Detection of Loanwords in Angolan Portuguese: A Text Mining Approach

Abstract

Angola is characterized by many different languages and social, cultural and political realities, which had a marked effect on Angolan Portuguese (AP). Consequently, AP is characterized by diatopic variation. One of the marked effects is the loanwords imported from other Angolan languages. Our objective is to analyze different Angolan texts, analyze the lexical forms used and conduct a comparative study with European Portuguese, aiming at identifying the possible loanwords in Angolan Portuguese. This process was automated, as well as the identification of all loanwords’ cotexts. In addition, we determine the lexical class of each loanword and the Angolan language of its origin. Most lexical loanwords come from the Kimbundu, although AP includes loanwords from some other Angolan languages too. Our study serves as a basis for preparing an Angolan regionalism dictionary. We noticed that more than 700 identified loanwords do not figure in the existing dictionaries.