Amélia Arlete Vieira Dias Rodrigues Mingas (17 December 1940 – 12 August 2019) was an Angolan linguist and teacher.

Biography

Amélia Mingas was born in

Ingombota Ingombota is one of the six urban districts that make up the municipality of Luanda, in the province of Luanda, the capital city of Angola. Ingombota is home to the central business district of Luanda, Angola. The economic, political and symboli ...

, in the Angolan capital of

Luanda Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...

. She was the daughter of André "Mongone" Rodrigues Mingas and Antónia Diniz de Aniceto Vieira Dias. Her father was a nationalist and anti-colonialist activist, as was her maternal uncle Liceu Vieira Dias, who was also one of the founders of Angolan pop music. Some of Amélia Mingas' siblings were also notable figures in Angolan history, namely the musicians André Mingas and

Ruy Mingas Ruy Alberto Vieira Dias Rodrigues Mingas (12 May 1939 – 4 January 2024) was an Angolan singer, songwriter, diplomat, businessman and politician. He was a deputy in the National Assembly, secretary with the status of Minister of Sports and amba ...

, the athlete Júlia Rodrigues Mingas, the police commander José "Zé" Rodrigues Mingas and the economist Saíde Mingas. Amélia Mingas completed her primary education at Escola No. 8 and her secondary studies at Liceus Paulo Dias de Novais e Salvador Correia. She then moved to Europe to receive a higher education, graduating in

German philology German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, German literature, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on Culture ...

from the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

and receiving her doctorate in general and applied linguistics from the

Paris Descartes University Paris Descartes University (), also known as Paris V, was a French public university located in Paris. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Descartes completely merg ...

. She then returned to Angola, where she worked as the Portuguese language coordinator at the Instituto Médio de Educação; she then became head of the sector and later coordinator of the Portuguese language department at the (ISCED-Luanda) and director of the National Language Institute of the Ministry of Culture. As well as working as researcher, Mingas was responsible for the chair of Bantu linguistics at

Agostinho Neto University The Agostinho Neto University () is the largest public university of Angola, based in Luanda and in the nearby city of Talatona, in Angola. In the academic year 2005–06, 68 licensing courses were ministered by the university: 18 in Bachel ...

. Between 2006 and 2010, Mingas was the executive director of the International Institute of the Portuguese Language, based in Praia, Cape Verde. There she advocated for the establishment of a common language policy for the eight states that have Portuguese as their official language. She also took part in various seminars and lectures on the problem of African and Portuguese languages, both inside and outside Angola. She published ''Interferência do Kimbundu no Português Falado em Lwanda'', as well as three research papers on the

Kongo language Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers live ...

of Iwoyo, spoken in Cabinda. Amélia Mingas died on 12 August 2019, in Luanda, at the age of 78, from cardiac arrest.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mingas, Amélia 1940 births 2019 deaths Academic staff of the Agostinho Neto University Paris Descartes University alumni People from Luanda University of Lisbon alumni Women linguists Vieira Dias family