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182 Conclusion Contos do nascer da terra illustrates the importance of rescuing traditions and values that have been overshadowed by the culture of the colonialists and postcolonialists : they speak of the importance of the birth (or rebirth) of the land. The stories analyzed point to the fact that language is more than a communication tool: it is in fact a way of being, of finding oneself, and also a way of understanding the world. Couto's stories speak to the need to listen to oral traditions, its myths and wisdoms, so that Mozambicans can regain the epistemologies of the past. The reconnection with this past and its ways will allow the country to regain its language in the true sense. Only then can Mozambique emerge as a more egalitarian nation, a nation that brings the old, the suppressed into the present and makes it live (and alive) again (even though the old will also be changed by the new, by the foreign, by that which was brought in by colonialism, since history cannot be obliterated). Through Couto's stories the histories and cultures of the many different Mozambican peoples pass: they can speak and say their ontology, their epistemology. Couto's language is not an exact mirror of how people speak in Mozambique. However, there is no doubt that his language does indeed represent the Mozambican cultures at a much deeper level than does the standard Portuguese language. By breaking up the colonial language, Couto is able to get closer to the soul of Mozambique, to its philosophy of life and epistemology: he is able to bring the word closer to the thing it is describing, so that we are able to regain some of what might have been lost in the process of transposing African values and realities into European languages and realities. The Mozambican government has acknowledged the importance of Bantu languages for the preservation of African cultures in Mozambique and has taken some measures to develop, preserve, and maintain those same languages. However, it has not yet given those languages official status, a decision which can only serve to dismiss the real importance of those languages and create an ambiguous feeling about their crucial significance among Mozambicans. As Armando Lopes puts it, Today, when compared to the inherited and reinforced prestigious status enjoyed by the Portuguese language in Mozambique, we see that the status of Bantu languages and the present efforts to develop and promote them in society still have a long way to go. It is a fact, though, that the post- Conclusion 183 independence years, unlike the years of colonial control have witnessed several attempts by authorities and language planning agencies to redress this imbalance. But, true language maintenance ultimately lies with official status recognition of the Bantu languages and the concurrent implementation of shelter programmes. The present maintenance-oriented permission reflected by Article 5.2 of the Constitution is necessary, but not sufficient for powerless Bantu languages to be maintained and developed. What they need is maintenance-oriented promotion, which necessarily implicates allocation of economic resources to support these languages. The existing pronouncements tend to be vague, and the economic prerequisites for promoting Bantu languages have been deficient. The argument that a bilingual (Bantu/Portuguese) Mozambican can use the official language (Portuguese) in official situations is flawed by the following arguments: If languages cannot be used in official situations, they will not be adequately learned and developed; and if they are not properly learned, how can people fully and consciously identify with languages which are poorly known, and in some instances (still a tiny minority) not known at all? . . . To afford Bantu languages official right is, in my opinion, the proper way to revitalize and explicitly promote them . . . Efforts to treat every language equally and give each equal respect would augur well for the future of the country. (120) Of course Mozambique has many other more immediate problems to deal with, such as hunger, the reconstruction of the country's infrastructure after many years of civil bloody war, and recent devastating floods. For now, though, at least we have Mia Couto who, through his "creative wordplay" ("brincriação vocabular"), as his writing is often referred to, is able to better tell of the many Mozambican identities . As Idílio Rocha puts it, Couto's idiolect "is the linguistic paradigm of what that country by the Indian Ocean should be, politically and socially, were it a nation, or were to become one" ("é o paradigma lingu...

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