National language policy and planning: France 1789, Nigeria 1989

Hizory Printed

of European Ideas. in Great Britain

Vol. 13, No. l/2.

NATIONAL

pp. 97-120,

0191.6599/91 23.00 t 0.00 (I 1991 Pergamon Press plc.

1991

LANGUAGE POLICY AND PLANNING: FRANCE 1789, NIGERIA 1989 C.M.B.

1. THE TRIGLOTTIC

BRANN*

CONFIGURATION

IN EUROPE

1.1. As G.O. Olusanya pointed out during his convocation lecture at this University in February 1989,’ the nation-building stage of Europe started during the Renaissance in the 15/1&h centurya period which has much in common with the current foundation of African nation-states during the second half of this century. In both areas also there was a period of triglossiu, in which matters of state were expressed in an acrolect or high language; the general administration was done in an indigenous language of wider communication, or mesolecr, whilst intimate, home and local matters were expressed in innumerable dialects or basilects. It was precisely the European Renaissance that was to develop the middle member of this configuration, the mesolects into a koine or language-in-common, for each nation, under the style of ‘King’s language’ or ‘Langue du roy’. For it was the language of the royal courts that served as prestige varieties for the growing centralistic kingdoms, in which the European monarchs reduced the power both of the ecclesiastical and feudal grandees of their realms, symbolised by new capitals and chanceries. In Portugal this took place under the Trastamara and Braganca in the 15th Century; in Spain under the joint ‘Catholic’ kings Ferdinand and Isabella; in France under the last great Valois king, Francis I; in England it was the rising Tudor dynasty with Henry VIII; in Poland the Jagello Casimir, whilst in Russia the rising Romanovs played a similar role under Ivan. All these absolute monarchs established a strong linguistic centralisation, which can be represented by the year 1492, in which the Spanish kings finally occupied the whole of what is now Spain (commonly called the Reconquest), sent Columbus on his expedition to the New World and commissioned a standard grammar of the Castilian or Spanish language of the humanist Antonio de Nebrija.’ It was the first European grammar written in the target language, not in Latin, and took advantage of the recent invention of printing for its diffusion. Here, symbolically, the ‘pacification’ and unification of the multi-ethnic interior into one polity; the beginning of the colonial empire overseas and the unification of language into one centralised code coincided in one and the same year. This language was to serve, therefore, not only for uniform internal administration, but also for the administration of a far-flung empire, where it is used to this very day-even though the metropolitan administration has changed. It is, moreover, symbolised by the significant construction of the first European artificial political and administrative capital,

*Department

of Languages and Linguistics, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. 97

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98

Madrid, which was established on the central Spanish plateau (meseta) by Philip II of Spain, the great-grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1561. 1.2. We see linguistic sequels to this movement of centralism in Francis I’s Ordinance of Villers-Cotteret of 1539, in which he removed the use of Latin from the Law courts and replaced it by French, which was to be further centralised by Louis XIII, who in 1635 patented the first official language-planning agency of Europe-the French Academy, which was to play a similar role to Nebrija’s grammar in standardising the language, and in spreading it at home and abroad. Indeed through the power and prestige of his successor Louis XIV, the French king’s tongue became the language of prestige of the whole of Europe, West and East, and was spoken at the courts from Stockholm to Florence, from St Petersburg to Warsaw and Naples, not to mention the overseas colonies of France in the New World. 2. THE MAKING

OF A NATIONAL

LANGUAGE

and absolutism of Renaissance 2.1. Notwithstanding the centralism monarchies, and the selection of prestige standards, it took centuries to pervade the periphery and various public domains-not to speak of the private domains of their subjects. What was first made uniform was the king’s internal administration, by gradually excluding Latin from internal government and by banishing dialect and minority languages from the royal courts. Indeed, the ‘king’s language’ was, above all, the language of the various aristocracies of Europe. The idea of standardised vernacular usage for the people occurred first on the religious plane with the reformer Luther in Germany (in German) followed by the Protestant states of northern Europe (including Geneva and Prague), in which the Bible was translated into, and published in, the leading national vernaculars: Danish, Dutch, Czech, English, French (Geneva), Low and High German, and Swedish. These, because they were constantly read both in Church and at Home, became the high language of the people-even where dialects continued to be used in speech-as they still are in parts of Germany and Italy. It was not until two centuries later that the French Revolution first brought about large-scale interference of Government in linguistic matters, in an attempt at what we today call ‘language-planning’ and, more recently, ‘language management’. 2.2. French Revolution and Language Policy In 1789, France with its 25 million inhabitants was the most populous and potentially richest country of Europe:’ yet its commoners were poverty-stricken through mismanagement by the feudal aristocracy who lost their contact with the people by gathering round the Sun King in Versailles-a system used to keep them in order. Though the high administration was in French since the days of Francis I (supra), the daily affairs of the 23 million country folk (for only some 2 million lived in the towns) were in minority languages and dialects. Such little elementary education as there was, was in the hands of the Church and given in various patois for sermons and Latin for the catechism (i.e. set responses and the creed). Secondary and higher education were entirely in Latin until the Revolution, and were controlled by, or subservient to, the Catholic Church.

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2.3. Language for public enlightenment: After the fall of the Bastille on 14th July 1789 and subsequent meetings of the National Assembly (Convention), it was decided, on 14th January 1790 (Certeau 1975 p. 10) to translate the decrees of the revolutionary government into the major dialects of the Centre and South, in an initial policy of linguistic egalitarianism. However, it took some three years for the government to discover that the minority languages and dialects were used to rally counter-revolutionary forces. Already in 1792 the Abbe Grtgoire-one of the few churchmen who had sworn to abide by the principles of the Revolution-sent out a questionnaire of 43 questions to correspondents in all the newly created departments.4 This constitutes, to our knowledge, the first systematic language survey in history, as well as the first attempt at governmental language planning. The questions were formulated to ascertain the extent of the use of French; the relationship of the dialect or minority language with French and the classical languages; the linguistic and cultural characteristics of these various speech forms; the extent of literacy in these, including publications and reading habits; the extent to which these speech forms were used in churches and schools as subjects or media of instruction; the putative relationship between the use of local languages and the level of morals and customs (a translation of the important questionnaire is in appendix ZZ). 2.4. It would appear that at this stage, the Abbe Grtgoire-representing the clergy in the National Assembly-was open-minded as to the intrinsic value of local languages, not only for their historical, linguistic and cultural content, but also as appropriate media for Church indoctrination, which it had been decided to use by the Catholic Church a thousand years earlier, at the Council of Tours 813 A.D. (in France).’ The question arose, whether it was appropriate to mobilise the French masses in the direction of the new ideas of the Revolution, or whether to enforce the use of French-then known by perhaps 15-20% of the population? 2.5. However, this initial federative trend was quickly withdrawn by the government, as it became evident that speakers of other ‘idioms’ proved centres of opposition to the Revolution, being supporters of the old feudal regimes, of which they had been subjects. This is clearly seen in the well-known Language Report of the Committee of Public Safety (Rapport du ComitC de Salut sur les Idiomes, Certeau op. cit. 291 passim), in which Barere, the rapporteur, inveighs against the reactionary federalists as wanting to preserve the gulf in communication in the country through the maintenance of feudal ethnicities, but particularly against those with foreign, extra-territorial connections. He sums up with this lapidary sentence: ‘Federalism and superstition speak Breton; the emigration (of the nobles) and hatred of the Republic speak German (because of the Habsburg empire, to which the last Queen of France belonged); the counterrevolution speaks Italian and fanaticism speaks Basque: let us break these instruments of mischief and error’ (p. 295) (‘Le federalisme et la superstition parlent bas-breton; l’emigration et la haine de la Republique parlent allemand; la contre-revolution parle l’italien, et le fanatisme parle le basque. Cassons ces instruments de dommage et d’erreur’). It is, therefore imperative, concludes Bar&e, that all French children should learn French, not at Church schools, which had been dissolved, but in community schools, where each Commune/

