Português no Índico: evidências de nativização do português moçambicano

In the context of the growing pluricentricity of Portuguese, we analyze the nativization of African varieties of Portuguese within the Dynamic Model framework developed by Schneider (2007) for national varieties of English, with a particular focus on Mozambican Portuguese (MP). We start by providing key MP sociolinguistic data, such as the percentage of speakers of Portuguese (as either L1 or L2) and of the local Bantu languages, the social projection of Portuguese in Mozambique, the diglossic distribution and gradual language shift from Bantu languages towards Portuguese. Second, we analyze some of the main linguistic indicators of the nativization of MP: at the phonological level, with syllabic restructuring; at the syntactic level, with clitics, differential object marking, transitivization, double objects, and the emergence of new constructions such as the Recipient passive; and at the lexical level, with loanwords and neologisms. Finally, we discuss issues of language contact and degrees of influence from Bantu languages, stages in the stabilization of MP, and the restructuring of the European Portuguese grammar, leading to a dynamic and sociocognitive (re)interpretation of the nativization of MP.