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French in Africa? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5020 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes  Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 17 of 32 27 June 2011 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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EDIT:
My internet connection was faulty last night and due to some problem I made multiple posts. I apologise for this. Please refer to my latest post for my views on this topic. Edited by napoleon on 28 June 2011 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5020 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 32 27 June 2011 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that the political and economic influence of French in the West African "Francophone" belt was the most important reason for me to learn French. I'll possibly be working there in a couple of years.
So forgive me if my post seems to be a bit biased. I will try to keep this as brief as possible. The main issues that that I will seek to address are: 1. If African children are instructed in their respective native languages, their performance will improve. Literacy will also increase as a greater percentage of the population is educated. Now to share a bit of my background: I'm from West Bengal, India. My country has 1576 "mother tongues" according to the 1991 census and 22 official languages. The erstwhile government of WB initiated many reforms in its rule which lasted for more than three decades. One such reform was that the language of instruction in government schools was to be Bengali. My parents however sent me to an English medium school. Today, I feel privileged to be able to speak albeit passable English and my writing skills are satisfactory too. On the other hand, most of my friends and classmates who were educated in Bengali medium schools are trying desperately to master what they call "Spoken English"; and whenever they need to write an application, they approach me. Please don't think that I'm boasting; the Lord knows that I'm well aware of my limitations and shortcomings. In higher studies, there's a limit to what can be achieved in one's own native language if it is not a major world language. Most modern up-to-date textbooks are available only in a few major languages and getting them translated every time a new edition is released(read every year) is very troublesome indeed. The students who are unable to use the latest resources are the ones who lose out and those few who are able to use them gain an edge in these competitive times. 2. Scientific research is possible in African languages. But it is not the language itself in which the research is conducted in but rather the strength of the economy of the country and the various required facilities that have to be provided which is more important. I do not think that research is as high a priority as defence, food, and healthcare for the current African governments. 3. Going to Francophone Africa for French immersion is like coming to India for English immersion. Here in India, English is the neutral language, the language of business and government, but it is not the language of the common man. I don't speak English on the street. I speak the local language. I think a similar situation exists with French in the West African region. 4. Now for the most important factor let me introduce you to Newton's friend inertia. This factor is very easily overlooked yet it is very influential indeed. Most large bureaucracies tend to acquire a sort of resistance to change. This resistance to change is what I mean by inertia. Now I'm no social scientist but history shows that as long as a particular group of people are in power they will do everything they can to ensure that their way of life remains unchanged. Thus nothing short of revolutionary unrest will dethrone French as the major language of business and administration. POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Instruct children in French but allow them to take their native language as an additional subject. So those children who are interested in pursuing higher studies in the literature of their native language will be free to do so. Conversely, those who elect to study science will not be handicapped either. Rather, they will have access to a vast amount of material in French that they could never hope to have in their native language. CONCLUSION: -I believe that it is very naive indeed for me to think that I can solve all of West Africa's problems just by changing national languages. -I don't believe that this voluminous post will do anything to change the situation in West Africa where people are in need of more food and healthcare. -Did I mention that I'm writing this from my comfortable couch in my air conditioned room in a country separated from West Africa by millions of miles. -French will continue to be the language of the elite and the language of the business and administration in the near future IMHO. EDIT: My internet connection was faulty last night and due to some problem I made multiple posts. I apologise for this. Edited by napoleon on 29 June 2011 at 7:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5013 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 20 of 32 27 June 2011 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Excuse me, s_allard, but using former Czechoslavakia as an exemple of similar situation is completely wrong and highly offensive at the same time. Yes both those languages suffered from being taken as less important and not being official for long time (Czech was inferior to German and Slovak was inferior to German and Hungarian) but that’s quite all the similarity. There was no single dead or attacked person during the process of separating the countries in 1992/3. It was mostly political decision, there are still not few people who feel to be „Czechoslovaks“. And not many neighbour countries can claim to have such good relations (perhaps thanks to the separation in times of fast changes).
The trouble of many african countries is, that the borders were drawn wrong. There are states of various ethnics, often in bad relations with each other, and their governements can’t handle the situation, some even added to it. The best solution, even though it wouldn’t be easy to achieve, would be creation of national states. Something Europe has already experienced. At the beginning of twentieth century, there was quite a lot of such „minor tribes“. They gained their independence, their languages became official. And now a huge part of Europe is back at European Union which, despite it’s faults, is something noone could have hoped for a hundred years ago. If the Western Africa could get divided in smaller parts, each of these countries could have two official languages, the national one and French. Children would learn in their own language and the languages would gain new vocabulary through everyday use or through artificial creation which would get to everyday use later. French could still serve as international language, at least till the day when relations between those countries would allow using some of their own languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rutabaga Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Romania Joined 4931 days ago 27 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Slovenian*, French, German, Russian Studies: Portuguese, Uzbek | Message 21 of 32 28 June 2011 at 8:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Borders do not have to be redrawn, however, in order for children to learn in their mother tongue. In Mali, for example, there has been a movement to have children initially educated in their mother tongue and then eventually, switch to French. A model like this would allow the development of both languages (mother tongue and French), in addition to the educational benefits for the children.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5434 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 22 of 32 30 June 2011 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
I can see that some people may be offended when their country is referred to when talking about Africa, but I was not making any claim that the separation of Czechoslovakia was the product of violent ethnic conflict. Here is what I said: "I don't believe that imposing an indigenous language is a solution to ethnic conflict. As recent events have shown in the Sudan and not too long ago in the former Yugoslavia and even the former Czechkoslovakia, ethnic strife is rooted in history and certainly cannot be solved by the imposed use of some common language. Sometimes the best solution is actually to redefine national boundaries. " Why did the Czechs and Slovaks separate? Call it nationalism, ethnic strife or love lost, the fact is that relations between the groups had deteriorated. That's all I'm saying. The fact that the separation took place peacefully is a reflection of the maturity of the peoples involved, but it occurred because there was a conflict. Or am I wrong and the breakup of Czechoslavakia took place because people had nothing better to do? Edited by s_allard on 30 June 2011 at 8:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5232 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 24 of 32 30 June 2011 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Complicated issue. Wikipedia has some on it: "Many different reasons are given for the split of Czechoslovakia, but debates around the reason for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia center around inevitability versus events that occurred between the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the end of the joined state in 1992.[4] The people who argue inevitability point to the stereotypes between the two nations, problems with the shared state during communism, the failure of the communist state in Czech lands and its success in the Slovak lands, and the 1968 constitution that had a minority veto.[5] The people who argue events between 1989 and 1992 point to international factors such as the situation the breakaway of the Soviet satellite nations, the lack of unified media between the Czech and Slovak republic, and most importantly the actions of the political leaders of the two nations.[6] It is also important to note that Czech and Slovak histories only converge in the period 1918–1993. Since early medieval times when states first arose in what are now the Czech and Slovak republics, those states had little to nothing in common. Between the early 10th century and 1918, the two states were joined only under the dominion of Austria-Hungary, and even then the Czech lands were much closer to Austria and the Slovak lands to Hungary than they were to each other. The 1918 federation can be seen as mostly forced by necessity (as well as ideas of Slavic unity), as neither state was seen as strong enough to become independent from Austria-Hungary alone. Later under communist rule after World War II, there was little choice in the matter (forced unions were maintained by communists elsewhere as well – Yugoslavia is a prime example). The lack of common historical ground was likely an important determinant of the post-1989 federation's lack of internal cohesion, even though it was ultimately contemporary circumstances that led to its dissolution." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia#R easons_for_the_division 1 person has voted this message useful |
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