonies. There were various changes to the colonies' legal status and governance structures during this period and in subsequent decades, but they were primarily "cosmetic" in effect. In the phrase of Patrick Chabal , Guinea was "the smallest and most backward of
13818-461: The main towns, giving the insurgents free rein in the countryside. The PAIGC blew up bridges, cut telegraph lines, destroyed sections of the highways, established arms caches and hideouts, and destroyed Fula villages and minor administrative posts. In late 1962 the Portuguese launched an offensive and evicted the PAIGC cadres that had not integrated with the local population. Open hostilities broke out in January 1963. Guinea-Bissau's liberation movement
13965-539: The major cities and a diminished collection of fortified camps, and the Portuguese strategy increasingly amounted to little more than – in the phrase of Portuguese officer Major Carlos Fabião – "holding on as best as possible" ( "aguentar enquanto fosse possível" ). It launched no further offensives in the war. On 23–24 September 1973, the People's National Assembly ( Assembleia Nacional Popular de Guiné ) met in Madina do Boé , near
14112-436: 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
14259-599: 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
14406-418: The middle of PAIGC strongholds to serve as bases for surveillance and counter-insurgency . Similar guerrilla attacks were launched throughout the south of Portuguese Guinea, and the conflict spread. Chabal notes that the attacks surprised the Portuguese authorities, who had expected PAIGC to launch cross-border attacks in incursions over the border with Guinea-Conakry, rather than to launch a guerrilla war inside
14553-549: 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
14700-471: The misadventure strained Portuguese relations with other Western countries. The United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously condemned the operation in Resolution 290 , and the following year passed Resolution 291 condemning other cross-border incursions by Portugal into Guinea. Over the next two years, Portugal failed to make military advances or to forestall the consolidation of PAIGC's advances. By
14847-1119: 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
14994-467: The nephew of King Mecau—the first sovereign of the island of Bissau —son of his sister Pungenhum. Bôssassu formed a clan of the Papel peoples . From well before the arrival of Europeans to the early 20th century, the island of Bissau was governed as a kingdom inhabited by the Papel people . According to oral tradition, the kingdom was founded by Mecau, the son of the king of Quinara ( Guinala ), who moved to
15141-600: The new Portuguese government agreed to negotiate with PAIGC. With the assistance of the British Foreign Office , meetings between PAIGC and the new Portuguese regime were held on 25–31 May 1974 at the Hyde Park Hotel in London. The talks reached deadlock over sequencing, as PAIGC insisted that Portugal should recognise the 1973 declaration of independence as a precondition for the ceasefire sought by Portugal. However,
15288-617: The new revolutionary government of Algeria. A Marxist organisation operating at the height of the Cold War , it was also supported, from the early 1960s, by socialist states further afield, including the People's Republic of China , the Soviet Union , and Czechoslovakia . Between 1966 and 1974, PAIGC was supported by the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, which deployed a handful of doctors, military instructors, and technicians to PAIGC camps. Cuban soldiers saw some limited combat while in Guinea, but
15435-462: 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
15582-635: The north and on the southern border. Having acquired new weaponry, and in particular new ground-to-air missiles , PAIGC began in March 1973 to attack with vigour the Portuguese Air Force , "effectively neutralising" Portugal's air superiority – which until then had been Portugal's most marked tactical advantage, and a significant one given Guinea's difficult ground terrain. As PAIGC deployed its new ground-to-air missiles, as well as new large-caliber mortars and rockets (reportedly from Soviet-bloc suppliers),
15729-600: 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
15876-417: 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
16023-543: The occupants took to the forest. In 1964 PAIGC opened their second front in the north. In April 1964 the Portuguese launched a counter-offensive. They attacked the PAIGC held island of Como in the south of the country. 3,000 Portuguese, with air support, were involved but after 65 days were forced to withdraw. The PAIGC harassed the Portuguese during the rainy season. At some point in 1964 Portuguese Air Force planners failed to verify their target and bombed Portuguese troops. In retaliation Portuguese soldiers and sailors attacked
16170-399: The offer of salaries to conscripts. Under Spínola, the Portuguese also created two elite special forces contingents composed of African combatants and engaged in counterinsurgency . The Special Marines ( Fuzileiros Especiais Africanos ) were created in 1970 and by 1974 numbered 160 men in two detachments ; they supplemented other Portuguese elite units conducting amphibious operations in
16317-481: 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 ,
16464-718: The organisation. Thereafter the war effort was carried out not by autonomous guerrilla groups, but by guerrilla units within a nationwide army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People ( Forças Armadas Revolucionárias do Povo, FARP). From then until the close of the war, the basic fighting unit in FARP was the highly flexible "double group" ( bi-grupo ), which comprised two distinct commandos of 15 to 25 men each, normally operating together but also capable of remaining operational if separated (or if joined with other double groups). Also from 1964, PAIGC implemented what Chabal calls
