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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Why the African national languages can never break through
Author:Mukama, R.G.
Year:1992
Periodical:Journal of Asian and African Studies (Tokyo)
Issue:43
Pages:45-62
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subject:language policy
Abstract:No African State south of the Sahara has a national language, although some do have a part national language. Moreover, if the current trend of language policies is sustained, African States may never have fully-fledged national languages. To support his assertion, the author outlines the language situation and policies of several countries in eastern and southern Africa. The countries are grouped into four types. One type, represented by States such as Swaziland and Tanzania, is that with viable but stunted national languages. The second type includes States such as Zambia, Nigeria and Niger, which have embarked on polylingual solutions to the national language question. In the third place are countries like Uganda, which are nonstarters on issues of language development and promotion. And fourthly, there are the lusophone and most of the francophone States, in which the colonial language has been made the official and national language. The possibility of African languages breaking through must entail a process of systematic and thorough mental decolonization, a task made even more difficult by the multiplicity of languages and the concomitant financial costs involved in attempting to develop all or most of them. Meanwhile, the European linguistic stamps which marked Africa in the course of the first scramble are being made indelible by the second scramble currently in progress. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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