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Native French cities in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5197 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 1 of 7 13 July 2011 at 6:53am | IP Logged |
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I had brought this up in an earlier related post, but I never got any clear responses. Are there cities in
Africa which have significant native French-speaking populations? By native, I mean that it is the language spoken in the home, not just used as a lingua franca to communicate with speakers of other local languages. Are there cities with a majority or plurality (does that term make sense outside of the voting context?) of native French speakers? If not, what cities in Africa do you think have the largest populations of French speakers? I'd love to hear from people who have been in the region. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nordantill Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 6825 days ago 16 posts - 54 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Mandarin Studies: Spanish, French | Message 2 of 7 14 July 2011 at 8:31am | IP Logged |
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If you look up my previous posts you'll see that I've written quite extensively on the use of French in an Africa. But to answer your question, yes there are several places in Francophone Africa where French has become a native rather than a second language.
In Gabon more than80% of the population speak French and in the capital Libreville more than 30% of the population speak it as a native language. A passage from the article just quoted "De plus, le français est également devenu la langue maternelle de plus de 30 % des Librevillois et il est de plus en plus perçu comme une langue gabonaise. Le nombre de jeunes ayant pour langue maternelle le français progresse dans les capitales provinciales et départementales, alors que dans les villages le français garde encore le statut de langue véhiculaire". In Abidjan, the biggest city in Cote d'ivoire, French is spoken by as much as 99% of the population.Many of them are native speakers. The linguistic situation is a bit complicated since there are several varieties of French spoken in the are (everything from a more colloquial form of French to a standard form). The vast majority is able to speak standard French however. If we look at the situation of the European languages brought to Africa through colonization- English, French and Portuguese (let's leave Spanish out of the discussion since it's confined to just one country in Sub-Saharan Africa), it's interesting to see the different positions they now have in their former colonies. Clearly, Portuguese is by far the European language that has become most dominating in a former colony, namely Angola.Here a whopping 60% of the population speak Portuguese at home. As Wikipedia points out "Angola is quite anomalous in Africa as a country where the colonial language has become a vernacular language and even largely displaced the indigenous languages".A similar situation exists in tiny neighboring São Tomé y Príncipe. There are no African countries where English and French play the same role as that of Portuguese in Angola (at least not yet). However there are growing signs that a language shift akin to that in Angola is taking place in various Francophone countries in Africa.Consider for example the case of Gabon mentioned above. We can clearly see how French is emerging a native language there;it's spoken by more than 80% of the population, in the capital-and increasingly all over the country- there are people who are native speakers, the language is considered to be Gabonese rather than foreign, and those who speak it as a native language are the younger generations. The same thing- albeit a bit slower- is happening in other Francophone countries. In Cameroon French has undergone the same process of assimilation as in Gabon as this report points out "Comparative studies of French usage twenty years ago and in 2004 show a loss of the LWDs, which goes along with a loss of Cameroonian languages in urban areas. Bitjaa Kody has further found that the national languages are disappearing even in endogamic households where family members speak the same national language. Francophone adults used French in 42 percent of the domestic communications which were studied, whereas the young (10–17 years old) used French in 70 percent of the communication. In addition 32 percent of the young between ten and seventeen years old interviewed in Yaounde did not know any national language and had French as their L1 (Bitjaa Kody 2001a). There is a clear change in language use from the parent generation to the generation of their children....Studies of language use in Cameroon show that French is gaining ground in urban areas, since there is a lack of inter-generational transmission via national languages (Bitjaa Kody 2001a; 2001b; 2005). Accordingly, an accelerating urbanisation rate may affect the linguistic situation in Cameroon, as the role and use of Cameroonian French will be expanding"(quoted from page 43 and 46 in the report mentioned above). Bitjaa Kody's report showing the same result is available here. One can clearly see how this came about since a survey conducted in 1977/78 showed that 87% of all children in the Francophone provinces in Cameroon could speak French. In Cote D'Ivoire the same thing's happening, it's estimated that maybe a fourth of the population are native French speakers. And many researchers point out that there's a "nativization" of the French language going on in the country. Further on one can mention Congo-Brazzaville, where many families use French as their home language. As you can see this trend is increasing and spreading. This is due to a lot of factors;the way France implemented their language during the colonial era (very different compared to the British colonies) The prestige that French enjoys in these countries, French neo-colonialism, regional integration, sociological changes. What one can say for sure however is that this process is likely to increase. The number of African students studying in French grew by a massive 31,5% just between 2007 and 2010. nebojats, sorry for this long reply, A much shorter answer to your question would be yes. French is indeed spoken as native language in several places in Africa and as more and more Africans are native French speakers there will be more of these places. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5197 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 3 of 7 19 July 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you thank you thank you!