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CM. B. Brann

Community must appoint and pay its own elementary schoolmaster, who must be a fully qualified teacher and who will teach in French. ‘Citizens’, he concludes, ‘the language of a free people must be one and the same for all’. It is therefore clear that the ideal of equality also implies access to the Law, access to Information and Enlightenment, as well as to Education.6 2.6 The Abb& Grtgoire’s famous report of the same year as Bar&e’s (1794) is entitled: ‘Report on the necessity and the means for suppressing the dialects and generalising the use of the French language’ (Rapport sur la nCcessitt et les moyens d’antantir les patois et d’universaliser I’usage de la langue franGaise).’ Based on an actual linguistic survey by questionnaire, Grtgoire’s report has the character not only of a political and historical document of the first importance, but also that of a systematic survey, of linguistic and ethnographic value. He estimates the number of Frenchmen not knowing any French at all at 6 million or 40%, whilst another 6 million would be very imperfect second language speakers. Only some 3 million, or 20%, habitually used French, whilst the number of those who could write it correctly was much smaller. He thus accounts for a linguistic population of 15 million, whereas estimates of the population of France at the time of the Revolution vary between 20 and 25 million. 2.7 We thus have to distinguish between three types of linguistic communities: (a) the duchies acquired by France since the Renaissance, all peripheral to the hexagon, where French was not spoken: their languages were called idiomes; (b) the counties in which French-related dialects were spoken, including the Languedoc and Provence, whose dialects were called patois; and (c) the close home counties of the centre around Paris, where French (or ‘francien’) had spread since the Middle Ages.s It is significant that Grtgoire himself estimated the latter to have only half the number of speakers of the two former, i.e. 3-6 million. It is moreover a proof of the aloofness of the French court, which had highly centralised its activities and standardised its language since the foundation of the French Academy of 1635, but had less influence on the common people at home than on the European aristocracy abroad. Indeed, it was this language, minus its exclusive snobbery, that was to become the basis of the ‘national language’. 3.1. The the National Revolution, sense of a nationality (grammaire)

term ‘national language’, so frequently used in the language reports to Convention by Barbre and GrCgoire was not an invention of the but already existed in the 1765 edition of the Encycloptdie in the single state language which at the same time characterised the of its speakers. The following is taken from the article ‘Langue (p. 249 of the 1765 edition)

Si une langue est parlCe par une nation compos&e de plusieurs peuples tgaux et les uns des autres, tels qu’ktoient anciennement les Grecs et tels que sont aujourd’hui les Italiens et les Allemands; avec I’usage gkkral des m&mes mots et de la mkme syntaxe, chaque peuple peut avoir des usages propres sur la prononciation ou sur les terminaisons des m&mes mats; ces usages subalternes, kgalement kgitimes, constituent les dialectes de la lungue nationale. Si, comme les Romains autrefois, et comme les Franqois aujourd’hui, la nation est une par rapport au gouvernment; il ne peut y avoir dans sa man&e de parler qu’un usage

independans

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legitime: tout autre qui s’en tcarte darts la prononciation, dans les terminaisons, dans La Syntaxe, ou en quelque faGon que ce puisse 2tre, ne fait ni une langue a part, ni une dialecte (sic) de la &rgue nationale; c’est un patois abandonne a la populace des provinces, et chaque province a le sien.” English: When a language is spoken by a nation made up of several equal and independent peoples, as was the case in ancient Greece and is today the case with the Italians and Germans-where generally the same vocabulary and syntax are used, each people can have its own variety of pronunciation and (morphological) endings; these subsidiary uses, all equally legitimate, constitute the dialects of the national language. If, like the Romans in former days and like the French today, the nation and government (state) are one, there can be a justified use only in a single manner of speech: anything else that differs in pronunciation, morphology or syntax, or in any other manner whatever, does not constitute a separate iQ~guQge, nor a dialect of the national language: it is rather a patois abandoned to the populace of each province, with each province having its own.’

3.2. Here, then, we have clearly stated the 18th Century view of the difference the decentralised governance of Germany (the Empire) and of Italy, with their hundreds of separate feudal principalities and the political sequel of linguistic division; and of centralised France, which must be governed through only one language, called the ‘national language’. It is therefore proof that it was not the Revolution that invented the idea of the ‘national language’, but the Philosophers of the 18th Century, following the centralisation of the French language under Francis I and Louis XIII and XIV and its codification under the French Academy. 3.3. Whereas for the decentralised polities of the Empire individual dialects are conceded, for centralised polities, like France, one single standardised and codified variety was imperative. To this idea of centralism, the Revolution added that of equality. The central language had been the prerogative of the Court and Church, but now the Revolution wanted to bring its benefits to all citizens, since ‘the People must know the laws in order to approve of them and to obey them’, says Gregoire in his famous report, while the feudal idioms and dialects (or patois) must disappear, in order to create one indivisible Republic (res publica). Moreover, writes Gregoire, the use of the ‘idioms’ impedes the spread of knowledge (‘L’idiome est un obstacle a la propagation des lumibres’, Certeau p. 304), beginning with a knowledge of rural economy and the principles of Agriculture (‘Pour perfectioner l’agriculture et tomes les branches de l’economie rurale, si arritrees chez nous, la connaissance de la langue nationale est tgalement indispensable’). The national language, then, musz serve public enlightenment and mobilisation of the people. Whereas in January, 1790, the Constituent Assembly had ordered to have its decrees translated into the ‘dialects’ of France, Gregoire is now pleading for their suppression in 1794, which shows a revirement from federalism to centralism, which is consonant with the former policy of the French monarchs. Thus, without acknowledging it, the French Revolution continues and deepens the policy of linguistic centralisation, commenced in the Renaissance by Francis I.‘O between

