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Some aspects of the linguistic situation in tropical Africa
Lingua 12 (1963) 54-65, © North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam
Not to be reproduced by photoprint or microfilm without written permission from the publisher
S O M E A S P E C T S OF T H E L I N G U I S T I C S I T U A T I O N IN T R O P I C A L A F R I C A 1 ) L. F. B R O S N A H A N
There are many n,.w names on the map of tropical Africa" Sene!gal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahon~ey, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and Somaliland. These are the newly or nearly independent states of modern Africa. Almost all have a language situation of unusual interest, and with it, language problems 2). The most common situation is, in essentials, the same. A relatively large number of languages are indigenous to the country, but no single one of them is spoken by a substantial majority of the population. One language, English or French, which is not indigenous, is the language of political unity, of national government and administration, and of education- at any rate, of education in the secondary schools and universities. This language is used with any reasonable degree of competence only by a small section of the population, but since this section constitutes an dite manning the professions and the higher levels of administration and of commerce, that language enjoys high status and prestige vis-d-vis the iadigenous languages of the country. i) ~lhis papel is dedicated to Professor A. C. B o u m a n on the occasion of his retirement :'rom the Chair of Old Germanic Languages and Literature in the Universit ¢ of Leiden. It is intended to reflect his int ~rest in the cultures and langaages c,f the peoples of Africa. 2) Much of the information in this paper is derived from papers and discussions at a Conference on "Universities a n d the Language Problems of Tropical Africa", held at University College, Ibadan, in January, 1962. This was one of a series of conferences made possible by the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust, and its proceedings are to be published by the C_~mbridge University Press. I am also under especial obligation to m y colleague, Mr J o h n Spencer, for m u c h helpful c o m m e n t and discussion on this topic.
54
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An unusual degree of multilingualism is especially characteristic of these states. In some, it is true, the number of languages is fairly small, Kenya, for example, and Sierra Leone with about 15 each; but in most the number of languages must be reckoned well into the tens ad often into the hundreds: about 60 in Ghana, over 70 in t h : Ivory Coast, at least 150 in Nigeria, probably a similar number in the Cameroon Republic; and so on. Some of these languages are spoken by very small groups, perhaps of only a few hundred speakers, others are the mother tongues of millions, and a few - Swahili in the East and Hausa in the. West, for example - are not only based on a large group of nr, tive speakers but are also widely spoken as second languages or as vehicular languages of trade and contact. The distribution of these languages is not in all cases of a simple areal type. Though there are many areas, some of them quite extensive, over which one language is more or less exclusively used, there are other places where the picture is more complicated. For instance, as a result of historical factors, a vertical layering of languages may have developed. Probably an extreme case is that of a few Emirates of the Northern Region of Nigeria.a) Here the Emirate uses English in highest level negotiations externally, as with the Regional Government, while internally a Fulanispeaking aristocracy administers, in the Hausa language, subject peoples speaking still other languages. Again, in many of the towns of tropical Africa, and no doubt in all the larger ones, groups of speakers of several different languages can be found. With this, there is often also a tendency for differing linguistic or ethnic groups to specialise in particular occupations. These features tend not only to encourage individual bi- or multi-lingualism, but also, in the interacting structure of urban society, to result in language distributions of a complex type. Though the bulk of the smaller languages are spoken wholly within the limits of one or other national state, the areal limits of a language are by no means necessarily coincident with political boundaries. The borders of most of these new nations were very largely laid down in the last century, during the process by which a) Compare Alexandre: "Probl~mes linguistiques des 6tats n6gro-africains l'heure de l'ind6pendence". Cahiers d'l~tudes a[ricaines 2 (1961) 69-91.
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L. F. B R O S N A H A N
the great European powers laid their control, as Margery Perham 4) puts it, "hke a great steel grid over the amorphous cellular tissue of tribal Africa". They were drawn with more regard to considerations of territory, rivers and ports than to the tribal or linguistic situation. As a result, in many cases, speakers of present-day languages or dialect groups are to be found distributed over more than one state. Thus, the Wolof group of languages is spoken in SenegM, Mauretania, and the Gambia; dialects of Yoruba are spoken both in Western Nigeria and across the border in Dahomey; the Zande lmlguages are spread over Chad, the Congo, and the Republic of the Sudan; and so on. From the latter part of the 19th century, European authority was gradually extended over most of Africa. In the areas they assigned to themselves, the British, the French, the Belgians, and the Germans, in accordance with their respective conceptions of the nature of colonies, imposed their own peace and unification, introduced a system of administration, encouraged trade, and eventually organised an educational system. The unity and nationhood on which the new states of Africa are founded, are in part a clear expression of the effectiveness of the colonial policies of the European powers in welding together the differing tribal groups in the areas in which those policies were implemented. They are in part also, of course, the result of the emergence of a supratribal national feeling during the period of resistance to and ending of colonial status. COLONIAL POLICIES AND LANGUAGES The colonial policies of Britaip and France, to take the two European nations whose influence has been most widespread on the continent of Africa, were by no means identical with regard to language. They are most clearly contrasted in West Africa, where, along the coast from. Dakar to the Cameroon Republic, ex. ~3ritish and ex-French territories tend to alternate like a chequere,, edge to the landmass. The language policy of France was a simple one: only French was recognised. French was the official language of the colony, 4) In Introduction to Joan Wheare: The Nigerian Legislative Council London, 1950.
