European Portuguese has expressed interest in joining the CPLP as an associate observer pending permission from the Spanish government. Portugal maintained its colonial rule over its Old World empire much longer than it did over Brazil. Thus European Portuguese is used as a norm of reference for African and Asian Lusophone countries (Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe). Portugal remains a destination for post-secondary education for the elites of these places. In Europe, European Portuguese remains the learning standard for Portuguese as a second language. The Instituto Camões is an organization which promotes not only
Linguistic features of Spanish as spoken by Catalan speakers Linguistic features of Spanish as spoken by Catalan speakers The Spanish language is widely spoken in most of the Catalan-speaking territories, where it is partly characterized by language contact with the Catalan language. These territories are: Catalonia, the Valencian Community (except some inland areas which are only Spanish-speaking), the Balearic Islands, Andorra, and the easternmost areas of Aragon. This linguistic contact is encouraged by the fact that almost all of the Catalan speakers in these regions are Catalan–Spanish bilingual to a greater or lesser extent. Many of the features of this Spanish language variety are present due to the transfer