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The development of French in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5173 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 89 of 135 15 November 2011 at 4:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The status of Swahili has been put on a pedestal. As nordantill mentioned, the
difference between East Africa and West Africa is that the French tried to impose their language on their colonies while the Germans/British used (what they deemed) the most widespread local language as the language of administration. The wiki section on the "Rise of Swahili" notes that although widespread, Swahili's dissemination was also shallow. Now how did Swahili become the most widespread? Here is my very abridged account of history. Well it started in the 17th century. East Africa requested Omani assistance in driving away the Portuguese. The Omanis responded and after driving out the Portuguese, they took a liking to Zanzibar and decided to stay for good. Over time, more Omanis moved from Oman to Zanzibar and the royal family eventually split, with one sultanate in Muscat and another in Zanzibar. The Omanis (and to a smaller extent, the Indians) turned Zanzibar into an important trading post along the East African coastline, specializing particularly in the trade of slaves, spices (cloves) and ivory. This necessitated contact and communication with the mainland and the closest people to the mainland were of course the coastal Swahili-speaking peoples. Swahili became the language of commerce (and hence prestige) and as trade continued to grow, it began to expand both upwards towards Mombasa and downwards towards Northern Mozambique. When the Europeans took over, they saw that Swahili was already the language of commerce and that even the royal family (at Zanzibar) spoke Swahili. They had no reason to contravene this policy for that would only disrupt trade. Swahili rose to its position of prestige and prominence because of trade, patronage by both the royalty and the colonial powers as well as policies favorable towards it. When Tanzania gained its independence in the 60s, most everyone understood Swahili and thus enabled it to become a unifying language. Also importantly, it had already established regional significance because of its pervasiveness in Kenya and Uganda and to a lesser extent, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and Mozambique. I'm not as well-read about West Africa but I haven't seen any situation in West Africa that parallels the East African experience. For a local language to become the official language, it has to have an immediate benefit to the greater population (access to trade in Swahili's case) as well as the backing of the administration (Omanis/Germans/British in Swahili's case). And for a language to gain official status, it needs to be supported by favorable policies at the administrative level. But bear in mind that government policies today are much more easily overturned than royal decrees or colonial mandates. And lest we forget, Swahili gained prominence and acceptance long before Tanzania/Kenya gained independence. The significance of this is that Swahili wasn't consciously adopted by a nation that aspired towards any grandiose goals of having a unifying language. There was no nation of Tanzania then. It was a specific set of circumstances that allowed Swahili to permeate society, allowing it to become an obvious choice following nationhood. Contrast that with achieving nationhood before having an established national language, with no one language having permeated society to any significant extent (especially in the case of countries without any overwhelming ethnic majority). But if you think that everyone is hunky dory with Swahili even in East Africa, you are sorely mistaken. There has been a longstanding debate in Uganda regarding Swahili. Afterall, Swahili is nobody's native language in Uganda. Many Ugandans view Swahili negatively, i.e. the language of oppression, the language of the slave-masters and the language of the LDU militias. Interestingly, let it also be known that the only indigenous contender for official language (Luganda) was soundly thrashed by the greater population. Let this be stated again. Luganda, the most widely spoken local language (39% vs 35% Swahili) was soundly rejected by the greater population because of a fear of Baganda hegemony. They would rather recognize English as an official language than embrace Luganda as one.
