Essential Portuguese phrases

Umbundu is the language; the Ovimbundu are the people. Huambo is the heart of their country, and Umbundu is Angola's most-spoken African language — the 2014 census put it at 23% against Portuguese's 71%. Portuguese works everywhere in the city; twenty words of Umbundu changes every conversation in the province.

The seat of an Ovimbundu traditional authority — a kingdom's court rather than a village. Bailundo's ombala, north of the city, is the best known, and the institution is not a museum piece: traditional authority is still consulted on land and local disputes.

What the city was called from 1928 until independence, when the colonial administration intended to move Angola's capital here. The name is gone and the ambition is not — the boulevards, the ministries-in-waiting and the street grid were all built for a capital city.

The traditional chief of a village or quarter, recognised alongside the formal administration. In a province that is 52% rural, the soba is a real interlocutor for anything involving land, and his agreement can matter as much as the municipality's.

An elder, or anyone senior enough to be owed deference, used as a title before a name. In a province with a median age of 20, deference to age is unusually visible.

A kid, and an adult behaving like one. The counterpart to kota.

A problem, an argument, trouble. 'Há maka' flags that something is wrong without naming it.

The dry season, roughly May to September. On the coast it means fog; up here at 1,700 m it means clear skies, dust and genuinely cold nights. Angolans use it as a season name, and on the planalto it is the one that catches visitors without a jacket.

To work, with an edge of grind. In a farming province it usually means exactly that.

House, home, place. The word you will hear in every conversation about renting.

Money. 'Não tenho kumbu' — I'm broke. Commoner than 'dinheiro'.

'We're together.' The Angolan sign-off for calls, meetings and messages, carrying an obligation rather than just warmth.

The maize version of funge, which is what the planalto eats. On the coast funge is cassava; up here it is maize meal, and the difference is a genuine regional marker rather than a preference.

Pounded cassava leaves stewed with palm oil, groundnut and often dried fish. The standard green alongside pirão, and one of the most reliably good things on any table here.

Chilli, and the sauce made from it that sits on the table. The heat is added by you, at the plate.