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the sole language used in administration, the language of the school from the day of entry, and, after an early period in which Bambara was used, also the language of the army. British policy was not so consistent. English was in fact used almost everywhere in the West African colonies, but this seems to have been perhaps less the expression of a deliberate policy than the British answer (or failure to find an answer) to the riddle of which language or languages to use among the multitude available. In those regions where an obvious language presented itself for use in administration or even in certain fields or sections of administration, as Hausa in the northern parts of Nigeria, the British used it or retained it in their system of indirect rule. In the schools, however, in accordance with general British Colonial policy of educating an administrative and ~.~..,~o;....~1 ~ ! ~ ;., ~.,~l;~h th~ przctic~ wa~ to begin to teach English as a subject about the third or fourth year in the primary school, and to change over to it as a medium of instruction not later than the first year of the secrmdary school. The indigenous languages, on the whole, fared badly. The French policy with regard to French, though not perhaps directly opposing or forbidding the African languages, was distinctly discouraging. With little exception, most of the work o,r~ these languages and all the use of them in education was due to the missions. In Britishcontrolled areas, though local languages we~ e frequently employed at the lower levels of tKe administrativ¢.~ system which was developed, there was little policy of active encouragement. It should be noted, however, that some financial inducement was made to officers of the Colonial Service to learn the language of their area, and a number of the early - and still standard - gcammars and descriptions of West African languages were written by interested and gifted persons in this service. But, as in the French territories, most of the attempts to develop scripts and use A irican languages in education were the work of missionaries. The implementation of these policies of the imperial powers has haa 'several consequences of linguistic inter'est. One of the most obvious is that relatively few of the langaages of tropical Africa have acquired an orthography and become written languages, and even fewer have shown the beginnings of a written literature. The extent of such development varies of course from area to area, mainly as a result of differences in history and opportunity'
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there are areas of relative wealth and long-standing contact with Europe, Ghana, for example, in which almost all the languages have orthographies, but there are also other areas, from the southern Sud~,n right across to the Kanuri-speaking region by Lake Chad, for example, in which, so far as I can find out, no language, with the exception of the imported Arabic, is yet written. A s.,:cox~.d consequence is that none of these languages has developed or been developed to the stage in which it could function as a medium of communication in the complex civilisatlon of the twentieth century. Tile most advanced in this direction is undoubtedly Swahili of East Africa. In its most advanced form, this language, ! am_ inforraed, functions not inadequately as a medium into which Shakespearian plays can be translated. On the West Coast, it would seem likely that Hausa is more developed than any - it is used as an official language side by side with English in the House of Representatives in Northern N i g e r i a - but even the most fervent of its supporters agree that it could replace Engiish as the language of higher education and national development only at some unspecified time in the future. We are, of course, badly hindered at this point by lack of adequate knowledge of what is involved in the development of a language to cope with increasing complexity of the culture in which it functions. 5) Is this, for instance, simply a matter of expansion of the vocabulary, or must new syntactical relations also be cultivated ? The material in which the answers to these questions can be found is surely available, in the historical examples of the languages of Western Europe during the last three centuries, and in the presentday development of Sinhalese in Ceylon and Hindi in India. But until the research is done, we are practically obliged to work on relatively unsupported opinion. A further consequence of the earlier language policies of the Colonial powers is the strikingly poor knowledge that, in general, educated Africans have of their own language. In French territories only those with some missionary school background have had 5) See however the interesting discussion by Alexandre: "Sur les possibilit~s expressives des langues africaines en mati~re de termir~ologie politique". L'A/rique et l'Asie No. 56 (1961) 13-28. Also the study by Webster: "Communication of Thought in Ancient Greece" in Steadies in Communication I] by A. J. Ayer and others; London, 1955.
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any education at all in their mother tongue; the vast majority have received their whole education in the French language. In the British territories, the position is not much better" most pupils, however, do have the first three to five years of schooling in a vernacular language, which is usually, but not always, their mother tongue. In many British areas also, it is possible to take one African language - Mende, Fante, Yoruba, Ibo, Swahili, etc. as a subject in the school certificate examinatic, n at the end of the secondary school course. It is a widespread opinion, however, among those in a position to form a judgment, that such languages are seldom well taught; indeed, in the circumstances of little scientific investigation into African languages and of lack of linguistically conscious teachers, it could hardly be otherwise. Such grammatical training as practically all the teachers have received, has been in English or French, and of the type traditional in Europe. Consequently, both the teachers, and the grammars they use, interpret the vernaculars, usually unsatisfactorily, in terms of this unsuitable