C.M. B. Brann

102 4. CORPUS

PLANNING

AND THE FRENCH

REVOLUTION

4.1. Inspired by the Pleiade of Poets of the 16th century, the French Academy had centralised, refined and standardised the language, by concentrating on a small, but highly articulate courtly vocabulary, in which concrete expressions were abstracted in the service of lucidity and elegance. Trade terms, provincialisms as well as vulgarisms were excluded. Though the Revolution was by no means against the purity of the language, Grtgoire wanted to (re)admit all trade terms, so long as they found a uniform nomenclature throughout France: ‘Uniformiser la nomenclature (politique et arts)-c’est la partie la plus negligee de notre langue: car, malgre les reclamations de Leibnitz, la ci-devant Acadtmie Francaise . . . ne jugea pas a propos d’embrasser cet object dans la confection de son dictionnaire, qui en a toujours fait en desirer un autre’ (Certeau p. 310)‘~ If, then the terminology of the manifold trades and handicrafts of France were to be admitted, it must be standardised to serve central communication and exchange. Trades lead to the sciences, of which Gregoire specifically mentioned Metereology, as of importance to Agriculture, as well as elementary Physics. We can see the direct inspiration of the Great Encyclopedia (of 1751-72) whose full title was Encycloptdie ou dictionnaire raisonnk des sciences, des arts et des m&tiers-which covered much of the ground disdained by the French Academy as not being grand, or noble. The language was thus to be both further standarisedand enrichedby the new sciences. Indeed it was in the years before and during the Revolution that Lavoisier standardised the vocabulary of modern Chemistry, and it is one of the many attendant tragedies of the Revolution that he was executed for having been a civil servant in the royal administration. 4.2 Simplification and Democratisation Whereas the language was to be enriched, it was also to be ‘democratised’ in the sense of the national community. This implied the avoidance of aristocratic euphemism and hyperbole, which had become the bane of courtly language and had already been ridiculed by Moliere in the 17th century.r2 Thus side by side with enrichment, the language was also to be simplified, rendered more energetic, muscular and direct. A standard grammar was to be written, alongside a new dictionary. In the grammar, both morphology and orthography were to be simplified, the former for its famous irregular verbs, the latter for its superfluous etymologising letters, many of which had already been abolished by the 17th century. Enrichment of the vocabulary and simplification of terminology, therefore, go hand in hand with the desired corpus: ‘faire a notre idiome les ameliorations dont il est susceptible, et, sans en alterer le fonds, l’enrichir, le simplifier, en faciliter l’etude aux nationaux et aux autres peuples. Perfectionner une langue, dit Michaelis, c’est augmenter le fonds de sagesse d’une nation’. English: ‘To improve our Language whenever it is appropriate, and without distorting its basis; to enrich, to simplify, to facilitate its study by both nationals and other peoples. For to perfect a language, says Michaelis-is to increase the wisdom of a nation’ (Certeau p. 314). Here we have in nuce, the principles of corpus planning on a national scale. At the close of the successful debate on Grtgoire’s report, the Convention decreed that a new grammar and a new dictionary of the French language were to be prepared under the Education

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National Language Policy and Planning

Committee of the Convention (ComitC d’instruction publique). The idea of direct control of the National Language by the State has taken shape, and has since guided the French Republic, which today has a special ministry for the purpose, the High Commission of the French Language (Haut Commissariat de la Langue Francaise), which works regularly on the innovation of terminologies.i3

5. SEQUELS

OF GREGOIRE’S

REPORT AND THE STATE LANGUAGE

POLICY

ON

5.1 Spread of the National Language Throughout France Although the revolutionary government lasted from 1789 to 1799 only, and was followed by the Empire and the Restoration, the policy of diffusion of the national language did not change, coupled with the suppression-orglottophagy as Calvet calls it (q.v.)-of the idioms and patois in other words, of minority languages and dialects. The strong militarisation of the country under the Revolution, followed by that of the Empire, called for a unified language of command, while the centralisation of public education and enlightenment continued, until elementary education became compulsory in 1882.74 This was coupled by the growth of the mass media, particularly the printed press and by the radio in the 20th century-all of which served to render the French people-if not French monoglots, then at least bilingual with an ethnic language (Breton, Basque, Catalan, German, Italian, Flemish), or diglottic with a ‘dialect’ of Romance origin, especially Occitan, the language of the south. Inspite of oppressive practices, such as the ‘symbol’ of opprobrium-which had to be carried in primary school when the vernaculars were inadvertently spoken-all of the ethnic languages or idioms survived, including also Occitan-even though their spread and literary expression were stunted,ls (with the exception of Provencal, which had a renaissance in the Romantic era). However, through the separation of Church and State at the Revolution and the take-over of all church schools, Education became primarily a civic exercise for the training of citizens, through one national language-a characteristic which French education has maintained to this day. 5.2, Spread of French in the Colonies Having lost most of its early colonies to Britain and the U.S., France prepared a second empire in the Near East and Africa, with an accompanying spread of standard French. Various semi-governmental organisations for the spread of French in the Third Empire, followed by the Third Republic were epitomised by the ‘Alliance Francaise pour la propagation du francais dans nos colonies et a I’etranger’ (English: ‘French Alliance for the spread of French in our Colonies and abroad’), which was founded in 1884 and has now passed its first centenary.16 At first a mere association, it has grown into a para-statal of considerable importance, through which the French Foreign Service can channel its cultural and linguistic programmes, in collaboration with foreign partners. France also has the oldest foreign service for its schools abroad, which were in the first place for the children of French foreign service staff, but later became elite schools for

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many foreign communities, generally in the capitals. The Division for Schools Abroad, founded at the Foreign Ministry 100 years ago, soon became a Department for Cultural Relations, with a network of cultural institutes, through which French Language and Literature were exported at a high level of competence and prestige. Wherever French institutions were implanted, local languages were ignored or discountenanced. In the colonies, they were termed ‘dialects’ or ‘patois’, just as had the minority languages in France been so termed at the French Revolution (and before). The centralising, Romanising and classicist stance of France (and of other Romance countries) thus served to export glottophagy to the colonies of Africa, to which were added the former Belgian colonies under the mantle of ‘Francophonie’ after the independencies of 1958-60.” 5.3. The National Language Reviewed In one respect, however, there has been a curious reversion of the term ‘national’ to its original European meaning of ‘ethnic’ or ‘territorial’ (following thejus soli as well as the&s sanguinis). Thus the term ‘langues nationales’ (in the plural) is now used in sub-Saharan francophone states to mean all the ethnolinguistic groups of each state, and not the one and only select language of state, which it had come to mean with the French Revolution, and on the model of which the European language-nation-states of the 19th century were formed.i8

6. THE AFRICAN

SCENE:

THE TRIGLOTTIC

CONFIGURATION

As was mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the European linguistic configuration of the Renaissance resembled in many respects what obtains in Africa at present. The languages of the soil, vernaculars or chthonoiects-though they have never been more described and analysed in the past than they are now-are being absorbed by the lingua francas, languages of wider communication or demolects. As the countries are being urbanised by immigrants from the rural areas, the great cities need a community language which enables them to function. The demolects are also pushing the third category of the configuration, the exoiects, into specialised domains, whilst taking up those of community languages. This triglottic configuration of Africa has been variously described for the past thirty years by socio-linguists (Abdulaziz, Alexandre, Brann, Johnston, Tadadieu, Whiteley).”

7. STATUS

PLANNING

7.1. Survey and Language Allocation As in the French Revolution with Gregoire, the first act of status planning is the Zanguage survey, in order to ascertain the number, place and use speech-forms of the state. This has been done in different forms in post-independent African states, either in the form of census questions, or by special sample survey. In southern Africa, f.i., the language question was separated from the ethnic question, (Zambia, Zimbabwe, etc), whereas in Nigeria, the 1963 and 1973

