Publish at October 22 2018 Updated May 21 2026
In a previous review, we introduced you to "Afrotopia"[1], Felwine Sarr's latest book, in which he proposes a new way of looking at "Africa in motion", based on what is really happening there, rather than on a fantasized vision. This way of seeing would take into account the continent's history, culture, spirituality, human relations and even its vision of well-being. In this analysis, we focus on the importance of culture through African languages in the construction of identity and community.
Over the last few decades, hundreds of university debates, conferences and literary programs have been organized on the subject of language, pointing to an evolution but also to infinite debates. There is, however, one common denominator: the promotion of a language is a key factor in development.
To this day, no people has developed on the basis of a foreign language. In Africa, the famous Senegalese professor Cheikh Anta Diop was one of the first to fight for the self-determination of African nations through the use of local languages. He demonstrated, among other things, that teaching in African languages increases students' understanding of scientific disciplines. Teaching STEM in French or English to a child living in a rural community where he or she speaks only his or her mother tongue, considerably limits reception of the latter. This is because these languages are "foreign" to the child's environment and socio-cultural realities. The child has to make a great deal of extra effort to decode, translate and assimilate this knowledge produced in a foreign language.
Colonial alienation begins as soon as the language of conceptualization, thought, school education and intellectual development is dissociated from the language of everyday domestic exchanges; it amounts to separating the mind from the body and assigning them two separate spheres. On a more global scale, it leads to a society of minds without bodies and bodies without minds. [2]
Following in the footsteps of Cheikh Anta Diop, many other African thinkers (historians, economists, philosophers, writers...) have constantly hammered home the importance for African nations of promoting the use of national languages in all spheres of life. But their protest speeches, mostly produced in these same foreign languages, were only received by the African intellectual elite, not the masses.
Writers and intellectuals such as Senegalese Boubacar Boris Diop, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Gakaara Wa Wanjaũ [3], Fagunwa and Shabaan Robert are among those who have put their money where their mouth is, by "abandoning" the use of English or French in the writing of literary or scientific works, and adopting their mother tongue. The Kenyan Obi Wali, declared in this regard:
"The docile acceptance of English and French as the sole mediums of educated African writing is a grave mistake and has not the slightest chance of advancing African culture and literature."
Indeed, he was surprised by the eagerness of Africans to "endorse, willingly and almost proudly, what decades of uncompromising education and pandering had forced them to accept".
He was shocked by the declarations of love from African writers, including the "neo-colonial valet" Léopold Sédar Sengher. Léopold Sédar Senghor , to the language of the former master. This is nothing less than proof of the success of colonial assimilation policies.
It is the definitive triumph of a system of domination when the dominated begin to sing its virtues.
Wa Thiong'o shows that eager linguistic submission is just one aspect of a more global submission, since the only valid argument for joyful capitulation to cultural imperialism is the comfort of a privileged few...
It's a deplorable fact that, even in today's independent Africa, children are humiliated when they are caught speaking an African language in their school, and have no one to complain to as their own parents are convinced that the teacher is modern. This is how public authorities, teachers and parents collude in an act of self-mutilation that began in colonial times [4]. Ngugi Wa Thiongo, in his 1987 book Décoloniser l'esprit, was already concerned about this:
I don't want the children of Kenya today to inherit this imperialist tradition of disregarding the forms of communication developed by their communities throughout history. I want them to free themselves from colonial alienation... once this harmony between their language, their environment and their inner being has been re-established, children will be free to learn new languages and to open up to the precious humanist, democratic and revolutionary legacy of other peoples' literatures and cultures - but without being ashamed of themselves, their language or their environment.
Wa Thiongo refuses to be blackmailed about the universality of African languages, which are supposedly communitarian and divisive [5], and would probably send everyone back to that dreadful tribal night before the arrival of the white saviors. These are societal products that respond to specific contexts. If we want to find a solution, we have to start from what people have and do. Because more wealth is created from endogenous resources.
Language is a fundamental economic resource for the development of African nations. Carr even compares language to an international currency, because linguistic diversity has real economic value. The economic strength of a language can be assessed on the basis of a number of variables, such as industrial production, technological level, international trade, etc. If we take just the case of language industries, they could generate billions of euros if native languages were ever promoted. Imagine the economic spin-offs if every African country adopted a national language as its official language, in literature, cinema, tourism, the media...
In Rwanda, there is a dynamic publishing sector in the Kinyarwanda language, while in Nigeria the film industry flourishes in the three main national languages. The same goes for Ghana, where there are numerous TV channels broadcasting exclusively in Twi, the dominant local language. This creates thousands of jobs on the labor market. By 2040, one in every 2 young people in the world will be African. A huge potential, provided they have access to a good education, and are productive and innovative. Numerous studies have shown that teaching in national languages increases the rate of understanding of scientific disciplines. There is therefore a vast market for the production of teaching materials in national languages, particularly in the translation and publishing sectors.
The examples of Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa... are just a few of the many African states that have been able to maintain a certain dynamism in the promotion of local languages. But better linguistic and cultural policies are needed to truly exploit the economic potential of African languages and facilitate their dissemination to the world.
It's deplorable to note that no African language is among the 20 most widely used in international exchanges, especially when you consider that Africa is one of the world's main suppliers of raw materials. In 2020 [6], according to Euromonitor International 2010, the main players in international trade will be China, the United States, India, Japan, Russia, Germany, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Mexico and others. In short, it will be the same countries, with the same languages.
So it's life itself that the writer is catching up with by returning to the languages of Africa. No future is conceivable if Africans do not think for themselves and by themselves about their present and their future. Africa's self-determination and self-denomination require the reappropriation of national languages, which must be put back at the heart of discursive practices.
Beyond individual constructs, the economic potential of languages for Africa's development simply cannot be ignored or underestimated. We need to go beyond ethnolinguistic divisions to put in place cultural policies that can support the endogenous development of African nations.
References
[1] Christian Elongué, "Afrotopia, an active utopia towards an Africa of possibilities," Thot Cursus, accessed October 22, 2018,
https://cursus.edu/11896/afrotopia-une-utopie-active-vers-une-afrique-des-possibles
[2 Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind, Studies in African Literature edition (London: Portsmouth, N.H: Heinemann, 1986).
[3] The Kenyan Gakaara Wa Wanjaũ, imprisoned for 10 years from 1952 to 1962 for writing in his national language, Kikuyu, while under English rule, and isolated after independence. The Cameroonian historian Charles Robert Dimi also revealed to us that he was the victim of repressive practices at school whenever he decided to express himself in his mother tongue, Bulu.
[4] And how did the teachers go about spotting those who dared to express themselves in their mother tongue? In the morning, they gave a button to a pupil and instructed him to hand it over to the first classmate to say a word in his mother tongue. The pupil who had the button in his hands at the end of the day would denounce the classmate who had given it to him, who in turn would denounce the child who had had the button before him, and one thing led to another and all the culprits were named. What a way to teach children about denunciation, and to encourage them from an early age to betray their loved ones and their community!
[5] This "divisionist myth" of multilingualism is one of the reasons why some African countries, such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, are reluctant to grant mother tongues any official status. Tanzania, for example, has opted for linguistic standardization, elevating a coastal language (Swahili) to the status of official national language, to the detriment of 135 more or less important vernacular languages.
[6] "Language expansion", accessed October 22, 2018,
http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/Langues/2vital_expansion.htm
Languages: a challenge for the economy and business - Focus - Manon Latour
https://liseo.france-education-international.fr/site/bibliographies/bibliographie-les-langues-enjeu-pour-economie-entreprise.pdf
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