As I've said. I didn't mean to upset any sensitivities and it was a purely academic question. Hope no offense was taken. And as Haldor did say:
Edited by strikingstar on 15 November 2011 at 5:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 90 of 135 15 November 2011 at 6:44am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I won't dare quote all of nordantill's long post but I would like to respond as succintly as I can. I don't think nordantill has ever set foot in Africa and experienced the linguistic realities of the continent. But I will be the first to admit that you can learn a lot from statistics. The whole crux of this matter is the definition of francophone or French-speaking. Let's look at one statement:
"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. 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"......" Let's start with the last statement that in Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire, French is spoken by 99% of the population. Keep in mind that Côte d'Ivoire has a very large expat population made up primarily of French from France (and dual citizenship holders), other Europeans and a large Syrian-Lebanese colony. Does 99% of the populations of Abidjan speak the same kind of French? I know that most of the readers here at HTLAL have not been to Abidjan. I have been, albeit not recently. But do any readers here believe that if they go to the largest open air market located in area called Treichville that 99% of the interaction between people takes place in French? And just exactly what kind of French is spoken? Can you close your eyes and imagine that you are at a market in one of the arrondissements of Paris? Here is one description of the interactions at the market: "La vitalité des langues ivoiriennes ne fait pas de doute puisque 88 % des conversations relevées dans les marchés se font dans l'une de ces langues. De plus, la moitié des enfants parleraient au moins deux langues africaines dont le dioula, le baoulé, le bété et l'agni. C'est pourquoi il demeure surprenant que les langues ivoiriennes n'aient pas encore obtenu un rôle plus important dans la vie sociale du pays." The author says that 88% of the interactions in the market take place in African languages. This preposterous statement about 99% of the population of Abidjan speaking French is an example of a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issue. Is French the primary and maternal language of 99% of the population of Abidjan? 99% of the population have some knowledge of French, yes, but what kind of French? And, by the way, how many of the residents of Abidjan also speak an African language? What is the reality? It is what has been reported in the quote above and in previous quotes. Here is a quote from the same source: "Le français, c'est la langue officielle de l'État et celle de l'école. On estime qu'environ les deux tiers de la population âgée de six ans et plus pratique «une forme de français». Plus d'un million de locuteurs n'utilisent qu'une variété pidginisée de français, appelée parfois «français petit-nègre», idiome à peu près inintelligible pour un francophone non ivoirien." What can we conclude about the situation in Côte d'Ivoire and in most countries? A very tiny majority of Africans (excluding the expat communities) have French--and only French--as their native tongue. The vast majority of Africans speak one or two, if not more native languages, and some variety of French. Not surprisingly, as all the scientific observers have pointed out, this is a situation that leads inevitably to considerable interaction between French and the African languages. All these misleading statistics about French as a maternal language in Africa would lead us to believe that parts of Africa are as a French as Quebec. According to Nordantill in Gabon 80% of the population speaks French. That's nearly as high as Quebec. Does anybody in their right mind believe that Gabon is as French-speaking as Quebec? What I have repeatedly pointed out in my posts--but to no avail it would seem--is that we have seen and are seeing the development of indigenous varieties of French throughout of so-called francophone Africa. Call it French if you wish. Let's revisit the interesting case of Gabon (a country of 1.4 million people) where 80% of the populations supposedly speaks French. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the languages of Gabon: "A small percentage, several thousand in number, have had secondary or higher education and are extremely fluent in French. It is estimated that 80%[2] of the country's population are able to speak the language and one-third of residents of Libreville, the capital city, are native French speakers[3]. More than 10,000 French people live in Gabon, and France predominates the country's foreign cultural and commercial influences. The indigenous languages are all members of the Bantu family, estimated to have come to Gabon about 2,000 years ago, and differentiated into about 40 languages. They are generally spoken but not written; while missionaries from the United States and France developed transcriptions for a number of languages based on the Latin alphabet starting in the 1840s, and translated the Bible into several of them, French colonial policy officially promoted the study of French and discouraged African languages. The languages continue to be transmitted through family and clan, and individuals in cities and other areas where multiple peoples come in contact may learn several Bantu languages. The Gabonese government sponsored research on the Bantu languages starting in the 1970s. The three largest languages are Fang, Mbere, and Sira (Eshira), each with about 25-30% of the speakers. The remainder of the languages are single-digit percentages, and some have only a few thousand speakers." I would like to highlight two passages: "A small percentage, several thousand in number, have had secondary or higher education and are extremely fluent in French." "More than 10,000 French people live in Gabon, and France predominates the country's foreign cultural and commercial influences." Notice that there are more French people living in Gabon than indigenous Gabonese with secondary or higher education and that are extremely fluent in French. What can we conclude linguistically from these statistics, aside from the fact that Gabon looks a lot like a French colony today? Most people would expect to observe considerable interaction between French and the native languages and the development of some sort of pidgin or creolized French among the lesser educated speakers. Here is a long quote for which I apologize: "Si l'on résume la situation, on peut dire que, parmi les 50 langues nationales, le français est la langue officielle et sert souvent de langue véhiculaire avec le «sabir» (ou «français militaire» et le fang (dans le Nord-Ouest rural). Dans la capitale (Libreville), le français est devenu l'unique langue véhiculaire en raison de l'apport des immigrants provenant de toute l'Afrique. 