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The development of French in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5619 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 1 of 135 06 November 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged |
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What's the current development of French in Africa? I think it would be interesting to know because the position of French in the world to a large extent depends on it. If it weren't for Africa, French would indeed be just another cultural language like Italian, without any significant number of speakers outside of Europe.. I think it all comes down to whether the Africans adopt French as a true maternal language.. Otherwise they might just as well change to English since it is by far more understood in the world...
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| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4834 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 135 07 November 2011 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
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Call me biased, but I am under the impression that Africans are pretty proud of it. Many of African nations, even those without French heritage, are proud members of the Francophonie ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophonie ) The Sub Sahara at least, I recently read an article (in French!) that Tunisia's new government was "lamenting" over French. I found an English version:
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/26/173837.html I don't know if this says something about the Maghreb as a whole, but I know that it could have an effect on French in Tunisia, where the majority of people can speak it, as the new "regime" is quite popular. If anything, as Africa develops, I think French will become significantly more popular as it'll be easier to learn, but the percentage of bilingual Africans will also likely give way to Chinese and English. I will contest that French is quite popular outside of Africa. Of course there's France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monaco, Corsica, and Aosta Valley, whom speak it, but there is also Guadeloupe, New Caledonia, Quebec and the Maritimes, North Maine/South Louisiana, Southeast Asia, French Guiana, Haiti, and even some Indians (albeit not too many, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pondicherry#Regional_official_l anguages ) who speak it, as well as it being a very important second language in many countries. Edited by rivere123 on 07 November 2011 at 3:10am 1 person has 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 3 of 135 07 November 2011 at 3:16am | IP Logged |
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I guess I'm not sure by what you mean when you say current development. I live in Guinea and Mali each for two years. French is the official language in these countries. It's the medium of instruction in schools, used in politics, etc. Anyone who is well-educated speaks French. In fact, in Mali, particularly in Bamako, quite a lot of French has infiltrated into Bambara (one of the most widely spoken local languages). While the French themselves were not necessarily looked upon too fondly, I don't see the language going away any time soon.
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| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4781 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 135 07 November 2011 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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French is very important in Africa and many families have indeed adopted it as a maternal language at the expense of their native dialects.
Most African countries regroup several different linguistic communities, peoples speaking different maternal dialects, and indeed most of these countries have no inherent national language, so French often steps in as a lingua franca. It is impossible to study in most of the traditional African dialects, so once again French is used as a language of instruction. One does not change languages as easily as one changes his socks. It would be very difficult for a Francophone country, even in Africa where many people have French only as a second language, to simply 'switch' to English. You have to remember that all educated people in these countries have adopted French. Govenments and schools, politicians, bureaucrats and teachers all speak French and most of them also feel very attached to this language, and are more francophile than the French themselves, even if the language's presence is the product of colonialisation. One can't expect that they will one day just up and decide to speak English. Africa is essential for the French language and it is thanks to Africa that in the next forty years, the speakers of French as primary language will attain 500 million. It has been mentioned in the press that the Alliances françaises in China are « pleines à craquer » because the demand is so high to learn the language. Why? Because of Africa. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4781 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 5 of 135 07 November 2011 at 3:35am | IP Logged |
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It must be said that the Francophonie has been instrumental in the promotion of the French language in Africa especially. For example, it provides scholarships for Africans to study both in Africa and abroad in Europe or Québec. It also promotes closer ties between French-speaking countries for a greater exchange of information and culture. It has also helped to develope the international French-language television network TV5.
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| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4834 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 135 07 November 2011 at 3:42am | IP Logged |
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I hate quoting wikipedia for serious debates, and for posting within such a small interval of time from my last post, but check this out: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophonie#Nombre_de_francoph ones
It's in French, but it shouldn't be hard to understand as it's a graph. 1 person has 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 7 of 135 07 November 2011 at 3:54am | IP Logged |
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I think it's also worth pointing out that very little English is spoken in a lot of francophone countries in Africa. It would be exceedingly difficult for these countries to just switch languages. Who would teach in the schools? How would they conduct business? How would the government work? People don't just pick up languages over night. There is one country that I know of that is trying to make the switch, or at least, becoming increasingly anglophone, which is Rwanda, but the situation there is quite unique. And probably one of the big driving factors there is that Kagame speaks English.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 135 07 November 2011 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
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I visited Mali and Bourkina Faso in January with a group in which nobody else spoke French. So we could establish on a sound empirical base that it isn't a simple thing to travel in those countries with just English. On the other hand it was practically always possible to find somebody who spoke French - sometimes fluently, sometimes just enough to carry on their business. Besides their French clearly of the standard variety, not a special dialect.
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