tradition. The overall result is that although the vast majority of educated Africans speak their own languages easily, they tend to do so only within a restricted segment of the total environment of their lives. In all that pertains to their educated ~r professional interests, they are constrained by upbringing and practice to use English or French. As might well be expected from the differences in the educational policies discussed above, this seems to be especially so in l'A/rique d'expression /ranfaise - to use a term which has recently come into use. And to this there is a sort of corollary: the standard of French spoken and written in the ex-French territories is recognised as being distinctly higher, level for level, than the standard of English in l'A/rique d'expression anglaise. There are, naturally, other factors involved in producing this last situation, among them, for example, the fact that in a number of important respects - in the purer vowels, in the syllable-timed tempo, and in the lack of a stress accent, for instance - the phonological systems of most West African languages seem more congruent with French than with English. Then also, the system of teachertraining in the French colonial empire seems to have been more centralised and more effective, to have accepted fewer recruits and trained them to higher standards than was usually the case
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in the British colonies. The mastery of French among the intellectuals and creative writers of ex-French regions is well demonstrated by the volume of new literature emerging from there, and in the quantity and quality, of the ~ i t i n g in such periodicals as
Prdsence A/ricai~te. 6) A still further consequence, or at any rate partial consequence, of the earlier language policies is the unfortunate one of a lack of any consistent approach to the problem of devising orthographies for different languages. The majority of the orthographies in use seem to derive from missi6naries who worked in the home areas of the languages concerned. In almc, st all cases, such orthographies have been d e v i s e d - unavoidably, of course - without any understanding of tl~e phonemic principle, and usually according to *,~,-¢,~,-~ ,trhi,-h ~raripcl f r n m ea_ge to case. the orthographical practice in a missionary's own European language, for example, or the traditional practice of his mission, or similarities, suspected or real, with the orthography of previously treated languages, and so on. In other cases, attempts were made to devise orthographies on the best information and practices available, such as the recommendations of Lepsius, 7) or, in the more recent period, of the International African Institute. s ) The results are not only that in certain respects many orthographies used in African languages disp}'ly errors and inconsistencies - which was probably to Le expected a n y w a y - but alsc that many unnecessary and confusing orthographical differences have been implanted.. Nor is this all. In some cases different missions working in the s ~ e area have devised different orthographies for the same language or for closely related dialects of the same language, and have thus introduced artificial complications and differences. In a few cases, differing orthographies have become 6) Prdsence A/ricaine; revue cultureUe du monde noir Paris, 1947Also an English edition since 1957. v) R. IJepsius: Das allgemeine linguistische alphabet Berlin. 1854. English translation - "recommended for adoption by the Church Missionary Soch:ty" - : Stamtard Alphabet /or reducing unun,itten languages and /orezgn graphic systems to a uni/orm orthography in European letter~, London, 1855 ~') E.g. International Institute of African Languages and Cultures: AIphabets/or the Mende~ Temne, Soso, Kono and Limba Languages London, !929; the same: Practical Orthography o/A/titan Languages London, 1930.
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associated with sectarian differences, and contributed to the breaking up of a language area which, with a single orthography, might have developed a social and political unity. As an extreme example, Alexandre points out that FaD, an important language in Gabon, has "trois transcriptions ,catholiques~ et deux <,protestantes, pour environ un million de locuteurs, sans parler des differences morphologiques dues ~ des calques catholiques, sur l'allemand, le fran~ais et !'espagnol, et protestants, sur l'am~ricain".9) NATIONALISM
AND
LANGUAGE
The nationalism which has developed in the last few decades and flowered since the war, is one of the most potent factors in tropical Africa today. I t is of interest to note t uat in its development, p~rtlrlll~,rl'~T . . . . . . . . . .r in ~h ~ . e western a~..n itu t^.-e-t4t-t -t ^a 1i areas of /'~II-ICBL,**'-" 12,IlgllSn~ .... *"' and French have played important r o l e s - German having declined very much in importance in tropical Africa after the War of 19141918. The European languages functioned not only as the languages through which the ideas of anti-colonialism and independence were absorbed from liberal thought in London and Paris; they also functioned as the media in which the African nationalists, from the twenties of this century, adapted and modified those ideas, planned their political freedom, and propagated it through their multilingual countries. The English and French languages were in fact important instruments in the ~truggle against the British and French Governments. In many areas of East Africa, however, they seem to have been of less importance, the function of a rallying and organising language being taken over by Swahili. The genera] achievement of political independence in most countries of the continent does not imply that nationalism is on the wane. On the contrary, its full expression linguistically is doubtless still to come. Up to the present, however, the only linguistic changes which I know to have taken place with independence are the decision in the Sudan to change from English to Arabic as the national language, and the introduction of Hausa as a parliamentary language side by side with English - there is continual simultaneous trar,~slation - irf the House of Representatives in Northern Nigeria. *) See reference 3.