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. Toutefois, dans l'ensemble, les langues gabonaises restent davantage parlées que le français. 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. " source Notice the mention of the "sabir" or "français militaire". This is exactly this non standard French that I have been talking about and similar to what exists in Côte d'Ivoire and everywhere else. All the misleading statistics about French in Africa are just part of a smokescreen that is designed either deliberately or unconsciously to hide some basic sociolinguistic realities. A tiny local elite, closely tied to the presence of a large French expatriate population, speaks standard French. This indigenous elite also speaks one or more African languages. The French expat community has absolutely no interest in learning any indigenous languages. The Syrian-Lebanese community tends to be more open to the African languages for business reasons. The vast majority of the indigenous populations speaks some local variety of French but has as its primary language an African language. Now I have to admit that the most incredible statement that I have yet to read about French in Africa has to be this from nordantill: "Or why not the question that S_allard asked a few pages ago;"Can one say that RDC has a larger francophone population than France and that the capital Kinshasa is the second largest French-speaking city in the world and not Montreal?" Well yes, that is if one bothers to look at the statistics readily available; Kinshasa has roughly 10 million inhabitants and 92% of them speak French." Am I reading that nordantill really believes that the Républigque Démocratique du Congo has a larger French-speaking population than France? And that Kinshasa is the second largest French-speaking city in the world, way ahead of Montreal, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, etc? And that 92% of the population of Kinshasa speak French? Which is more than Montreal. I'm afraid that I can't really find any common ground for discussion with somebody who can make those statements with a straight face. I give up. Maybe we can look at this issue differently and go beyond cold statistics. If French is so important in Africa, what is the language of popular culture and particularly music? Let's look at the the RDC again. Who can name one Congolese artist who sings only in (standard) French? As a matter of fact, in all of so-called French-speaking Africa, how many African artists living in Africa sing in French? I specify "living in Africa" because there is a large group of artists of African origin living in France and who sing in French, especially music heavily influenced by African-American music. What about the popular music of the Gabon, the country that is so French-speaking? I encourage people here to do an Internet search on "music of Gabon" or "musique gabonaise" then write a post on how many Gabonese sing in French, their maternal language. Edited by s_allard on 15 November 2011 at 6:55am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 91 of 135 15 November 2011 at 7:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
All the sources that I have read state that Swahili is one of the official languages, with English, of Uganda. Am I wrong? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5173 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 92 of 135 15 November 2011 at 7:40am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
From Wiki:
Also,
IMO, reinstating Swahili as an official language is a largely symbolic/political gesture that is not fully in touch with on-the-ground realities. A majority of Ugandans do not speak Swahili. English is the medium of instruction in Ugandan schools and Swahili is taught at only a handful of schools. There is pressure on accepting Swahili because of its regional importance but there is much resentment towards the language at the same time. However, I think more important is the outright rejection of Luganda. Luganda is indigenous to Uganda. Swahili is not. More Ugandans speak Luganda than Swahili. But Ugandans have generally refused to accept Luganda as an official language. They would rather accept a neutral but detested language (Swahili) than accord Luganda a higher position. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 93 of 135 15 November 2011 at 7:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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After completing my rather lengthy post on the state of French in Africa, I did a bit of research on the Cameroons that was cited as an example of the rapid spread of French to the detriment of the indigenous languages. This seems to be part of a deliberate government policy. I should point out that the Cameroons is probably the most linguistically diverse country in the world, with over 230 different languages. French and English are the two official languages but French is highly favored. But the really interesting observation that I noted is as follows:
