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
Garifuna language Garifuna language Garifuna (Karif) is a minority language widely spoken in villages of Garifuna people in the western part of the northern coast of Central America. It is a member of the Arawakan language family but an atypical one since it is spoken outside the Arawakan language area, which is otherwise now confined to the northern parts of South America, and because it contains an unusually high number of loanwords, from both Carib languages and a number of European languages because of an extremely tumultuous past involving warfare, migration and colonization. The language was once confined to the Antillean islands