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L. F. B R O S N A H A N
The linguistic expression of nationalism consists, during the early stages of independence, in somewhat isolated and uncoordinated cal!s in the press, in parliament, at political meetings, etc., for the use of an Atrican language as a national language for the newly independent state. In some countries where there is a language or a closely related group of dialects used or understood by a ma~jority of the p o p u l a t i o n - as Somaliland with Somali, Kenya and Tanganyika with Swahili, etc. - the decision as to which African language to use may not be difficult. But such constitute the exceptional cases. The typical case, as pointed out above, is the state with a considerable number of languages, none spoken by a majority of the population. In this situation, the first step is obviously to decide, and agree on which language to develop and use__ a.s a national language. But the problems ~ d the diffic~ties involved in taking this first step have not, in general, been realised or faced by those who campaign for a national African language. In Nigeria, ~ t h which I am best acquainted, there is some small radical demand for the adoption of Hausa as a national language. This demand is a,; yet formless and relatively inarticulate; the most serious feature about it is the almost complete lack of any understanding or consideration of the factors, the issues and the difficulties involved in such an adoption. Thus, to take only one difficulty: the resources of the teaching profession are at present strained to breaking point; in the primary schools fewer than one third of the teachers have any professional training or qualification and the vast majority have had no formal education themselves beyond primary school. It is only with the massive outside support now being given that any improvement along lines planned at present can reasonably be envisaged. It would certainly be quite impractical for a very long time to come to develop the teachers, the books, and the schools - over 30 percent of the children of primary school age are not yet enrolled in schoolswhich would be necessary for the adequate teaching of Hausa as a national language. The situation is worse at the secondary level. In the grammar schools, which provide almost all the secondary education in the country, there are probably still no more than 3,000 teachers - the figures for 1958, the latest available, give 2 4 6 6 - and the great majority of these are concentrated in the South and are non-
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Hausa-speaking. It seems likely thus that there are not more than 300 or 400 teachers in secondary schools who can speak Hausa; and of these only a fraction will be engaged in teaching it, or could perhaps teach it. And this in a country with an estimated population approaching 35,000,000. There is clearly no practical possibility of teaching Hausa in even a reasonable number of the schools within the foreseeable future. A more realistic feature of the situation in Nigeria is the demand for English as the national language, at least for the present, mainly on the grounds that the unity of the country is based on the federal system of administration and on the use of the English language in that administration and in practically all education. The influential dlite, who to a very large extent owe their position to the advantages of an extended education in English, are in great majority convinced of the necessity of emphasising English as the language of national unity and of extending and increasing education in it, at any rate for the foreseeable future. The bulk of the population, likewise, as it comes more and more into contact with the developing modern state, is quick to realise the solid advantages of a knowledge of English, as the passport to all opportunity above the level of the village, and makes its demand, consistently aixd continuously, for education in English. What is most likely to continue the favouring of English as a national language at the present time is, ironically, the fact that it is not a language indigenous to the country. A fundamental factor in the political situation in Nigeria, as over almost the whole of tropical Africa, is tribalism, that close emotional cohesion of the members of a tribe which seems to derive mainly from longstanding cultural unity and traditional opposition to other tribes. Such tribalism tends to manifest itself today in political opposition to, and widespread suspicion of the motives and actions of other tribal groupings. In this situation, the selection of any indigenous language as the official language of the nation would be widely and deeply resented by speakers of other languages. To this would rapidly be added further resentment, against the considerable advantages in examinations, in employment, in courts of law, in government service, etc., which would be enjoyed by those who spoke the official language as a mother-tongue. The use of English as at present, however awkward and expensive in other respects,
(>4
L.F.
BROSNAHAN
at least obviates the inequalities which would be unavoidable with the use of a Nigerian language; it puts everyone, so to speak, at an equal disadvantage; but does not engender the emotional response which could lead to intertribal friction. It is therefore not without interest that in higher political circles there seems a distinct wariness, and an extreme reluctance to make any statement on the question of a national language. I have observed this on two or three occasions. One of the most striking was at the conclusion of a debate heid in University College, Ibadan, a few years ago, on the topic of a national language for Nigeria. The debate was chaired by a Minister of the Western Regional Government. In a concluding speech of thanks to the p~ticipants, the Minister reiterated three times that he was expressing no opinion, personal or official, on the subject, and that he did not wish to be quoted as favouring either English or any African language as a national language for the country. On this point, the following remarks by Alexandre are distinctly relevant: "Je n'ai, ~ vrai dire, jamais rencontr6 beaucoup d'int6r~t pour ces questions auprbs des hommes politiques et intellectuels africains d'expression fram;aise que j~ai personnellement interview6s a ce propos . . . l'attitude dominante de beaucoup de responsable africains est assez bien resum6e par la r6ponse d'un ministre du Mali aupr~s duquel je plaidais la cause des langues afncaines. <~Lelranqais, me dit-il, est bien assez bon pour nous,. 10) Yet it seems likely, and this is an opinion strongly held by Spencer, that language will in the near future become a political issue in many places in Africa. Language enters into the modem state in a multitude of ways: in the organisation of the state, in the various levels of administration, in electious and in the courts, in the dissemination of information and in education, in the press and the radio, and in commerce, agriculture, and economic development. And those in ex-British territories who have some knowledge of English, as those in ex-French territories with some knowledge of French, are still a distinct minority of the population in their territories. It seems almost impossible, given such fundament-al features of the African situation as the internal cohesion of the family and the tribe, and the strong attachment to tra1o) See reference 3.
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ditional land-holdings, that sooner or later the call will not rise for the use of "our language in our area". A minority language, one not recognised in local administration, or one whose speakers feel themselves unjustly treated, can easily be whipped up to a rallying point for civil disobedience and r i o t i n g - ihe experience in India and Ceylon is a depressing precedent. We can only hope t h a t the forces tending toward unity and control in ,~te state - and in general there seems to be widespread favourir,; of a strong central administration in the new states of A f r i c a - will be able to check this use of language as a political issue and. reach such linguistic compromises and decisions as will best contribute to the welfare of the individual communities and the state as a whole. In sum, the language situation in most of tropical Africa is of unusual interest. It is a situation of coulse which is no longer - if it has ever been - static: it is seized now by a dynamic that may well change it out of recognition in the next few decades. It is also a situation in which languages and linguistics are not simply subjects for detached analysis in the classroom ond study, rather it is one in which language problems are closely connected with problems of political, economic, and educational advance. Decisions with regard to language have already been taken by governments; many more will be taken, and it is easily conceivable that wrong decisions in these matters may jeopardize or even ruin the chances of a country's plans for future development, almost, one might say, before they are begun. It is not, of course, the task of the linguist to make such decisions; but he cannot evade the responsibility of ensuring that, as completely as possible, the facts and. the factors of the linguistic situation are laid before those who do make them.