"Devant l'indifférence de l'État à l'égard des langues camerounaises, la revanche des citoyens se traduit par l'utilisation du pidgin-english, langue de communication plus populaire que le français et l'anglais réunis, particulièrement dans tout le Sud-Ouest ainsi qu'à Yaoundé. C'est la langue camerounaise de tout le monde, celle qu'on utilise au marché, à l'église, chez le médecin, au commissariat de police et dans les conseils d'administration de la capitale. Certains politiciens n'hésitent même plus à s'adresser en pidgin-english à leurs électeurs potentiels et la radio d'État y a recours dans les situations d'urgence. Bien qu'il soit interdit officiellement et détesté par plusieurs, cet «anglais de brousse» semble un «mal nécessaire» dans ce pays où règne un multilinguisme omniprésent." source For those who do not read French, here is a rough translation: "Given the indifference of the Government towards the Cameroonian languages, the revenge of the citizens takes the form of pidgin-english, a language of communication more popular than French and English combined. It is the Cameroonian language for everybody, the language used in the market, at church, at the doctor's, in the police station and even in government administration in the capital. Certain politicians do not hesitate to use pidgin-English when speaking to potential voters and the State Radio will use it in situations of emergency. Although it is officially prohibited and despised by some people, this "bush English" seems to be a "necessity" in this country of many languages." How many times do I have to repeat the same message? Users will always develop a common means of communication when necessary. In most so-called French-speaking countries, there inevitably develops a form of localized French that serves as a lingua franca if an African langua franca is not available. Here in the Cameroon the local dynamic lead to the adoption of pidgin-English as the national lingua franca. So, when we scratch beneath the surface of those impressive statistics on French in the Cameroons, we learn that the true national lingua franca is not French at all but pidgin-English. Just a final word to come back to the major question: Is French declining? I never said it was. I said that the situation is changing. Large resources are being put into the teaching and dissemination of French. Nordantill would have us believe that French is stronger than ever and conquering Africa. I say that French is spreading, but what form it is taking remains to be seen. Will Kinshasa become an African Paris where everybody speaks French or will it become Lingala-speaking under a thin French veneer? I would put my money on the latter outcome, but I'm only guessing. Edited by s_allard on 15 November 2011 at 8:11am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5051 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 94 of 135 15 November 2011 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There are several points of view, and some of them are very different. We should take
into account the statistics but carefully. First, according to Wikipedia, Arabic is the most spoken language, second English and French third. At this moment, French is third, and it is like Portuguese in the Americas, not very good place. Portuguese in the Americas, spoken by 190 million people has also impressive statistics, but in reality, it is third. English and Spanish are the lingua franca of the Americas, and to be third, if you want to play a relevant role it is not good at all. Second, the strengh of a language is THE MOTHER TONGUE SPEAKERS of a language, and French is very weak. French is the mother tongue of 80 million people around the World, meanwhile English and Spanish have over 400 million native speakers. In Africa it is the same. In French Africa, people study French as a means of instruction. But that is not relevant because almost nobody use it as mother tongue. For example, Italians and Spaniards study English as foreign language during a lot of years with very good teachers and very good books. How many of them speak English (at least with a proficiency level)? Third, we read that French is spoken by 115 million of Africans. But, which kind of French? ¿How many of them speak French as a French, or a Quebecois?. If you go to Haiti, you don't understand too much. Creole French in Haiti is yet another language and the situation in French Africa is likely to be very similar. Demolinguistics is a very tricky science. When we consider the speakers of a language we should consider only mother tongue speakers and second language speakers with A BILINGUAL LEVEL. For instance, a lot of people say that they speak English. According to the Eurobarometer, 2006, half of the Europeans, some 250 million people speak it. That is the theory. I don't think so. Only a small minority of them really speak it with a bilingual level. Finally, Arabic IS ALSO A WEAK LANGUAGE. We should remember that Modern Standard Arabic is the mother tongue of NOBODY. French language in Africa is spoken, above all, in Congo, Cote d'Ivore, Algeria and Morocco. IMHO, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania and Algeria are the clue. They speak local Arabic as mother tongue, but they need to choose between MSA and French as lingua franca. So, English seems to be the lingua franca for the South, East and Nigeria. However it is unclear which one will be the lingua franca for the North and the West. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 95 of 135 15 November 2011 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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@s_allard, your posts have been a real eye-opener. Thank you!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5615 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 96 of 135 15 November 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It seems from your post that there will undoubtedly be one "lingua franca" gaining position in Western/Central Africa. I sincerely doubt that it will be Arabic, nor Portuguese. According to your statement, it proves to be extremely useful in promoting trade and economic growth. Also, one has to take into account the economic value of a language and the materials for learning it, I find it hard to believe that it will be some indigenous language. All Africans I have known have either spoken English or French. Although, this can hardly give us any real knowledge of the entire Africa, it seems it will be either English or French that prevails, or both. Time is not in the favor of French, I think, given American cultural imperialism and Globalization. On the other hand, every Ivorian person I have known, has spoken French (and only French). So French seems to be gaining territory in some African countries, being a language of prestige. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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