National Language Policy and Planning

IO5

Censuses still asked for ethno-linguistic self-identification. Though this gives an overview of primary language use, it does not ascertain the role of second or community languages, which it would be important to know at this stage.*O For it is patent that the European 19th century policy of monoglossia, of one unique national language per state, is practicable in Africa only in a very few ethnically homogeneous communities like Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia or the island of Madagascar-leaving aside for the moment the arabophone states of the Maghreb and northern Africa. In most post-independent African states, an exolect has played the role of centralising language, for purposes of Administration and Law, while in community matters, endogenous lingua francas have spread, like Diula, Hausa, Lingala, Sango or Swahili. Thus whereas the term ‘official’ language-or language of state-rests with the exolects, the term ‘national language’-in the sense of a language representative of a people, with broad public functions-has been variously used with a variety of meanings: In mono-ethnic states, as in Botswana, Burundi, Lesotho, Madagascar, Rwanda and Somali, this term ‘national language’ has been conferred on ethnic majority languages, but also on non-ethnic languages in some Eastern and Central African States. Whereas before the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution, Amaharic was the ‘national’ language-being the language of the dominant Amharic group-all territorial languages have been so declared since then, thus changing the semantic content of the word ‘national’ in ‘national language’ from a single representative language to include aN territorial languages of the state, i.e. ‘national’ in the sense of ‘nationality’. 4.2 Regional Languages In other states, dominant regional languages have been declared ‘national’, as representative of the major peoples of those states, notwithstanding the existence of many other speech forms. The classical example of this is the Union of India, where 15 languages are enshrined in the current constitution as ‘national languages’.*’ In Africa the oldest example is Zaire with Kongo, Luba, Ngala and Swahili as the four regional and super-regional ‘national’ languages (notwithstanding the sole official language-French); in Togo it is Ewe that is considered representative of the south and Kabie of the north-both ‘national’ languages, while French is the official language. In the 1989 Constitution of Nigeria, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are the ‘major’ languages, each representing a region, with English as the de facto official link-language (metalect). 7.3. The term ‘national language’ can thus have four concurrent meanings in Africa: (a) territorial or all; (b) regional or a few; (c) single or predominant; and (d) predominant and official. 22 It is the last meaning that was developed in France in the 18th century and was propagated by the French Revolution throughout Europe, resulting in the 19th century language-nation-state. This is evidently a polito-linguistic form not suited to the majority of African states, if they are to remain in harmony with their multi-ethnic bases. A judicious selection and allocation must be made, consonant with the prestige and actual function of majority languagesas is now being done in Nigeria, after almost thirty years.

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CM B. Brann 8. CORPUS

PLANNING

8.1. This second stage of language planning is characterised by codification, notably by grammatication. As in the case of the French Revolution, in which Grtgoire caused the Convention to decide on the confection of a new French grammar, each major (and often also minor) African language has to be standardised as to its morpho-syntax and vocabulary, as well as orthography, still leaving room for phonological variation in dialect. In Nigeria, there are good standards for Hausa and Yoruba, in written form, while the dialects continue to be used by the local communities. Zgbo is still being so standardised, as it has a great variety of linguistic forms to incorporate.23 In these languages, and many more, The Language Centre of the Ministry of Education plays the effective role of a co-ordinating language planning agency of Government, while at the state level, ministries of Education have their own language committees. 8.2. But apart from the grammatication of majority languages, the exolects continue to serve as major agents of literacy in 3/4 of post-independence African states. Because of their important unifying function, the exolects are used as primary media of Education at all levels (except the beginning of the elementary stage), as well as of Administration. The need here is therefore to describe, monitor and maintain the varieties acceptable nationally and yet still intelligible internationally. This work is in progress with respect to English, French and Portuguese, in their various African guises, for instance as Ghanaian, Kenyan or Nigerian Englishesz4

9. MODERNISATION

AND

ENRICHMENT

9.1 As has been pointed out, the Abbe Gregoire recognised the importance of modern techniques for the economic development of France, and the need to enrich the previous conservative vocabulary and dictionary of the language. In Africa, it is a matter of enriching the lexica of predominantly rural-patriarchal societies to include modern concepts of measurement, science and technology. For this enrichment, two major roads are open: the native, or national, and the inter-national. While native roots are preferred for basic concepts and practices for elementary and functional literacy and for public enlightenment, the international or Arabo-Greco-Latin roots are of major importance in keeping contact with inter-national usage and development. 25 The same alternatives existed precisely in Europe in the 19th century, when the Germanic and Slavonic peoples opted for native basic scientific vocabularies, while borrowing more specialised and professional usage from the Greco-Latin terminologies, so powerfully propagated by the French Revolution in measurements and the physical sciences. In public administration also, many of our daily terms go straight back to the Revolution, as with ‘National Assembly’ or Assemblee Nationale. 9.2. It is therefore important for the post-independence societies of Africa to harmonise authenticity and the creation of indigenous vocabularies with the adaptation of international terminology for easier intelligibility and communication. Enrichment of African languages has practical meaning only, if it leads to better conditions of living of the societies concerned, and this cannot be done in

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National Language Policy and Planning isolation, messages

but must always lead to universalism-which is one of the primary of the French Revolution we are discussing here.

10. LANGUAGE

DIFFUSION

AND SPREAD

10.1. We have shown that the French Revolution saw language as a primary public resource and therefore took measures to shape and diffuse it. In their case, it was a single language, intended to absorb all others, by a process of what they then called ‘annihilation’, which we would today call ‘incorporation’. It has also been mooted that in Africa-with the exception of the north and some peripheral states-this is not possible, because of the inherent ethnic heterogeneity of the continent. For this reason, selected endolects are being used as lingua francas to serve public access, contact and enlightenment, whilst the inherited exolects are maintained as both national and inter-national links, for administration, business, education and development-through-research. The former are used to strengthen national identity, whilst the latter serve central as well as inter-national communication. 10.2 A Language-Planning Agency The French model has shown Europe since the Revolution howparticipatory democracy (the word is new, but the idea stems from 1789) has to be channelled through language, since when she has instituted a series of central languagebased institutions, headed by the High Commissariat of the French Language. Such a central LP agency exists, to our knowledge, only in Tanzania where the Baraza la KiswahW has similar central functions. It is perhaps more in the African tradition to have de-centralised functions for language planning and diffusion, in which the ministries of Education and Information play a key role. In Nigeria, for instance, the network languages are equally diffused by the Federal Ministry of Education-through the Language Centre, and the Nigerian Broadcasting Organisation, which heads the various state branches. Public enlightenment campaigns in Nigerian languages as well as in English, are the responsibility of the Directorate of Public Enlightenment of the Federal Ministry of Information, to which the Broadcasting Organisation is also responsible. 10.3. Where the French Revolution used the Communes to discuss and broadcast its ideas, the practice ofLocal Government is producing sound results in various African states. Especially in Nigeria, with its federal Constitution, it is important to wed the interests of the centre with those of the periphery. Local Governments, therefore, have their own linguistic interests for which they can cater, in accordance with their particular ethno-linguistic configuration. In Nigeria, there are thus language boards and committees at the national/federal, state/regional and local levels, corresponding to the Constitutions of 1979 and 1989.27