University College, Ibadan, Nigeria
Not to be reproduced by photoprint or microfilm without written permission from the publisher
S O M E A S P E C T S OF T H E L I N G U I S T I C S I T U A T I O N IN T R O P I C A L A F R I C A 1 ) L. F. B R O S N A H A N
There are many n,.w names on the map of tropical Africa" Sene!gal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahon~ey, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and Somaliland. These are the newly or nearly independent states of modern Africa. Almost all have a language situation of unusual interest, and with it, language problems 2). The most common situation is, in essentials, the same. A relatively large number of languages are indigenous to the country, but no single one of them is spoken by a substantial majority of the population. One language, English or French, which is not indigenous, is the language of political unity, of national government and administration, and of education- at any rate, of education in the secondary schools and universities. This language is used with any reasonable degree of competence only by a small section of the population, but since this section constitutes an dite manning the professions and the higher levels of administration and of commerce, that language enjoys high status and prestige vis-d-vis the iadigenous languages of the country. i) ~lhis papel is dedicated to Professor A. C. B o u m a n on the occasion of his retirement :'rom the Chair of Old Germanic Languages and Literature in the Universit ¢ of Leiden. It is intended to reflect his int ~rest in the cultures and langaages c,f the peoples of Africa. 2) Much of the information in this paper is derived from papers and discussions at a Conference on "Universities a n d the Language Problems of Tropical Africa", held at University College, Ibadan, in January, 1962. This was one of a series of conferences made possible by the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust, and its proceedings are to be published by the C_~mbridge University Press. I am also under especial obligation to m y colleague, Mr J o h n Spencer, for m u c h helpful c o m m e n t and discussion on this topic.
54
THE L I N G U I S T I C S I T U A T I O N IN T R O P I C A L A F R I C A
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An unusual degree of multilingualism is especially characteristic of these states. In some, it is true, the number of languages is fairly small, Kenya, for example, and Sierra Leone with about 15 each; but in most the number of languages must be reckoned well into the tens ad often into the hundreds: about 60 in Ghana, over 70 in t h : Ivory Coast, at least 150 in Nigeria, probably a similar number in the Cameroon Republic; and so on. Some of these languages are spoken by very small groups, perhaps of only a few hundred speakers, others are the mother tongues of millions, and a few - Swahili in the East and Hausa in the. West, for example - are not only based on a large group of nr, tive speakers but are also widely spoken as second languages or as vehicular languages of trade and contact. The distribution of these languages is not in all cases of a simple areal type. Though there are many areas, some of them quite extensive, over which one language is more or less exclusively used, there are other places where the picture is more complicated. For instance, as a result of historical factors, a vertical layering of languages may have developed. Probably an extreme case is that of a few Emirates of the Northern Region of Nigeria.a) Here the Emirate uses English in highest level negotiations externally, as with the Regional Government, while internally a Fulanispeaking aristocracy administers, in the Hausa language, subject peoples speaking still other languages. Again, in many of the towns of tropical Africa, and no doubt in all the larger ones, groups of speakers of several different languages can be found. With this, there is often also a tendency for differing linguistic or ethnic groups to specialise in particular occupations. These features tend not only to encourage individual bi- or multi-lingualism, but also, in the interacting structure of urban society, to result in language distributions of a complex type. Though the bulk of the smaller languages are spoken wholly within the limits of one or other national state, the areal limits of a language are by no means necessarily coincident with political boundaries. The borders of most of these new nations were very largely laid down in the last century, during the process by which a) Compare Alexandre: "Probl~mes linguistiques des 6tats n6gro-africains l'heure de l'ind6pendence". Cahiers d'l~tudes a[ricaines 2 (1961) 69-91.
56
L. F. B R O S N A H A N
the great European powers laid their control, as Margery Perham 4) puts it, "hke a great steel grid over the amorphous cellular tissue of tribal Africa". They were drawn with more regard to considerations of territory, rivers and ports than to the tribal or linguistic situation. As a result, in many cases, speakers of present-day languages or dialect groups are to be found distributed over more than one state. Thus, the Wolof group of languages is spoken in SenegM, Mauretania, and the Gambia; dialects of Yoruba are spoken both in Western Nigeria and across the border in Dahomey; the Zande lmlguages are spread over Chad, the Congo, and the Republic of the Sudan; and so on. From the latter part of the 19th century, European authority was gradually extended over most of Africa. In the areas they assigned to themselves, the British, the French, the Belgians, and the Germans, in accordance with their respective conceptions of the nature of colonies, imposed their own peace and unification, introduced a system of administration, encouraged trade, and eventually organised an educational system. The unity and nationhood on which the new states of Africa are founded, are in part a clear expression of the effectiveness of the colonial policies of the European powers in welding together the differing tribal groups in the areas in which those policies were implemented. They are in part also, of course, the result of the emergence of a supratribal national feeling during the period of resistance to and ending of colonial status. COLONIAL POLICIES AND LANGUAGES The colonial policies of Britaip and France, to take the two European nations whose influence has been most widespread on the continent of Africa, were by no means identical with regard to language. They are most clearly contrasted in West Africa, where, along the coast from. Dakar to the Cameroon Republic, ex. ~3ritish and ex-French territories tend to alternate like a chequere,, edge to the landmass. The language policy of France was a simple one: only French was recognised. French was the official language of the colony, 4) In Introduction to Joan Wheare: The Nigerian Legislative Council London, 1950.
