ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Portuguese in Africa

Do you know how different people speak different languages? Well, a long time ago, the Portuguese people traveled to some countries in Africa and took their language with them.

Portuguese is a language that originally comes from Portugal - a country in Europe. But when Portuguese people went to Africa, they started teaching their language to the people there. Some people in these African countries started speaking Portuguese too.

This happened because Portugal wanted to control trade and resources in some parts of Africa, so they set up colonies - kind of like little towns that were controlled by the Portuguese. The people who lived in these colonies learned Portuguese from the Portuguese people who were in charge.

Today, some countries in Africa still speak Portuguese as one of their official languages. These countries include Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

There's a bit more to the history of Portuguese in Africa, but this is the basic explanation for how it started.