16611-587: The parties reconvened later in Algiers, Algeria , which PAIGC regarded as a more "comfortable" environment than London. Meanwhile, Portuguese troops in the field in Guinea-Bissau established informal contacts with PAIGC troops; and, on 29 July, the territorial assembly of the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement issued a declaration which applauded the anti-colonial "struggle for national liberation" and described PAIGC as "the sole legitimate representative of
16758-459: 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
16905-551: The people of Guinea-Bissau". On 26 August 1974, in Algiers, Portugal and the PAIGC signed an accord in which Portugal agreed to recognise Guinea-Bissau's independence and to remove all troops by the end of October. Also in August, the UN Security Council recommended Guinea-Bissau's admission into the UN. According to Basil Davidson , a de facto ceasefire had already obtained in Guinea-Bissau since
17052-621: 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
17199-458: The population fled. The city rebounded after peace returned, holding more than 25% of the country's population during the 2009 census and witnessing the erection of many new and rehabilitated buildings. On October 18, 2023, a city-wide blackout occurred due to an unpaid power bill to the Turkish power firm Karpowership which was over $ 15 million. Bissau is located on the Geba River estuary, off
17346-400: 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
17493-468: The populations of the territories they controlled. In particular, members of the Fulbe ethnic group were over-represented in the Portuguese army, partly because many Fulbe lived in eastern regions which were controlled by Portugal until late in the war and where local chiefs had "generally amicable" relationships with the Portuguese. Portuguese recruitment was also assisted by colonial propaganda , coercion, and
17640-470: The presentation of a spear, the royal badge of office. When the Portuguese began to trade there in the 16th century, the king of Bissau was among the most supportive monarchs of the region. In 1680 Bissau even helped the Portuguese in a conflict with the Papels of Cacheu. The city was founded in 1687 as a Portuguese trading post. During this same period French activities in the area were increasing. Although
17787-461: The regular Portuguese infantry, who became vulnerable to guerrilla attacks outside of populated areas by the forces of the PAIGC. They were also demoralized by the steady growth of PAIGC liberation sympathizers and recruits among the rural population. In a relatively short time, the PAIGC had succeeded in reducing Portuguese military and administrative control of the country to a relatively small area of Guinea. The scale of this success can be seen in
17934-414: The remaining five months of the year, the city receives around 2,000 millimetres (79 in) of rain. At the 1979 census, Bissau had a population of 109,214. By the 2015 census, Bissau had a population of 492,004. Bissau is the country's largest city, major port, and educational, administrative, industrial and military center. Peanuts , hardwoods , copra , palm oil , milk products , and rubber are
18081-539: 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
18228-578: The riverine areas of Guinea which attempted to interdict and destroy guerrilla forces and supplies. The more prominent African Commandos ( Comandos Africanos ) began operating in 1972 and comprised 700 men in three battalions by 1974. The African Commandos were manned entirely by Africans and carried out special combat operations in neighbouring Senegal and Guinea-Conakry as well as inside Portuguese Guinea. The Commandos were especially well known for carrying out helicoptered commando raids on so-called liberated villages under PAIGC control – Spínola's "version of
18375-428: The rural portion of Portuguese Guinea. This included a ' hearts and minds ' propaganda campaign designed to win the trust of the indigenous population, an effort to eliminate some of the discriminatory practices against native Guineans, a massive construction campaign for public works including new schools, hospitals, improved telecommunications and road networks, and a large increase in recruitment of native Guineans into
18522-518: The same time, however, Senegal provided safe haven to PAIGC from 1966, when Senghor's government formally agreed to allow PAIGC soldiers free movement in and out of Senegal, where PAIGC would be allowed to establish bases. Simultaneously, PAIGC retained its headquarters-in-exile in Guinea-Conakry, Guinea's other neighbour and a continued ally of PAIGC. Elsewhere in Africa, PAIGC received material support from Libya, then under Muammar Gaddafi , and from
18669-601: The so-called liberated zones. In September 1973, the PAIGC-dominated People's National Assembly unilaterally declared the independence of a new Republic of Guinea-Bissau ; the declaration was recognised by several foreign countries. After the Carnation Revolution , the new Portuguese government agreed to grant independence to Guinea-Bissau in September 1974 and to Cape Verde a year later. PAIGC thus became
18816-633: The southern littoral , and had also gained "a tenuous foothold" in the Mansôa – Mansaba – Oio triangle, north of the Geba estuary. Thus, at a five-day conference the same month, PAIGC commanders agreed to redouble their efforts on the northern front. The geography, dense forests with numerous waterways, were favourable to guerrilla activity. The PAIGC had few weapons – perhaps only one submachine gun and two pistols per group – so attacked Portuguese convoys to gain more weapons. Each group fought in isolation and established
18963-524: The squadron barracks in the colony's capital Bissau . In 1965 the war spread to the eastern part of the country; that same year the PAIGC expanded its attacks in the northern area of the country, where at the time only the Front for the Liberation and Independence of Guinea (FLING), a minor insurgent force, was operating. By this time, the PAIGC, led by Amílcar Cabral , began openly receiving military support from