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the sole language used in administration, the language of the school from the day of entry, and, after an early period in which Bambara was used, also the language of the army. British policy was not so consistent. English was in fact used almost everywhere in the West African colonies, but this seems to have been perhaps less the expression of a deliberate policy than the British answer (or failure to find an answer) to the riddle of which language or languages to use among the multitude available. In those regions where an obvious language presented itself for use in administration or even in certain fields or sections of administration, as Hausa in the northern parts of Nigeria, the British used it or retained it in their system of indirect rule. In the schools, however, in accordance with general British Colonial policy of educating an administrative and ~.~..,~o;....~1 ~ ! ~ ;., ~.,~l;~h th~ przctic~ wa~ to begin to teach English as a subject about the third or fourth year in the primary school, and to change over to it as a medium of instruction not later than the first year of the secrmdary school. The indigenous languages, on the whole, fared badly. The French policy with regard to French, though not perhaps directly opposing or forbidding the African languages, was distinctly discouraging. With little exception, most of the work o,r~ these languages and all the use of them in education was due to the missions. In Britishcontrolled areas, though local languages we~ e frequently employed at the lower levels of tKe administrativ¢.~ system which was developed, there was little policy of active encouragement. It should be noted, however, that some financial inducement was made to officers of the Colonial Service to learn the language of their area, and a number of the early - and still standard - gcammars and descriptions of West African languages were written by interested and gifted persons in this service. But, as in the French territories, most of the attempts to develop scripts and use A irican languages in education were the work of missionaries. The implementation of these policies of the imperial powers has haa 'several consequences of linguistic inter'est. One of the most obvious is that relatively few of the langaages of tropical Africa have acquired an orthography and become written languages, and even fewer have shown the beginnings of a written literature. The extent of such development varies of course from area to area, mainly as a result of differences in history and opportunity'
58
L. F. BROSNAHAN
there are areas of relative wealth and long-standing contact with Europe, Ghana, for example, in which almost all the languages have orthographies, but there are also other areas, from the southern Sud~,n right across to the Kanuri-speaking region by Lake Chad, for example, in which, so far as I can find out, no language, with the exception of the imported Arabic, is yet written. A s.,:cox~.d consequence is that none of these languages has developed or been developed to the stage in which it could function as a medium of communication in the complex civilisatlon of the twentieth century. Tile most advanced in this direction is undoubtedly Swahili of East Africa. In its most advanced form, this language, ! am_ inforraed, functions not inadequately as a medium into which Shakespearian plays can be translated. On the West Coast, it would seem likely that Hausa is more developed than any - it is used as an official language side by side with English in the House of Representatives in Northern N i g e r i a - but even the most fervent of its supporters agree that it could replace Engiish as the language of higher education and national development only at some unspecified time in the future. We are, of course, badly hindered at this point by lack of adequate knowledge of what is involved in the development of a language to cope with increasing complexity of the culture in which it functions. 5) Is this, for instance, simply a matter of expansion of the vocabulary, or must new syntactical relations also be cultivated ? The material in which the answers to these questions can be found is surely available, in the historical examples of the languages of Western Europe during the last three centuries, and in the presentday development of Sinhalese in Ceylon and Hindi in India. But until the research is done, we are practically obliged to work on relatively unsupported opinion. A further consequence of the earlier language policies of the Colonial powers is the strikingly poor knowledge that, in general, educated Africans have of their own language. In French territories only those with some missionary school background have had 5) See however the interesting discussion by Alexandre: "Sur les possibilit~s expressives des langues africaines en mati~re de termir~ologie politique". L'A/rique et l'Asie No. 56 (1961) 13-28. Also the study by Webster: "Communication of Thought in Ancient Greece" in Steadies in Communication I] by A. J. Ayer and others; London, 1955.
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59
any education at all in their mother tongue; the vast majority have received their whole education in the French language. In the British territories, the position is not much better" most pupils, however, do have the first three to five years of schooling in a vernacular language, which is usually, but not always, their mother tongue. In many British areas also, it is possible to take one African language - Mende, Fante, Yoruba, Ibo, Swahili, etc. as a subject in the school certificate examinatic, n at the end of the secondary school course. It is a widespread opinion, however, among those in a position to form a judgment, that such languages are seldom well taught; indeed, in the circumstances of little scientific investigation into African languages and of lack of linguistically conscious teachers, it could hardly be otherwise. Such grammatical training as practically all the teachers have received, has been in English or French, and of the type traditional in Europe. Consequently, both the teachers, and the grammars they use, interpret the vernaculars, usually unsatisfactorily, in terms of this unsuitable tradition. The overall