11. THE LESSON 11.1. In one essential

OF UNI-LINGUISM respect, however,

African

AND CO-LINGUISM states are not likely to follow

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the example of the French Revolution: in the creation of language-nation-states. It is the idea of a sovereign and centralised nation-state, unified by one single language that has created the many Romance, Germanic, and Slavonic and also Celtic language nation-states of Europe over the past 200 years, from modern Greece to Poland, from Ireland to Lithuania. Alongside these, there have been bi-linguistic and tri-linguistic polities like those of Switzerland (the oldest 13th century confederation), Belgium (a 19th century amalgam), Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and, above all, the Soviet Union of 1917. While the former have insisted on the incorporation or suppression of minorities, the latter have practised various forms of co-linguism, in which regional languages had equal rights. This form of federal co-linguism the French Revolution rejected in 1794, whereas it had initially thought of it. This was because of the special circumstances of France at the time, which was surrounded by conservative monarchies, inimical to political change. There is no such outside pressure on the new states of Africa. Even though ethnic boundaries are adventitious, the various peoples living within one state are increasingly considering themselves as one ‘nation’ in a process entitled ‘nation-building’ or ‘nationism’ (Fishman 1972). As has been seen in the history of Europe since the Renaissance, such a process of nation-statism or nationism is quite a slow one. In Africa, it has to accommodate the symbiosis of many ethno-linguistic communities within one state-possibly up to 400 in the case of Nigeria-each of which will play its own tune within the concert (not the cacophony) of the whole nation. It is precisely the role of the Language-Planning Agency to see that the concert remains a harmony, by alotting each ethno-linguistic group its pitch, according to the three-tier political structure of the Federation, at the federal, state or local level. This process of inter-action has been named colinguism by a notable scholar of the French Revolution (Renee Balibar), which I have here adopted for the African scene.** In Africa generally, and in West Africa in particular, the unilinguistic model is not appropriate and would lead both to conflict as well as to cultural impoverishment. It is, moreover, interesting to observe that the sovereign language-nation-state of Europe is drawing to its close. Internally, linguistic minorities are calling for the recognition and protection of their languages and often even for their public and co-official use, as in Spain with Catalan, Britain with Irish and Welsh (the former separated in 1922 for that reason), in the Netherlands with Frisian, etc. Even France, that arch-Unitarian state, has had to make some concessions to the Basques, Bretons, Corsicans and Occitans within the hexagon. However, none of these states has made any concessions to their large immigrant communities, which have no linguistic rights. 29 In addition, Europe has become herself two blocks or federations-the West with the European Community, the East with Comecon. The western confederation, which in 1992 will have complete freedom of labour movement, has to solve its linguistic problems by recognising some languages as more ‘European than others’. Already English, French and German are contending for that position; perhaps it will be a co-linguistic union between the three of them. These have been, and will be, special regional languages in Europe, while the national languages will remain valid within the old frontiers.

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National Language Policy and Planning 12. CONCLUSION

It is therefore important for African States not to look at the 19th century language-nation-state as the only form of statehood worth emulating-simply because the former colonial administrations were still embued by that idea. New forms of co-linguism are being evolved everywhere to maintain the delicate balance between authenticity and communication, participation and diffusion, nationalism and integration. Maybe at the French Revolution only one language was ‘national’; but now in Africa all languages are-while some are more ‘national’ than others. C.M.B. Brann University of Maiduguri. Nigeria

APPENDIX THE FRENCH

I

REVOLUTION AND THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE QUESTION

Illustrative text: report by the Abbe Gregoire source: Rente Balibar and Dominique Laporte Hachette Litterature, 1974), pp. 198-201, trans. (words in brackets are addenda, for elucidation).

NATIONAL Report

CONVENTION/PUBLIC

to the National Convention Le Francais National (Paris, B. Antia and C.M.B. Brann.

EDUCATION:

on the Necessity and Means of Suppressing local Dialects Generalising the use of the French Language (in France)

and of

Presented by Grirgoire, on the 16th day of the ninth month of the Republican Calendar, in the second year of the one and indivisible Republic (1794), followed by a Decree of the National Convention, printed by order of the National Convention, and sent to Constituted Authorities, The People’s Associations as well as to all Communes of the Republic. Text of the Report French has won the esteem of Europe, where for a century it has been a classical language. My aim is not to adduce reasons for this prestige. This question was the object of a scholarly debate ten years ago in the interior of Germany (in Berlin).3’ This debate on the prestige of the French language, in the words of one writer, would have flattered the pride of imperial Rome, eager to mark such an event as one of the high moments of her history. The policy of Rome in making her language universal, is well known: it was forbidden to exhort, or negotiate with, foreign ambassadors in any other tongue (than Latin). Inspite of her efforts, Rome succeeded only partially in gaining for her language the prestige that was freely accorded to French. It is common knowledge that in 1774, French was used to draw up the treaty between the Turks and the Russians. Ever since the Peace of Nimegen,

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French has been used and abused in European cabinets in the service of their intrigues. Thought flows smoothly in French, because of its clear and methodical nature. This is what gives our language its character of rationality and integrity, which is even used by cunning negotiators to ward off diplomatic tricks.32 If our idiom has been this well received by tyrants and courts, to whom Monarchical France gave theatres, decorations, fashion and etiquette, how much better will it be received by a People, to whom Republican France has opened the door of Justice and Freedom? But how does one explain the strange fact that a significant part of the French People are ignorant of this idiom, which is accepted for political transactions and currently used in several cities of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands; in parts of Liege, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and even in Canada and on the banks of the Mississippi?33 Throughout the succeeding revolutions, Celtic-which was the first language of Europe, survived in some regions of France and in districts of the British Isles. It is known that the Welsh, the Cornish and the Bretons understand one another. This indigenous language (Celtic) underwent successive changes. Twenty-four centuries ago, the Phocians founded advanced colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean, and recently Greek fragments of a Pindaric ode on the vintage season were found embedded in a song of the Marseille area. When the Carthaginians crossed the Pyrenees, Polybius recounts that many Gauls learned Punic to be able to communicate with the soldiers of Hannibal.34 After being ruled by the Romans, Gaul came under Frankish domination. The Alans, Goths, Arabs and English penetrated Gaul in turn, but were all driven out. Our language, as well as the various dialects used in France, still bear traces of the passage, or sojourn, of these diverse peoples3’ The feudal system which came thereafter to break up this fair country, carefully maintained this variety of idioms as a means of marking and identifying, and therefore recapturing, fugitive serfs. For until now, the territorial spread of certain provincial dialects corresponds to the frontiers of the old feudal demesnes. This explains the almost identical form of the dialect of Bouillon and Nancy, which are separated by some 40 leagues (160 km), and which were formerly both under the same tyrant. On the other hand, the dialect of Metz, some leagues away from Nancy, is very different from that of the latter, because for several centuries the county of Metz-organised almost like an independent republic-was continuously at war with (the duchy of) Lorraine. There are only about fifteen Departments within France where French is exclusively spoken. And even so, there are marked debasements, either in pronunciation, or in the use of inappropriate and archaic terms-particularly towards Sancerre, where one may still find expressions as used by Rabelais, Amyot and Montaigne.‘6 We no longer have Provinces, and yet we have some thirty dialects that remind us of them. It will not be out of place to make a list of these dialects: Breton, Norman, Picard, Walloon, Flemish, Champenois, Messin, Lorrain, Franc-Comtois, Burgundian, Bressan, Lyonnais, Dauphinois, Auvergnat, Poitevin, Limousin, Languedocien, Velayen, Catalan, Bearn, Basque, Rouergat and Gascon. The latter alone, is spoken by a community occupying a surface area of 60 leagues (240 km*).” To this number of dialects must be added the Italian dialect of Corsica and the Maritime Alps and the German dialect of the High and Low Rhine, because these two idioms, derived from Italy and Germany, have become (equally) debased in these areas.)*

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Finally, there are the Negroes of our colonies, to whom you have given their Freedom, who have a poor idiom akin to that of the Hottentots and to the ‘lingua franca’. In this latter idiom, hardly any of the verbal modes exist, apart from the infinitive.39 Actually, several of these (territorial) dialects are generically the same: they basically have the same structures; only a few features differentiate them. In villages situated on opposite sides of a river, and where communication was in the past impeded for lack of a bridge, these differences in features were more pronounced. A trip from Strasbourg to Brest is presently much easier than were some 20 league (80 km) journeys; and to date, towards St. Claude in the Jura Department, (legal) wills made by people on the eve of a long journey can still be consulted: The ‘long journey’ was merely a passage to Besancon, which was the capital of the province. It would not be overstating the case to say that at least 6 million French People, particularly in the countryside, know nothing of the nationallanguage; that an equal number is unable to sustain a conversation in this medium; and that, finally, the number of people who speak it correctly does not exceed three million and that probably an even lesser number write it correctly.40 Thus, with thirty different dialects, we are-as far as language is concerned-at the Tower of Babel; whereas in matters of (political) Independence, we constitute the forefront of nations. Although there is the prospect of reducing the number of languages in Europe, the political state of the globe does not carry any hope of a universal language in common. Yet this hope, nursed by several writers, is as audacious as it is utopian: A Universal Language is to the world what the Philosopher’s Stone is to Chemistry.4’ But at least one can standardise the language of a great nation, so that its citizenry can inter-communicate with ease. This task has never yet been fully accomplished in any country. The French should rise to the occasion, as this falls within the design of centralising all branches of social organisation. They should, as early as possible, aspire to use the sole and invariant language of Freedom, in the one and indivisible Republic.. .

