page_title: Community of Portuguese Language Countries
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Community of Portuguese Language Countries / Scope / Language
caption_attribution_description: Foto Oficial dos Ministros na VII Reunião de Ministros da Cultura da CPLP, Sintra - Portugal 18 de Junho de 2010. (Crédito: Marcos Borga)
context_page_description: The Community of Portuguese Language Countries, also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, is an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language. The CPLP operates as a privileged, multilateral forum for the mutual cooperation of the governments, economies, non-governmental organizations, and peoples of the Lusofonia. The CPLP consists of 9 member states and 19 associate observers, located in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
  The history of the CPLP began when it was founded in 1996, in Lisbon, by Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe, nearly two decades after the beginning of the decolonization of the Portuguese Empire. Following the independence of Timor-Leste in 2002 and the application by Equatorial Guinea in 2014, both of those countries became members of the CPLP. Macau, Galicia, and Uruguay are formally interested in full membership and another 17 countries across the world are formally interested in associate observer status.
context_section_description: Since many children in rural areas of Lusophone Africa and East Timor are out-of-school youth, the education officials in these regions seek help from Portugal and Brazil to increase the education to spread Portuguese fluency (like establishing Instituto Camões language center branches in main cities and rural towns), as Portuguese is becoming one of the main languages in Southern Africa, where it is also taught in Namibia and South Africa.
  Angola has not yet signed the most recent accord on the orthography of the Portuguese language, and has asked other PALOP countries to support it in discussions on various points of that accord with Portugal.
caption: The 7th Meeting of Ministers of Culture at Sintra Palace; Portuguese Riviera, 2010.
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