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| Muffy Bilingual Diglot Newbie France diylanguage.wordpres Joined 4754 days ago 3 posts - 6 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 7 27 November 2011 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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I had brought this up in an earlier related post, but I never got any clear responses. Are there cities in
Africa which have significant native French-speaking populations? As a francophone African, the answer is a BIG YES! My father is from Congo Brazzaville he speaks four languages (French, Lingala (the president's language), Bembe (his parents' and village's language), and another. I on the other hand speak only French. Everyone understands me, and the Congolese don't joke around with the French language. Their version of French is accurate, and their accent is easy to understand (unlike the French from Marseille!). Another city where French is spoken and taken seriously is Dakar, Senegal. The Senegalese are philosophers. There is an accent but nothing to worry about and anyway when they feel you don't understand they tune out their accent. Other cities: Lome in Togo, Cotonou in Benin (all my primary school French teachers came from Benin). I would suggest choosing an francophone city within West Africa. However if you like the cool simple life, Brazzaville is the place to be!!! Kinshasa is great too, however I have been told that it is the Lagos of Central Africa. A toi de voir. However, your question is a city where French is spoken in the public sphere as well as the private sphere. French is spoken at home in Africa with your mother tongue. We are still divided into tribes and our identity is everything to us. Only few do not speak their native language at home. I am an example of this. My family moved around so much that I only speak English and French, however my mother who is Yoruba she speaks her languages (but both her parents and grandparents were Yoruba), My father speaks 4 languages because his parents were Bembe, they lived in the city (dominant language is Lingala) and all their education was in French. As for me, one of my parents was Yoruba and the other was Bembe... and we moved around so things became more complicated, however my ears are tuned to both Yoruba and Lingala. Another reason why the native language may not be spoken at home: family policy! My Nigerian great grandmother only spoke Yoruba. My mother was shocked to hear her speak English and realised that grandmama was in her own way protesting against British colonialism and slavery. I have cousins that don't speak their native language at all because their parents believed that speaking your native language was backward and so did everything to prevent this from happening. If you are looking for a place where ONLY French is spoken, I think France (exclude Brittany, Basque region and Corsica) is the better place because even in places like Mayotte (near Madagascar) which is French territory still communicate in their languages and creoles at home. If you don't mind, then choose a francophone country with an educated majority! check out: www.ucad.sn The University of Cheikh anta diop in Senegal I hope this temoignage helped. Edited by Muffy on 27 November 2011 at 12:20pm 3 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 5 of 7 27 November 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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It's quite interesting that in the space of two weeks there have appeared three threads on the situation of French in Africa. In this particular thread, we are told by @nordantill that French is becoming the native language in a number of countries such as Gabon, Cameroons, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo-Brazzaville and the République démocratique du Congo. I won't quote the long post, but I want to take particular exception to the interpretation of the figures quoted.
My position is that the figures the @nordantill quotes may be nominally correct but give a false portrait of the true situation. The crux of the matter as I intend to show is the definition of what it means to "speak French". Let me point out that it hardly appears in @nordantill's post that other languages are spoken in Africa besides French. In fact no African language is mentioned by name, and we see only a few references to Cameronnian national languages. We learn for example that a fourth of the population of Côte d'Ivoire has French as its native language. What has happened to the indigenous languages of Côte d'Ivoire? Does this statistic tell that a fourth of Côte d'Ivoire's population speaks only French and no other languages or, as many of us suspect, in reality French is spoken with some combination of local languages? The socio-linguistic reality of French in Africa is that the contact with the local languages has produced three strains of French. There is the European French of the expat populations and the Africans educated in Europe. Then there exists a standard French with local vocabulary and spoken by the educated classes. This is typical of what is found in the media. Thirdly, and very importantly, is a very widespread vernacular that is a mixture of French with local languages. This vernacular exists everywhere and carries various names: le sabir franco-africain, le français militaire, le français tirailleur, le français populaire africain, etc. Here is what Wikipedia says about the French of Côte d'Ivoire: "According to some estimates, French is spoken by 75% to 99% of Abidjan's population,[5] either alone or alongside indigenous African languages. There are three sorts of French spoken in Abidjan. A formal French is spoken by the educated classes. Most of the population, however, speaks a colloquial form of French known as français de Treichville (after a working-class district of Abidjan) or français de Moussa (after a character in chronicles published by the magazine Ivoire Dimanche which are written in this colloquial Abidjan French). Finally, an Abidjan French slang called nouchi is spoken by people in gangs and also by young people copying them. New words usually appear in nouchi and then make their way into colloquial Abidjan French after some time.