Portuguese language in Africa Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau with autochthonous African languages (mainly Niger–Congo family languages). In Africa, the Portuguese language experiences pressure and possibly competition from French and English. Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe are all members of La Francophonie and Mozambique is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and has observer status at La Francophonie. Conversely, Equatorial Guinea has announced its decision to introduce Portuguese as its third official language, in addition to Spanish and French, and has made a request for membership in the CPLP. Mauritius and Senegal have also joined the CPLP as associate observer members.
History of West Africa in this ancient volume clearly show the "Gum Coast", "Grain Coast", "Ivory Coast", and "Gold Coast". Malachy Postlethwayt writes "It is melancholy to observe that a country, which has near ten thousand miles sea-coast, and noble, large, deep rivers, should yet have no navigation; streams penetrating into the very center of the country, but of no benefit to it, innumerable people, without knowledge of each other, correspondence, or commerce." In the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s the Europeans started to colonise the inland of West Africa, they had previously mostly controlled trading ports along the coasts and rivers. Samory