APPENDIX

II

THE ABBE GREGOIRE’S QUESTIONNAIRE: AN ESSAY IN ETHNO-LINGUISTICS, EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS AND NATIONAL LANGUAGE PLANNING French

source:

Certeau

er al. (1975),

1. Is the use of the French

2. 3. 4. 5.

pp.

12-14.

language customary in your part of the country? Is one, or are several, dialects spoken there? Does this dialect have a known ancient origin? Are there many radical (one-root) words, or many composed ones? Are there words derived from Celtic, Greek, Latin, or generally the ancient or modern languages? Has it a distinct affinity with the French dialect spoken in the neighbouring parts, or with that of places situated further away, where emigrants or settlers from your countryside have gone to settle in times past?

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C.M.B. Brann

6. In which way does your dialect mainly differ from the national tongue? Is it so especially in the names of plants (flora), illnesses, terms of trades and handicrafts, agricultural implements, kinds of grains, or customary law? We should like to have this (dialectal) vocabulary. 7. Do you often find several words to denote the same object? 8. For which kind of objects, professions or emotions is this dialect particularly rich (expressive)? 9. Are there many words to express shades of meaning of concepts and ideas? 10. Are there many taboo words (words against good manners)? What is to be inferred from this about the moral purity or corruption of the area? 11. Are there many swear-words and special expressions used in times of anger? 12. Are there especially energetic expressions in this dialect, lacking even in the French language? 13. Do words predominantly end in consonants or vowels? 14. What is characteristic about the pronunciation: is it guttural, sibilant, soft, lightly or heavily stressed? 15. Has the written work in this dialect characteristics different from works written in French? 16. Are there significant variations of this dialect from place to place? 17. Is it spoken in the towns? 18. How large is the area covered by its use? 19. Can the country folk express themselves also in French (in addition to the dialect)? 20. Was it customary to preach in dialect in Church, and has this custom ceased? 21. Are there grammars and dictionaries of this dialect? 22. Are there any inscriptions in dialect in the churches, cemetaries, public places, etc? 23. Are there any works, printed or mss., in dialect-ancient or modern-, such as customary laws, notary acts, chronicles, prayers, sermons, devotional books, hymns, songs, calendars, poetry, translations? 24. How would you evaluate such works? 25. Would it be easy to come by copies of them? 26. Are there many proverbs in dialect, particularly in your own and that of your country? 27. What is the influence of dialect on customs generally, and of your own dialect in particular? 28. Has it been noticed that the dialect is shading towards (standard) French, and that the use of certain words tend to disappear, and since when? 29. What would be the religious and political consequences of doing away entirely (with abolishing) the dialect in question? 30. What would be the best means of accomplishing this? 31. Does the teaching in the country schools take place in French? Are the textbooks standardised? 32. Has every village some school masters and mistresses? 33. Is anything taught at these schools, other than reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Catechism? 34. Are the schools suitably supervised by the curates and vicars? 35. Do they have a selection of books to lend to their parishioners?

113

National Language Policy and Planning 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

Are the people of the countryside in the habit of reading? What kind of books can be usually found in their homes? Do they have many prejudices, and of what kind? Have they become more enlightened for the past twenty years; has their behaviour (moral standards) become more relaxed? Have their religious principles become weakened? What are the causes and what would be the remedies of these ills? What moral affect has the present Revolution upon them? Does one find any patriotism among them, or merely sentiments inspired by personal interest? Is it true to say that the clergy and the former nobility are the object ofgross insults and attacks by the peasantry, by the despotism of the communal mayors and the municipal magistrates?

NOTES 1. G.O. Olusanya,

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Director-General,

Nigerian

Institute

for International

Affairs,

Lagos. The 1 lth Convocation lecture Africa andEurope in the 15th century andin the 20th century: a recurrence in History?, delivered at the University of Maiduguri on 3rd February, 1989. The text has been published by the University of Maiduguri Press. Rafael Lapesa in his Historia de la lengua EspaAoIa (Madrid, Gredos 1986) p. 288 writes ‘En agosto de 1942, meses despues de la rendition de Granada y estando en viaje las naves de Colon, salia de la imprenta la Gramdtica castellana de Antonio de Nebrija’ . . . ‘fue el primer0 a fijar normas para dar consistencia al idioma,. . .‘. The figure of 3 out of 15 million French speakers at the Revolution is also consonant with that of 15 out of 84 Departments where French was spoken, as given by GrCgoire: both come to ca 20% of the population. France, from having been divided into feudal provinces, was redivided into each named after a geographical landmark. departements at the Revolution, Compare the similar re-assignment of colonial provinces, named after ethnic groups, into states and LGA’s, after Independence, in 1967 and 1976 in Nigeria. To this day, some of the names of the Provinces are still used, in preference over the Departments. The Council of Tours of 813 A.D., at which it was decided that sermons in church and the care of the people by the clergy should be in the vernaculars, came as a countermeasure to Charlemagne’s decision to re-instate the use of proper Latin throughout the churches of the Empire, cf. Cohen, 1987 p. 71. It is in a way ironical that the ideal of equality, applied with such consistency by the French Revolution, should have resulted in the uniformity of language, rather than in the maintenance of diversity. Equality of access to Education is, evidently, easier to control through one central language, than through a multiplicity of tongues. The author of the famous report was Henri Gregoire (1750-I 83 I), who was elected representative of the clergy to the States-General of France I7 June 1789, at the Revolution. The correspondence preceding the report is discussed in Certeau 1975, where the text is also reproduced. The first pages of the report were also reproduced in Balibar/Laporte 1972, and are here translated in Annex I. The kingdom of France of the Salian Franks was quite small initially, and limited to the ‘Isle de France’ around Paris, from where it gradually spread south, east, west, and north to the present hexagon, in waves of conquests and alliances, from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. The imposition of French on this heterogeneous

114

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

C.M.B.