[6]"source So, we are told that up to 99% of Abidjan's population speaks French. That's more than the proportion of native French speakers of Montreal and probably equals that of Paris, France. But when we scratch under the surface, we learn that the "majority" of speakers of French in Abidjan actually speak le français de Treichville. Let's call it French, but it certainly isn't the same French spoken by the large French expat population that lives in Côte d'Ivoire. In passing, one notes that most of the so-called francophone countries have proportionally large expat populations of Europeans and North Americans. The situation described in Côte d'Ivoire is basically the same throughout most of Africa except for those countries where a local indigenous language has become very prominent or lingua franca, as in Senegal, Mali and even the Congo and the République démocratique du Congo. In fact, most countries have indigenous lingua franca. In Côte d'Ivoire, for example, Dyula or Dioula is very widespread. So, when we speak of French in Africa, we are speaking of a continuum of form that goes from the highly standard and formal speech of the educated elites to the raw vernacular and slangish French spoken by the masses in contact with the indigenous African languages. Here is what an African linguist has to say about this: "En revenant sur ce français africain postcolonial, on peut aussi schématiquement distinguer deux grandes catégories de variétés de français parlés en Afrique noire par des gens qui n’ont pas l’occasion de faire de longs séjours outre-mer et dont ni la profession ni le statut social ne les mettent en contact permanent avec la communauté de langue française. Le français parlé de cette première catégorie (illettrée) est caractérisée, à des degrés divers par la confusion des codes linguistiques, c’est-à-dire entre la langue maternelle et la langue véhiculaire dominante que constitue le français. Aussi y a-t-il une autre variété de français parlé par ceux qui sont éduqués dans des écoles (les lettrés). Cette première catégorie a tendance à ne pas respecter la syntaxe ou la phonologie parce que ces individus semblent disposer d’un stock de mots en français qu’ils assemblent selon ses schémas syntaxiques ou qu’ils prononcent selon les règles phonologiques de leurs langues maternelles[20]. Comme le souligne Duponchel, dans une réponse d’un domestique congolais illettré à une question posée en Kikango par un compatriote, « Pasiki la mama wayele ku vilazé » (Parce que la maman est allée au village »), observe que « il s’agit dans l’esprit des interlocuteurs d’une phrase en langue africaine, d’autant plus que la question est posée en cette langue… ». Qu’en aurait-il été si la question avait été posée en français ? Il faut noter que ce français parlé par les illettrés africains est souvent appelé le « petit français » [21] En revanche, beaucoup plus difficile à définir est cette variété de français que parlent nombre de « lettrés » africains. Dans cette variété de français parlé, on note qu’il y a un mélange de français et de la langue maternelle du locuteur. Ce mélange de deux ou de plusieurs langues dans une conversation donnée est souvent ce que le célèbre linguiste Sigwart appelle codeswitching [22] ou même une diglossie pour citer le linguiste américain Ferguson." source This phenomenon of "high" and "low" prestige varieties of French is not at all surprising to linguists, sociologists and to most readers here. Nobody really expects French spoken by Africans to be identical to the French of France. Now, the the really interesting phenomenon is the rise in prominence of the vernacular variety of African French. What is quite striking is that even members of the elite are cognizant of the vernacular and can usually speak it to some extent even if only to mock it. This something that we see everywhere. Here in Quebec everybody can understand the local vernacular called joual. In Haiti everyone understands creole. And it both cases, not everybody uses the vernacular. Here is what Wikipedia says about le français populaire africain (FPA): "In the urban areas of the so-called francophone Africa, another type of french, at first marginal, seems to spread through the different layers of population: FPA or Français Populaire Africain. This language, with its rich lexicon and its own grammatical rules is used in the entire Sub-Saharan African territory and in the African capitals such as Abidjan, Ouagadougou, Dakar, Cotonou or even Lomé. At first marginalized and associated with the ghetto, now FPA is slowly becoming a second language, even amongst the upper class. Moreover, FPA is now a strong symbol of social acceptance. It can be described as an Africanized French, but this does not mean that it proceeds of a creolization phenomenon. At first used by the youth and the marginalized in the urban centers, it is now spreading amongst the wealthier layers of the African population. FPA can be seen as an -progressive- evolution of the language known as the français populaire ivoirien (FPI). FPA then got Africanized by crossing borders, under the influence of young Africans, students or pupils, but also thanks to the role played by cinema, drama or dance. FPA is used unconsciously, it is important to remind that this French from Africa is not frozen; it is evolving, following the news around the world and Africa. FPA owns its grammatical rules and its lexicon is wide."source What all of this means is that the figures advanced by @nordantill must be interpreted with caution. When it is stated