Languages in Africa: Multilingualism, Language Policy, and Education (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics series) - Softcover

The volume offers a major contribution to multilingualism scholarship and opens up unexplored dimensions of the phenomenon. It provides fresh insight into the sociolinguistics of multilingualism by bringing together a wide range of case studies, especially those on languages whose critical status has not been reported before. Its coverage is enhanced by contributions from scholars that work both within and outside Africa. It will interest a wide range of readers, including African linguists, language educators, policy makers, and graduate students interested in multilingualism research. African Studies Quarterly

In many African communities, languages are nested in concentric circles. Commonly, a speaker's mother tongue is used by a small group; often it is not written or used in school--and may be endangered. Surrounding that language is a national language, an indigenous language that is more widely used, is written, and may be used in school. Then comes an international language, such as English or French, which is a legacy of colonialism; this language will carry high prestige, be used in higher education as a prospective means of mobility, and yet will not be well known. The essays in this volume examine the phenomenon of multilingualism through case studies that cover the whole continent, from South Africa to Cote d'Ivoire to Kenya. While contributors find that many languages are dying, that indigenous languages are devalued even by their own speakers, and that schools are failing to effectively teach the children who attend them, they also find that local education programs that use the mother tongue can work, language policies can be changed by informed linguistic expertise, and linguistic creativity thrives.