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The development of French in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 65 of 135 13 November 2011 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I got here late. Has anyone mentioned whether the percentage of French speakers is increasing in Africa? I lived in
Tanzania, and I doubt if the percentage of English speakers is increasing. 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 66 of 135 13 November 2011 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Excellent, that's really what I was curious about: in which direction the development is headed. How do you know? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4831 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 67 of 135 13 November 2011 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Rutabaga Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Romania Joined 4928 days ago 27 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Slovenian*, French, German, Russian Studies: Portuguese, Uzbek | Message 68 of 135 13 November 2011 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Just because it works in Senegal does not mean it will work elsewhere. As I have already pointed out, this 'natural' process already took place in Guinea and failed. There is no lingua franca aside from French, and there is no obvious way to choose one language. Ethnic tensions have already been running high. In Mali, they are trying to introduce learning in indigenous languages in the primary school for the first few years and that too has met a lot of resistance. Yes, it's very easy for you to say a country should just adopt another language as its official language. But the politics involved are far more complex. Given the problems that Mali has had (and still has) with its Touareg population, can you imagine the repercussions if they suddenly decided that Bambara should be the official language? We're not talking about disgruntled people here. We're talking about potential for great instability and civil war. Is that worth it in the name of changing the official language? I'm not sure at all how Iceland is a relevant example here. It's a country where everyone speaks the same language. How does that even compare to Africa? As regards access to information, these countries frequently don't have the resources to print out physics textbooks, for example, in local languages. By being fluent in French, students will be able to access far more research done elsewhere. This isn't all that unusual. Universities in other countries do not always offer all languages in their mother tongue. In fact, I think this is becoming more and more common. Wolof will always remain a small language, even if adopted an official language by Senegal. It will never become a major research language. Again, comparing it to Chinese is pointless, given how much larger the population of China is. 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 69 of 135 13 November 2011 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
While we discuss the topic of French in Africa and the status of the African languages, we immediately focus on subsaharan Africa. But what about North Africa that had a much longer and more intense history of contact with France. What happened in Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria is very interesting because it demonstrates a different form of development. The first thing to note that although French remains an important language in administration and business, it is not the official language in these four countries. I highly recommend the Wiki articles on the languages of these countries. Here is an excerpt from the article on Morocco: "A multitude of Languages are used in Morocco, the native languages of Moroccans are Moroccan Arabic (known as Darija) and Amazigh Languages. The official Languages are Classical Arabic and the Amazigh Language.[1] Amazigh Language exists in Morocco in three different -yet related- languages: Riff, Shilha, and Central Atlas. In Morocco, there are 15 to 18 million Berber speakers, about 50 to 65% of the population.[2] Tachelhit in the High Atlas, the Anti-Atlas and Souss, the Tamazight in the Middle Atlas and rates in the region of Rif. Many Berbers were also established in major cities. French, which remains Morocco's unofficial second language, is taught universally and serves as Morocco's primary language of commerce and economics; it is also widely used in education and government. Morocco is a member of the Francophonie. Spanish, is also spoken by some Moroccans, especially in the northern regions. English, is spoken sporadically in the business, science and education sectors. Its usage and learning has grown over the last decade, since the introduction of an education reform in 2002, which established the teaching English since the 7th grade in public schools." Compare this situation to that of the black francophone countries that we have been discussing. Why did the North African countries not retain French as an official language? Is it because there are no tribal languages in the country? Is it because they did not want access to modern civilization through French? I may be a bit sarcastic, but the main point is that these countries felt the need to get rid of the colonial language and promote one of their own. Interestingly, all of these countries, to varying degrees, still speak French as a second language and more so than most of the other African francophone countries. Shall we call them francophone? We have to choose our words carefully. I guess some people will call them francophone. I would not. I would say arabophone with French as second language. 