that,"In Gabon more than 80% of the population speak French and in the capital Libreville more than 30% of the population speak it as a native language.", we must take this to mean that 80% percent of the population speak a variety of French and that in the capital 30% of the population also speak some kind of French. I think that some perspective about the realities of French in Africa can be gleaned by looking not at misleading statistics but by looking at the realities of popular culture in song, movies, theatre and literature. Since we are told that 80% of Gabonese speak French, what language do popular artists sing in? What does the Gabonese hit-parade look like? I suggest that readers do a search on "musique gabonaise". Don't be surprised if you see that most of the singing is in a Gabonese indigenous language. And what about Côte d'Ivoire which has a majority of francophones according to @nordantill. Here is website of music videos of contemporary Ivoirian music: Ivoirian music. You'll see that the titles of most of the songs are in French. I highly recommend that you look at some of the videos to get a real view of the French spoken in Côte d'Ivoire. All of this is important in that it has to be totally clear that the situation of French in Africa is not the same as that of French in France or Quebec. Yes, French is becoming a native language for many Africans, but the Africans are nativizing French. They are remaking it in contact with the indigenous languages and turning it into a truly African language. 3 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 6 of 7 29 November 2011 at 2:46pm | IP Logged |
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If you want to get a sense of what is happening to French in the African cities, here are two videos about the spectacular rise in Côte d'Ivoire of the urban French-based slang called nouchi:
Le nouchi I highly recommend this particular video in English. Nouchi goes mainstream At one point in the video, a young woman is quoted as saying something like, "Who needs French if you have nouchi?" Both videos highlight the fact that nouchi is spreading quickly outside its original founding group and is becoming perceived as a neutral national language because it incorporates words from all the country's languages. This is exactly what observers have been referring to as the Français Populaire Africain (FPA) that is spreading very quickly throughout all of so-called francophone Africa. An interesting development that seems to be starting is a form of unification and standardization of FPA. Observers are speaking about the spread of nouchi to neighbouring countries. In fact, what it is is simply the FPA's in contact are converging. This is the future of French in AFrica. 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 7 of 7 29 November 2011 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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Although @nordankill and I seem to be at loggerheads over the spread of French as a native language in Africa, we are really not that far apart. If @nordankill were to substitutue FPA for "French", I would not really dispute those high figures of the penetration of French in Africa.
Those readers who made the effort to look at the videos of popular music from Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, to which I should add Cameroons, will have noticed that indigenous languages are widely used as well as some kind of French. What is evident is that French is not displacing the indigenous languages; the languages are mixing. Why is FPA in its various incarnations such as nouchi in Côte d'Ivoire spreading so quickly and going mainstream? I suggest the following factors: 1. It is perceived as an indigenous language that incorporates words from the local languages. 2. It does not have a disturbing colonial past. 3, It is simple, full of fun, democratic and open to change. 4. It is the language of the masses, if not the majority, and therefore to be considered for use by artists and politicians. 5. It is the language of rebellion against language authoritarianism practiced in schools that insist on teaching proper French. It annoys school teachers and parents. 6. It is identified with African and national identity and can be considered a distinct language and not some "petit nègre" to be ridiculed by Europeans. Considering all these factors, why is nouchi or FPA going mainstream and climbing the social ladder? Why are some intellectuals and members of the elite embracing it? Let's not get carried away. FPA is not displacing French. Yet. But what I think can happen is that FPA can become an instrument of nationalism and a instrument of resistance against the neocolonial presence. Remember that all the francophone African countries have large expat populations of French or people with dual citizenship. In many cases these expats are in positions of authority and domination. Their presence is to some extent resented because they are barriers to social mobility for the indigenous elite. This elite has its feet in two worlds. On the one hand, because of education, long stays in France, Belgium or Quebec and positions of power, this elite has something in common with the local expats. For example, their children will attend the same French lycées. However, they are not Europeans and do not all have French citizenship. On the other hand, this same African elite has an African side, firmly rooted in family and culture. They learn nouchi because of contact with indigenous culture although they may frown upon it. Their children learn it to annoy the parents. Since most expats, except for missionaries, would rather die than learn nouchi, this language becomes a tool for channeling anti-neocolonial feeling and for helping to push the expats out. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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