Brann

collection of duchies and counties was perceived as an act of ‘nation-building’ by the successive Valois and Bourbon dynasties, and finally by the French Republic: there was thus continuity in the policy of francisation of the hexagon. I am beholden to Professors Brigitte Schlieben-Lange of Frankfurt University and Arnold Rothe of Heidelberg University for access to original 18th century editions of the Encycloptdie. There is some ambivalence in Gregoire’s radical attitude towards the ‘dialects’ of France, in that he was keenly aware of their literary and ethnographic value and wanted to preserve them for study, but in a museal state ‘in.vitro’. With all his keen sense of egalitarianism-which also led him to propose the abolition of slavery in the Convention-he saw no equality in speech forms, but rather in the access to rights and duties of the citizen before the Law, which must be performed in one uniform ‘national’ language. Grtgoire’s demand for a new dictionary and grammar corresponds to the spectpcity of scientific analysis and discourse on the one hand, and to the search of universal values of the 18th century, on the other. The latter was epitomised by the 17th century German philosopher Leibnitz, who formulated such a language. It was toaccompany the ‘language question’ in Europe down to our day, in the form of Esperanto, devised 100 years ago by a Polish doctor. The search for universality prompted the French Revolution to implement new measurements of time (the calendar) and space (the metric system), which were to supersede the many separate, particularistic systems of the Ancien Regime. Moliere, the great French court dramatist of the 17th century had attacked the overrefinement of court speech in Les prtkieuses ridicules. Whereas 17th century court language was largely influenced by the great ladies and their salons, resulting in a feminine refinement, the French Revolution consciously used a male directness and bluntness of address, supposedly modelled on Roman Republican (i.e. pre-imperial) custom and aesthetics, which led to the ‘Empire’ of the Napoleons. In no other country of the world has language-planning become a form of state craft, as it has in France and, curiously, by recent inheritance in the Province of Quebec, in Canada. It is particularly in the last twenty years that both France and Quebec have joined forces in agreeing on new terminologies in French, in order to counteract, quite openly and purposefully, the heavy pull towards the world use of English. What was therefore perceived as an internal language war against the dialects in the Revolution, has become an external struggle against ‘Franglais’ (i.e. French contaminated by English) and English itself, which has taken over most of the international positions of French as a diplomatic, scientific, technical and even cultural language. The implementation of the policy of universal and compulsory education through the French language by the minister of Education, Jules Ferry in 1882 is described in both Balibar/Laporte and Certeau ef al., and ushered in similar developments in other European states. It was only Prussia, which had an earlier system of compulsory primary education, since Frederick the Great imposed it in his kingdom. However, compulsory education into adolescence i.e. to 16 and in some countries to 18, was not made possible in Europe until the 20th century-quite recently in some countries. The symbol of opprobrium for speaking in a vernacular goes back to the Renaissance, where it was used in Church schools and colleges to check the use of vernaculars, as against Latin. It was only since the Revolution that it was applied to safeguard the use of the national vernaculars, particularly in parts, in which the natural language was distinct from that of the centre i.e. Brittany in France and Ireland in Britainwhere the use of Breton and Gaelic was thus proscribed. From there, it was

National Language Policy and Planning

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

115

transplanted to the colonies, where it was imposed until quite recently to exact the use of the colonial exolects in the schools. Cf. Maurice Bruezitre L’AlIiance Fraqaise 1883-1983: Histoire dune Institution (Paris, Hachette, 1983). The full title was Alliance Franraise, Association Nationale pour la Propagation de la iangue franpise dans Ies Colonies et ri I’Etranger. The Alliance Franqaise has published its annual report since the beginnings. At the same time, the French Foreign Ministry instituted its service for French Schools Abroad, which later on became the powerful ‘third arm’ in foreign policy, i.e. ‘cultural policy’, in the Direction G&r&ale des Affaires Culturelles, which since WW2 has branched out into the Direction Generale des Affaires Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques, showing the enlargement of cultural policy. The latter also publishes an annual report. ‘Francophonie’ and the ‘commonwealth’ of French-speaking nations is a post WW2 triumph of French cultural policy, in which the French language is pertinently used as a powerful political, social and economic link between otherwise quite disparate states, notably the 14 ‘francophone’ African states, created in 1960. With each of these-which were carved out of the two colonial territories of French West and Central Africa-the ‘mother country’ established cultural and technical agreements of cooperation at Independence, which stipulated the continued use of the French language and its subsequent spread through Education and Public Enlightenmentvery much in the spirit of the French Revolution. This is also shown in a very similar attitude and nomenclature-even by African speakers-towards the indigenous languages of the new states, as ‘dialectes’ or ‘patois’, rather than ‘langues’-though the term ‘langues nationales’ (linguas nacionais in the Portuguese-speaking states) is now also used to describe ‘autochthonous languages’. The current use of ‘langues nationales’ in the plural is epitomised by the report Promotion et intigration des Iangues nation&es dans Ies systtmes kducatifs: bilan et inventaire of the Confemen of 1986 (Paris, Champion), in which country reports of 20 African and Caribbean states are given as to the status and use of indigenous languages in Education in relation to French. The acknowledgement of the ‘dialectes’ as ‘langues nationales’ (in the plural) enables the French language to persist as the ‘langue officielle’-since none of the ‘langues nationales’ is the ‘langue nationale’. It is thus instructive to see, how the use of the term ‘langue nationale’ of the French Revolution has been completely transformed to mean ail the territorial languages (speech forms) of a given state. The Ministers of Education of francophone African States form a permanent ‘conference’, as do the ministers of Education of all the ‘Francophone’ states (= CONFEMEN), including Quebec, Belgium, etc. The ‘triglottic configuration’ (the term is this writer’s) has been often described by socio-linguists with reference to particular African states, e.g. Moh. Abdulaziz for Tanzania, Johnston for Ghana, Tadadieu for Cameroun, W. Whiteley for Kenya, Skinner for Northern Nigeria and AIexandre and Brann for the African language situation generally, cf. the writer’s inaugural Mother tongue, other tongue andfurther tongue (University of Maiduguri Press, 1980). Well-known language surveys in Africa are the five country surveys of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia of the Survey of Language Use & Language Teaching in Eastern Africa of the 1960/70’s, all published by OUP and IAI; the Language Survey ofthe Sudan, an ongoing project of the Institute of Asian &African Studies of the Univesity of Khartoum; the ongoing Language Survey of Cameroun, partly published by Yaounde University through to AGICOP, Paris. In Nigeria, a national language survey has been mooted by the former National Language Centre for the past decade, and is now getting under way, with Unesco aid. Cf. the writer’s ‘The Indian and Nigerian polito-linguistic configurations: a

I16

22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

C. M. B. Brann comparison’ (in press). Of India’s 15 ‘national languages’, 13 are territorially based, and are official languages in as many as 3 states, while another-Sanskrit-is the classical language, and Sindhi has no territorial basis in India. The idea of territorial ‘linguism’ within a federal polity was first exercised by the USSR after the 1917 Revolution (on the basis of Lenin’s doctrine of nationalities), where each constituent republic of the Union was assigned an official, majority language. Similarly in Borno State, Nigeria, where some 30 ethno-linguistic groups live in symbiosis, the Kanuri language is considered as the official ‘state’ language, as shown by its use in the State House of Assembly, during the 2nd Republic 1979-83. An analysis of the term ‘national language’ in the African context has been made by the writer in Brann 1985, cf. references. The NERC (now NERDC) or Nigeria Educational Research Council sponsored ten years ago the ‘metalanguage’ project, to enable the three major Nigerian languages to be taught through their own medium, at the level of secondary schools. The ‘Yoruba metalanguage-Ed&iperi Yortibb’ (NERC, Lagos, 1984). The Hausa metalanguage appeared under the title ‘Tsarin kamus na Kebabbun Kalmomi na ilimin Harsuna da adabi, daga Kungiyar Nazarin Hausa’, i.e. the Hausa Language Association, heir to the former Hausa Language Board. The Igbo ‘Okaasusu ZgboZgbo Metalanguage’ (‘incorporating recommendations of the Igbo Standardization Committee’) (Society for Promoting Igbo Language & Culture (SPILC), 1989). This laudable effort, however, lacks a common basis, which should have been provided by NERC, and it is doubtful whether the invention of new words for complex linguistic processes in the target languages is ultimately more useful than the adaptation of the international Greco-Latin terminology, to the phonology and morpho-syntax of these languages. These publications are as yet tentative, and should be followed by further debate and experimentation. The Igbo language debate is of particular interest, as it has taken longest. It is summarised by E.N. Emenanjo in ‘Language engineering in present-day Igbo’ African Languages (London). The question of the future of European exolects is variously discussed by the writer, as in European languages in sub-Saharan Africa: and perspective/and prospective; (Brussels, European Cooperation Fund, 1981). The literature on the status and role of English in Africa is already considerable, and is summarised by J. Schmied, English in Africa (in press) (University of Bayreuth); the same author also has a bibliography of the topic. The role and function of technical and scientific terminologies for the major Nigerian languages has been discussed by the writer in a paper for the 1989 ‘National Conference on the Arts in a Technological Age’(Owerri, March, 1989), ‘Language for scientific & technical development: crossroads of identity & communication’ (in press). The National Swahili Committee, or Baraza la Kiswahili, of Tanzania was a sequel to the colonial Inter-Territorial Swahili Committee for Eastern Africa of the post WWl years, which also gave rise to the Swahili Academy, now at the University of Dar es Salaam. This is discussed in W. Whiteley’s book, Swahili. the rise of a national language (London, 1969). This national committee is centrally placed, and is directly responsible to the Head of State, whereas the French High Commissioner for the French Language is responsible to the Prime Minister, not to the President. This matter is discussed in Brann 1986. The term is presented by RenCe Balibar in L’institution du francais: essai sur le colinquisme des C’arolingiens ci la Republique, and was incorporated into Brann’s ‘The terminology of Babel’. Post WW2 Europe has seen waves of immigration by ‘guest workers’ from the poorer European and Mediterranean countries to the re-industrialising ones. Thus there