result is that although the vast majority of educated Africans speak their own languages easily, they tend to do so only within a restricted segment of the total environment of their lives. In all that pertains to their educated ~r professional interests, they are constrained by upbringing and practice to use English or French. As might well be expected from the differences in the educational policies discussed above, this seems to be especially so in l'A/rique d'expression /ranfaise - to use a term which has recently come into use. And to this there is a sort of corollary: the standard of French spoken and written in the ex-French territories is recognised as being distinctly higher, level for level, than the standard of English in l'A/rique d'expression anglaise. There are, naturally, other factors involved in producing this last situation, among them, for example, the fact that in a number of important respects - in the purer vowels, in the syllable-timed tempo, and in the lack of a stress accent, for instance - the phonological systems of most West African languages seem more congruent with French than with English. Then also, the system of teachertraining in the French colonial empire seems to have been more centralised and more effective, to have accepted fewer recruits and trained them to higher standards than was usually the case
60
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BROSNAHAN
in the British colonies. The mastery of French among the intellectuals and creative writers of ex-French regions is well demonstrated by the volume of new literature emerging from there, and in the quantity and quality, of the ~ i t i n g in such periodicals as
Prdsence A/ricai~te. 6) A still further consequence, or at any rate partial consequence, of the earlier language policies is the unfortunate one of a lack of any consistent approach to the problem of devising orthographies for different languages. The majority of the orthographies in use seem to derive from missi6naries who worked in the home areas of the languages concerned. In almc, st all cases, such orthographies have been d e v i s e d - unavoidably, of course - without any understanding of tl~e phonemic principle, and usually according to *,~,-¢,~,-~ ,trhi,-h ~raripcl f r n m ea_ge to case. the orthographical practice in a missionary's own European language, for example, or the traditional practice of his mission, or similarities, suspected or real, with the orthography of previously treated languages, and so on. In other cases, attempts were made to devise orthographies on the best information and practices available, such as the recommendations of Lepsius, 7) or, in the more recent period, of the International African Institute. s ) The results are not only that in certain respects many orthographies used in African languages disp}'ly errors and inconsistencies - which was probably to Le expected a n y w a y - but alsc that many unnecessary and confusing orthographical differences have been implanted.. Nor is this all. In some cases different missions working in the s ~ e area have devised different orthographies for the same language or for closely related dialects of the same language, and have thus introduced artificial complications and differences. In a few cases, differing orthographies have become 6) Prdsence A/ricaine; revue cultureUe du monde noir Paris, 1947Also an English edition since 1957. v) R. IJepsius: Das allgemeine linguistische alphabet Berlin. 1854. English translation - "recommended for adoption by the Church Missionary Soch:ty" - : Stamtard Alphabet /or reducing unun,itten languages and /orezgn graphic systems to a uni/orm orthography in European letter~, London, 1855 ~') E.g. International Institute of African Languages and Cultures: AIphabets/or the Mende~ Temne, Soso, Kono and Limba Languages London, !929; the same: Practical Orthography o/A/titan Languages London, 1930.
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61
associated with sectarian differences, and contributed to the breaking up of a language area which, with a single orthography, might have developed a social and political unity. As an extreme example, Alexandre points out that FaD, an important language in Gabon, has "trois transcriptions ,catholiques~ et deux <,protestantes, pour environ un million de locuteurs, sans parler des differences morphologiques dues ~ des calques catholiques, sur l'allemand, le fran~ais et !'espagnol, et protestants, sur l'am~ricain".9) NATIONALISM
AND
LANGUAGE
The nationalism which has developed in the last few decades and flowered since the war, is one of the most potent factors in tropical Africa today. I t is of interest to note t uat in its development, p~rtlrlll~,rl'~T . . . . . . . . . .r in ~h ~ . e western a~..n itu t^.-e-t4t-t -t ^a 1i areas of /'~II-ICBL,**'-" 12,IlgllSn~ .... *"' and French have played important r o l e s - German having declined very much in importance in tropical Africa after the War of 19141918. The European languages functioned not only as the languages through which the ideas of anti-colonialism and independence were absorbed from liberal thought in London and Paris; they also functioned as the media in which the African nationalists, from the twenties of this century, adapted and modified those ideas, planned their political freedom, and propagated it through their multilingual countries. The English and French languages were in fact important instruments in the ~truggle against the British and French Governments. In many areas of East Africa, however, they seem to have been of less importance, the function of a rallying and organising language being taken over by Swahili. The genera] achievement of political independence in most countries of the continent does not imply that nationalism is on the wane. On the contrary, its full expression linguistically is doubtless still to come. Up to the present, however, the only linguistic changes which I know to have taken place with independence are the decision in the Sudan to change from English to Arabic as the national language, and the introduction of Hausa as a parliamentary language side by side with English - there is continual simultaneous trar,~slation - irf the House of Representatives in Northern Nigeria. *) See reference 3.