19110-497: The territory's population – had fled the war and relocated to the neighbouring states of Guinea-Conakry and Senegal. These migrant populations, particularly those resident in border regions, provided PAIGC forces with refuge and helped PAIGC soldiers to move regular shipments of weapons from Guinea-Conakry and Senegal into Portuguese Guinea. On a monthly basis, materiel was trucked from Koundara, Guinea-Conakry into Senegalese towns, including Vélingara , where pro-PAIGC forces maintained
19257-429: The territory, and who suffered high casualties early on. According to Chabal, PAIGC's strategy was for small groups of guerrillas gradually to gain a foothold in areas where they had popular political support, while seeking "to attack and harass the Portuguese everywhere and at all times, to cut all means of transport and communications and isolate them in the fortified areas where they had to retreat". Its policy, moreover,
19404-409: The war "increasingly took on a 'conventional' rather than guerrilla character". In July 1973, PAIGC artillery destroyed the important Portuguese strongpoint of Guileje, which previously had been held by an elite garrison of 400 mostly European troops and which had presented a major obstacle to PAIGC's communications with the government in Guinea-Conakry. By then, Portuguese forces were largely confined to
19551-580: The war effort by Portugal, also pursued in the Angolan and Mozambican theatres, proceeded with particular speed in Guinea, particularly after General Spínola's appointment. It entailed the integration of indigenous Guinean Africans into the Portuguese military forces which fought PAIGC. Until the 1950s, the Portuguese military forces permanently stationed in Guinea included a small force of locally recruited African colonial soldiers ( caçadores indigenas ), commanded by white officers; non-commissioned officers were
19698-435: The war was led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde ( Portuguese : Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, PAIGC), a liberation movement founded in 1956 by Rafael Barbosa and nationalist intellectual Amílcar Cabral . From the outset, its main objectives were the unity of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and their independence from Portuguese rule. In its first three years, PAIGC
19845-506: 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
19992-526: 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
20139-470: Was banned. In order to maintain the economy in the liberated territories, the PAIGC was compelled at an early stage to establish its own Marxist administrative and governmental bureaucracy, which organized agricultural production, educated farm workers on protecting crops from destruction from government attacks, and opened collective armazéns do povo ( people's stores ) to supply urgently needed tools and supplies in exchange for agricultural produce. By 1967
20286-424: 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
20433-448: Was estimated at between 31,000 and 32,000 in 1974, and the forces comprised both metropolitan soldiers and locally recruited Guineans. They will remember you. Portuguese soldier. You, who continue in the colonial army: to take part in crimes against our people: to contribute to ruining your country… ONLY FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE MONEY-GRABBERS OF YOUR COUNTRY – PAIGC leaflet distributed in Guinea, early 1970s The "Africanization" of
20580-568: Was led and dominated by PAIGC, which was led by Cabral until his assassination in January 1973. By the early 1970s, PAIGC had the support of a majority of the Guinean population, but its combat strength was estimated at no more than 7,000. However, the movement was "well trained, well led, and well equipped", and its guerrilla campaign benefitted both from the terrain – its forces operated primarily from Guinea's dense jungles – and from external support. In 1964, PAIGC held its Cassaca Congress, which decided on reforms to discourage militarism inside
20727-523: 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 ,
20874-462: Was never to attempt to take over an area until PAIGC guerrillas had guaranteed the support of the local population there. PAIGC intended always to avoid frontal attack or confrontation with the Portuguese forces, who were better equipped; it envisioned the war ending with PAIGC gradually moving its guerrilla war from the countryside towards the cities, which it would encircle rather than seize. By July 1963, PAIGC had consolidated its military position in
21021-697: Was preoccupied with mostly fruitless exercises in constitutional-legal agitation, concentrated in Bissau and other major cities and sometimes involving collaboration with local trade unions . However, on 3 August 1959, PAIGC was involved in organising a major dockworkers' strike at the Port of Bissau . The Portuguese authorities broke up the strike by force, leading to what became known as the Pidjiguiti massacre , in which at least fifty people were killed and several hundreds wounded. The massacre led PAIGC to rethink its policies: in
21168-636: Was provided by two bi-groups that infiltrated the area to discover the Portuguese dispositions. Then two strike forces of several hundred men entered the area. Military tactical reforms by Portuguese commanders included new naval amphibious operations to overcome some of the mobility problems inherent in the underdeveloped and marshy areas of the country. These new operations utilized Destacamentos de Fuzileiros Especiais (DFE) (special marine assault detachments) as strike forces. The Fuzileiros Especiais were lightly equipped with folding-stock m/961 (G3) rifles, 37mm rocket launchers, and light machine guns such as
21315-550: 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
21462-585: 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
21609-462: 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
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