National Language Policy and Planning

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

117

are 1.5 million each Algerians (Kabyles) in France and possibly the same number of Moroccans and Tunisians; the same number of Turks in FRG; in Switzerland 20% of the population consists of such ‘guest workers’, etc. Though some concessions to the linguistic education of their children has been made in the ‘Protestant’ countries of (West) Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, none are available in France, which clings to its linguistic uniformity. The major author on the European language question is Harald Haarmann, particularly in Der politische & soziale Status der Sprachen in den Staaten der Europiiischen Gemeinschaft (the political and social status of languages of the states of the European Community) pt I of the festschrift for Heinz Kloss (Sprachen & Staaten, Hamburg, Europa-Kolleg, 1976) and Elemente einer Soziologie der kleinen Sprachen Europas (elements of a sociology of the minority languages of Europe) 3 ~01s. (Hamburg, Buske, 1984). The Royal Academy of Prussia, in Berlin, founded by Frederick the Great, debated exclusively in French, which was also the language of the court. This refers to the Competition of 1783 on the Universality of the French Language which Rivarol won with his Discours sur I’UniversaIit.5de la Iangue francaise (1784). This drive towards making French the universal, inter-national language, was shared by the ancien and the subsequent empires, and constitute the major regime, the Revolution continuity in French history and culture. The myth of the regularity and clarity of the French language was built up by the 16th and 17th century French linguists of the Pltiade and the Academy, in a successful attempt to give a modern European vernacular the same weight and value, hitherto accorded only to Greek and Latin. In Grtgoire this includes both rationality (e.g. Descartes, Pascal and the 18th century philosophers) as well as integrity, which is a newly added virtue of the republican revolution going back to ancient Rome. It is needless to add that no language has inherent moral or aesthetic qualities: these reside entirely in the ear and eye of the users who may persuade others to perceive, as they do. Yet the French linguistic propagandists, such as Rivarol in Prussia, succeeded in persuading western continental Europe of just that. Only the ‘perlide Albion’-Great Britain-was immune to such blandishments-except, possibly, during the ‘Augustan Age’. The point made here is a mixture ofcourtly French, spoken by a thin local aristocracy and territorial colonies, like Quebec or Acadia, where French-speakers (dialect speakers, incidentally), actually settled. There is a great difference between the standard French spoken as L2 (second languages) by the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium and the territorial dialects of the Walloons, the Valais (Switzerland), Quebec or Acadie (Louisiana), speaking Walloon, Valaisien, Quebecois and Cajun (Acadien). The argument of the extent and spread of French has often been made by French cultural agencies: but the quality of French so used is rarely distinguished, it being assumed that all use standard French. This is an assumption not at all warranted. Another myth of French is that it has no pidgins in sub-Saharan Africa-which has been belied by recent descriptions of Abidjan pidgin, or ‘Ivorien’. Gregoire attempts to show the succession of influences upon France not to have been merely that of barbaric Celtic and Germanic tribes (e.g. the Gauls and Franks), but ancient contacts with the cultured world of the Mediterranean, with Greeks and Carthagenians on the southern coast. The idea of ‘French’ (i.e. Gallic) soldiers learning Punic (the semitic language of Carthage) ‘in order to communicate with Hannibal’s soldiers’ is-socio-linguistically speaking-comic, and shows the extent to which special pleading can lead the historian astray. It is curious to see how Grtgoire underlines the original ethnic diversity of the French

C.M. B. Brann

I18

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

(which is correct), but does not draw the linguistic consequences of multilingualism from this. His argument that feudalism was maintained in order to prevent serfs from leaving their feudatory’s employment is, of course ludicrous. The maintenance of feudalism had quite different socio-economic roots and aims-chiefly common safety at a time of the dissolution of central rule, i.e. the Roman governance. Though otherwise linguistically quite sophisticated, Grtgoire here makes the erroneous assumption that there was once a state of ‘pure’ language, from which subsequent ‘dialects’ have degenerated. Archaisms were already proscribed by the French Academy and not resuscitated until the Romantic movement (in the whole of Europe). Since archaisms cannot be ‘degenerations’ of a former pure model, they are here differentiated from dialectal issues. The dialects here summarised include non-Romance languages, i.e. Breton, Flemish and Basque, as well as the sister language of Languedoc or Occitan, of which some of the others are, in fact, dialectslike Gascon. Gascony was productive of a large minor nobility, who played a role at the French court and were ridiculed, on account of their persistent accent, while they were admired for their dash. The Alemanic dialect spoken in Alsace, hence the French name for Germany as ‘Allemagne’, and the Corsican speech of Corsica, are here again perceived as degenerated forms of the original ‘German’ and ‘Italian’ languages. But the German and Italian ‘standards’ evolved only gradually and were not made official until the 19th century, in both cases, with the second German Empire and the Italian kingdom. The original ‘Lingua Franca’ was a Mediterranean contact pidgin between the Crusaders and the Levantine ship merchants and traders. It was immortalised by Moliere in the comic ballet of the ‘Bourgeois Gentilhomme’, and is characterised by only one tense and one mode-the infinitive. It is said to have survived in Algeria until the end of the Napoleonic wars, and it is to this form that Gregoire alludes. It is again a ludicrous piece of linguistic prejudice to suppose that African languages are ‘primitive’ or ‘degenerated’ and have only a poor inflected system. Truth is, that the structures of African languages follow different principles from the Indo-European, which is the only one known to Gregoire. This somewhat pessimistic estimate of French-speakers and writers of his time is probably justified, since he took the trouble to correspond with large parts of France, while from some he had no answer. Curiously, this could correspond to a description of the use of English in Nigeria, with similar percentages. As we have seen above, the universal language had been the object of speculation of European linguist-philosophers since the Renaissance. But from that time onwards, there was a centre of linguistic propaganda in France which made people believe that the French language was destined to fill this role, a belief that was strongly supported by monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia, who had court philosophers from France, and who used only French at their courts. If, then, there is no universal language, then a highly standardised one like French, can replace it: this is quite a valid argument, which had been made before, for the Greek koine, in antiquity, as well, of course, as for Latin.

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