62
L. F. B R O S N A H A N
The linguistic expression of nationalism consists, during the early stages of independence, in somewhat isolated and uncoordinated cal!s in the press, in parliament, at political meetings, etc., for the use of an Atrican language as a national language for the newly independent state. In some countries where there is a language or a closely related group of dialects used or understood by a ma~jority of the p o p u l a t i o n - as Somaliland with Somali, Kenya and Tanganyika with Swahili, etc. - the decision as to which African language to use may not be difficult. But such constitute the exceptional cases. The typical case, as pointed out above, is the state with a considerable number of languages, none spoken by a majority of the population. In this situation, the first step is obviously to decide, and agree on which language to develop and use__ a.s a national language. But the problems ~ d the diffic~ties involved in taking this first step have not, in general, been realised or faced by those who campaign for a national African language. In Nigeria, ~ t h which I am best acquainted, there is some small radical demand for the adoption of Hausa as a national language. This demand is a,; yet formless and relatively inarticulate; the most serious feature about it is the almost complete lack of any understanding or consideration of the factors, the issues and the difficulties involved in such an adoption. Thus, to take only one difficulty: the resources of the teaching profession are at present strained to breaking point; in the primary schools fewer than one third of the teachers have any professional training or qualification and the vast majority have had no formal education themselves beyond primary school. It is only with the massive outside support now being given that any improvement along lines planned at present can reasonably be envisaged. It would certainly be quite impractical for a very long time to come to develop the teachers, the books, and the schools - over 30 percent of the children of primary school age are not yet enrolled in schoolswhich would be necessary for the adequate teaching of Hausa as a national language. The situation is worse at the secondary level. In the grammar schools, which provide almost all the secondary education in the country, there are probably still no more than 3,000 teachers - the figures for 1958, the latest available, give 2 4 6 6 - and the great majority of these are concentrated in the South and are non-
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Hausa-speaking. It seems likely thus that there are not more than 300 or 400 teachers in secondary schools who can speak Hausa; and of these only a fraction will be engaged in teaching it, or could perhaps teach it. And this in a country with an estimated population approaching 35,000,000. There is clearly no practical possibility of teaching Hausa in even a reasonable number of the schools within the foreseeable future. A more realistic feature of the situation in Nigeria is the demand for English as the national language, at least for the present, mainly on the grounds that the unity of the country is based on the federal system of administration and on the use of the English language in that administration and in practically all education. The influential dlite, who to a very large extent owe their position to the advantages of an extended education in English, are in great majority convinced of the necessity of emphasising English as the language of national unity and of extending and increasing education in it, at any rate for the foreseeable future. The bulk of the population, likewise, as it comes more and more into contact with the developing modern state, is quick to realise the solid advantages of a knowledge of English, as the passport to all opportunity above the level of the village, and makes its demand, consistently aixd continuously, for education in English. What is most likely to continue the favouring of English as a national language at the present time is, ironically, the fact that it is not a language indigenous to the country. A fundamental factor in the political situation in Nigeria, as over almost the whole of tropical Africa, is tribalism, that close emotional cohesion of the members of a tribe which seems to derive mainly from longstanding cultural unity and traditional opposition to other tribes. Such tribalism tends to manifest itself today in political opposition to, and widespread suspicion of the motives and actions of other tribal groupings. In this situation, the selection of any indigenous language as the official language of the nation would be widely and deeply resented by speakers of other languages. To this would rapidly be added further resentment, against the considerable advantages in examinations, in employment, in courts of law, in government service, etc., which would be enjoyed by those who spoke the official language as a mother-tongue. The use of English as at present, however awkward and expensive in other respects,
(>4
L.F.
BROSNAHAN
at least obviates the inequalities which would be unavoidable with the use of a Nigerian language; it puts everyone, so to speak, at an equal disadvantage; but does not engender the emotional response which could lead to intertribal friction. It is therefore not without interest that in higher political circles there seems a distinct wariness, and an extreme reluctance to make any statement on the question of a national language. I have observed this on two or three occasions. One of the most striking was at the conclusion of a debate heid in University College, Ibadan, a few years ago, on the topic of a national language for Nigeria. The debate was chaired by a Minister of the Western Regional Government. In a concluding speech of thanks to the p~ticipants, the Minister reiterated three times that he was expressing no opinion, personal or official, on the subject, and that he did not wish to be quoted as favouring either English or any African language as a national language for the country. On this point, the following remarks by Alexandre are distinctly relevant: "Je n'ai, ~ vrai dire, jamais rencontr6 beaucoup d'int6r~t pour ces questions auprbs des hommes politiques et intellectuels africains d'expression fram;aise que j~ai personnellement interview6s a ce propos . . . l'attitude dominante de beaucoup de responsable africains est assez bien resum6e par la r6ponse d'un ministre du Mali aupr~s duquel je plaidais la cause des langues afncaines. <~Lelranqais, me dit-il, est bien assez bon pour nous,. 10) Yet it seems likely, and this is an opinion strongly held by Spencer, that language will in the near future become a political issue in many places in Africa. Language enters into the modem state in a multitude of ways: in the organisation of the state, in the various levels of administration, in electious and in the courts, in the dissemination of information and in education, in the press and the radio, and in commerce, agriculture, and economic development. And those in ex-British territories who have some knowledge of English, as those in ex-French territories with some knowledge of French, are still a distinct minority of the population in their territories. It seems almost impossible, given such fundament-al features of the African situation as the internal cohesion of the family and the tribe, and the strong attachment to tra1o) See reference 3.
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ditional land-holdings, that sooner or later the call will not rise for the use of "our language in our area". A minority language, one not recognised in local administration, or one whose speakers feel themselves unjustly treated, can easily be whipped up to a rallying point for civil disobedience and r i o t i n g - ihe experience in India and Ceylon is a depressing precedent. We can only hope t h a t the forces tending toward unity and control in ,~te state - and in general there seems to be widespread favourir,; of a strong central administration in the new states of A f r i c a - will be able to check this use of language as a political issue and. reach such linguistic compromises and decisions as will best contribute to the welfare of the individual communities and the state as a whole. In sum, the language situation in most of tropical Africa is of unusual interest. It is a situation of coulse which is no longer - if it has ever been - static: it is seized now by a dynamic that may well change it out of recognition in the next few decades. It is also a situation in which languages and linguistics are not simply subjects for detached analysis in the classroom ond study, rather it is one in which language problems are closely connected with problems of political, economic, and educational advance. Decisions with regard to language have already been taken by governments; many more will be taken, and it is easily conceivable that wrong decisions in these matters may jeopardize or even ruin the chances of a country's plans for future development, almost, one might say, before they are begun. It is not, of course, the task of the linguist to make such decisions; but he cannot evade the responsibility of ensuring that, as completely as possible, the facts and. the factors of the linguistic situation are laid before those who do make them.
University College, Ibadan, Nigeria