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The development of French in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 121 of 135 21 November 2011 at 6:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe this would require a separate thread, but I don't think you can measure the success of such a Charter as in Quebec by looking at whether people are following the actual law, but by checking if the law is having an effect beyond the letter. I don't know the situation in Montreal, but I've been to Macau. In Macau all signage is in Chinese and Portugese but not a goddamn soul speaks Portugese in Macau. I'm not saying the situation is the same in Montreal, but I can imagine a situation where all of those laws are followed and the language of everyday life is still English. After all, you could just as well make similar laws in Congo requiring the use of French, no?
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| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 122 of 135 21 November 2011 at 7:20am | IP Logged | ||
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The situation in Montreal is not the subject at hand, but if one is going to discuss the practicability of Charter-inspired legislation in another country I think it might be interesting for outsiders to know just how practicable it is here « à pied d'oeuvre ».
Getting a Certificat de francisation is not as hard as one might think. You put on a dog and pony show for the inspector whenever he comes around and you get to keep your little piece of paper on the wall.For example, I've toured law firms in Montréal who proudly display their certificate on the wall, all while conducting almost all their internal business in English. And this despite the fact that, as you point out, one must display a certain knowledge of French (just what level remains to be seen) to be called to a professional order such as the Barreau du Québec. So while we can consider the Charter an enormous success in certain areas (signage, publicity, government and education to a certain point), it hasn't hit all the targets. That's all I'm saying. And I'm also pointing out that at the moment of the Charter's adoption, Québec was over 80% francophone already. There is no language in the DRC that could possibly compare to that demographic strength. Edited by lecavaleur on 21 November 2011 at 7:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 123 of 135 21 November 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's not get distracted by the effects of the Charter of the French Language in Quebec. That is a very valid topic for the discussion, but the topic here is the implementation of an official African language. As I have said before, the reason for looking at the Charter is basically inspiration for concrete steps towards making an official language a reality in the daily lives of people.
I have been discussing a hypothetical situation of the implementation of an indigenous national language for the Congo. I am quite aware of the fact that the chances of this happening are nearly zero. I brought it up simply to point out that there is an alternative to French as the official language. And it is not as simple as just declaring Lingala the official language, I have tried to show how certain specific questions like signage, labeling, official communications, etc. have to be addressed. There other issues that would need to be addressed. A common criticism that one hears about African languages is the lack of terminology for today's technical world. After all, who has heard of physics textbook in Lingala? This is of course a spurious argument. If the terminology doesn't exist, you simply create it or borrow it. And I mean that literally. You set up terminology committees with the appropriate experts and create words using the rules of the language. This exactly what was done and continues to be done in Quebec today where the Office de la langue française has published a huge number of lexicons for various industries. In the case of Quebec, much vocabulary was imported from France, but a lot was created locally. In any case, creating vocabulary is not a problem. The real issue is getting people to use it. This is where textbooks, user manuals, official communications and the media are important vehicles for the spread of terminology. I also believe in the power of spontaneous lexical creativity. People will naturally create vocabulary when confronted with the need. This is exactly what happened in the great technical languages such as English, French and German. I should also point out that this question of technical documentation and terminology are not unique to Africa. All small languages face this problem of lack of documentation in their language. I'm sure that technical documentation in English is omnipresent in universities in all European countries with very small populations. I doubt that Estonia, with a population of 1.1 million people produces many books on computer systems. While we are on this question of technical capabilities of languages, maybe something should be said for these so-called francophone countries switching to English as their primary language of international communications. French has always been touted as the language that will bind the francophone African countries together and that will give Africans access to the outside world. Why not use English instead and drop French entirely? English has become the international lingua franca. And English is the other European-origin language used in Africa. So, this will kill two birds with one stone. There is actually an example of this in the case of Rwanda that replaced French with English as an official language in 2008. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 124 of 135 21 November 2011 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Indeed, this is an ongoing issue in one of the world's newest independent nations- East Timor (a former Portuguese territory formerly under Indonesian occupation for a quarter century), which adopted Portuguese (along with Tetum) as an official language. Some of this discussion is analogous to the situation with French in Africa There are two trains of thought on the subject of Portuguese in East Timor. One argument, argument "A", Lingua Franca: Portuguese in East Timor defends Portuguese as inextricably linked to Timorese culture and society. The other argument, argument "B", advocates a multilingual approach with the national Language, Tetum, priortized: Portuguese under attack in East Timor Many cannot understand why English was not adopted as an official language, given the proximity to Australia and its usefulness as an international language. I won't quote massive excerpts from these two webpages because this thread is about French in Africa. Anyone interested can follow the two links and read for themselves. Edited by iguanamon on 21 November 2011 at 5:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5616 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 125 of 135 21 November 2011 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I know that Rwanda's done it, but I don't know if they've succeeded. Madagascar tried to impose English as a co-official language, but reneged it. The question would be, I suppose, if it will succeed. There's a debate concerning the number of real francophones, meaning speakers of correct French, but how many anglophones are there? And why do they need to speak English? I, for one, must say that the thought of a linguistically homogenous/anglophone Africa displeases me. Learning a new language is part of discovering a new culture, and linguistic variety is part of maintaining cultural diversity.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 126 of 135 21 November 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really want to thank iguanamon for the post and links to the pages on the situation in East Timor. What I find quite interesting in all these different postcolonial linguistic environments is the problem of the status of the vernacular lingua franca that inevitably arise. Whether this is pidgin-English in the Cameroons, forms of "le français tirailleur" in all of francophone Africa, varieties of "bush English" in all the English-speaking African countries or Tetum in East Timor, this is human creativity at work. What I find particularly interesting in all of this is the fact that these vernaculars are so pervasive that even the elites who pride themselves in speaking the proper official language can also use the vernacular when necessary. The opposite is not true, of course.
It is not surprising that these two linguistic worlds meet in the court system that is steeped in the proper language but where many of the people under judgment and other participants speak only the vernacular. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 127 of 135 21 November 2011 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Rwanda has begun taking steps to switch to English, but not without resistance. The problem is twofold: on one hand, the bureaucracy and basically all school teachers are francophone and have received all their formal instruction in French. They will have to learn English and that will come at a cost in both financial terms and in terms of teaching quality.
Also, the choice to switch to English was not so much an anti-French political statement as a capricious expression of the President's Americanophilia. His military training was in the US and he likes America. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure that Americafrique is any better than Françafrique. In the end, it all comes back to the same thing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5616 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 128 of 135 21 November 2011 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||
As I've asked before, why doesn't France realize the potential of French in Africa and takes action to increase the literacy, ending illiteracy and fortifying the position of French? Ofcourse they could switch to English, but as Leca mention not "sans peine", as the process of alphabetization will be twice as hard. And I'm a bit skeptical of American presence in Africa and Latin America, it's not always very well thought of by the locals ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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