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 70 of 135 13 November 2011 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It was easier to adopt Arabic as an official language in these countries despite linguistic and ethnic differences in the population because Arabic is a holy language in the Muslim religion which itself was a post-colonial nation-building tool. in countries where the overwhelming majority is Musilm. At the same time, French not being adopted as an official language was a political statement. You wouldn't have expected Algeria to adopt French as an official language after the war. I would call any educated speaker of French who uses French in his daily life, whjo has studied in French, a francophone because that is what the word means. It doesn't matter that his native language is Arabic and that he is also an arabophone. The Antidote dictionary goes even further by defining francophone as: De langue française (langue maternelle ou langue seconde). So I still think there is a nuance to be made between 'francophone' and 'mother tongue French'. Clearly, the growth of French is contingent on not only more Africans adopting it as a native language, but also more people adopting it as a primary second language. That is the reality of post-colonial Africa. Edited by lecavaleur on 13 November 2011 at 5:55pm 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 71 of 135 13 November 2011 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think I can answer this one. Whilst the countries are home to two primary linguistic groups, arab and berber/kabyle, arab is by far the most spoken one, in Northern Africa and the world in general, thus making the choice of official language easy. French is in fact a first language to an upper class in these countries, but it remains a second language and a business/commercial language to most of the inhabitants. Much like English is here in Norway. And yes, English will never be a first language for us either, but why should it? We all speak the same language, pretty much! The fact that these countries are so linguistically homogenous leads me to believe that they will never be fully franchophone, which is why I find the development in 'black' Africa more interesting. 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 72 of 135 13 November 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well the issue seems to be how one defines francophone. There are basically two definitions:
1. A person who acquires the language in school and makes extensive use of it. 2. A person who was born and raised in the language. According to definition 1, I then qualify as a francophone,an anglophone and soon an hispanophone. That's one way of looking at it. By that definition, can one call a country francophone where the daily life of the majority of people is conducted in a language other than French? Are the North African countries francophone countries? More specifically, is Morocco a francophone country? I have to say that for me the real issue is that when I hear talk of francophone or French-speaking Africa, I always wonder what happened to the African languages. When I hear that Senegal is a French-speaking country, I think that this means something along the lines that Spain is a Spanish-speaking country, i.e. a country where a majority of the population speak the language. All this haggling over the meaning of francophone does not detract from the fact that there are countries where a) French is the maternal and primary language of the vast majority of the population (France and Quebec) and b) French is not the maternal and primary language of the grand majority of the population although it may be the official language (subsaharan Africa). To come back to the theme of the OP, there would seem to be two directions of future developments in subsaharan French official language Africa. One direction is the development of an indigenous-based national language where conditions are favourable. The example given here is Senegal. The other direction would be greater convergence towards French because no local language can replace it. Here is a very interesting article written in 2000 by the linguist Suzanne Lafage who looks exactly at these opposing directions. Article The author concluded that the situation was fragile and that the future of French was uncertain. I really don't have a set opinion on this matter. I tend to believe that certain indigenous languages will become more prominent because, among other reasons, as Lafage points out, countries are becoming less and less attached to France. She says, "a) L'image de la France s'est assez gravement détériorée en Afrique ces dernières années et il faudrait s'en inquiéter car c'est largement à la France qu'est généralement rattachée l'image du français..." What I do think will likely happen is some sort of fragmentation of French into national varieties. Although education in French will serve the spread and standardization of French, I believe that there are so many other factors involved that it is hard to predict what will happen. What we see everywhere is the development of a localized variety of popular or street French that everyone, including members of the elite, understands. Here is a description of the situation in Gabon: "À côté du français dit «châtié» (officiel) parlé dans les administrations et les écoles, il s'est développé un «français militaire» parlé dans les rues et les marchés, déjà assez éloigné de la langue standard. Citons quelques-uns de ces mots en usage dans ce français gabonais: musonfi, iboga, odika, nkoumou, mbolo, tchouoo, bonami(e), mouza, mangamba, dongo-dongo, foufou, tchang, tchangueur, tchangueuse, tchanguer, gari, nganga, mapanes, matitis, cabangondo, yamba, mwanas, malamba, toutou, malamba, moussoungou, nyemboue, kanguer, malien (le), libanais (mon), cadeau (adj. et adv.), ngounda-ngounda, gépéen (désuet), mougoye, taximan, boy-chauffeur, clando, bedoum, etc. On remarquera que ce français gabonais contient un certain nombre d'emprunts aux langues locales africaines (tsogo, fang, punu, etc.); d'autres mots peuvent provenir de l'arabe, de l'éwé (langue kwa du Ghana ou du Togo), du lingala (Congo-Brazzaville et Congo-Kinshasa) et de quelques langues non africaines telles que l'espagnol, le portugais et l'anglais." Source The same thing exists in all the so-called francophone countries where there exists a local popular French based on "le français tirailleur." Will this popular French ever be promoted to any type of official status? Most unlikely because the the great disdain of the elites who aspire to speak proper French. But that is the reality of everyday language. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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