RFI's new Mandenkan service & webpage

RFI Mandenkan logo

Radio France Internationale (RFI) launched a new service in Manding - "RFI Mandenkan" - on Monday 19 October, along with a webpage for the service in French and Manding.

The bilingual webpage featured what appears to be Bambara (one of the Manding tongues - see below), and uses an orthography close to the official one used in Mali. (One minor difference is use of "ny" in place of the letter "ɲ".) It will be interesting to track how this content evolves (and whether and how VOA's "Mali Kura Bambara" service might respond).

Regarding the RFI Mandenkan broadcasts, there was apparently confusion among some (based on a message seen on an email list) as to what frequencies were to carry the first Mandenkan emissions - maybe this is typical for newly started shortwave radio services.

A comment about the broadcasts by Nafadji Sory Condé (on RFI's article announcing the service) called attention to issues with terminology in Mandenkan, and suggested that the broadcast staff consult with N'Ko specialists - this is an interesting perspecive, since evidently some in the N'Ko movement are really studying the language in its diversity as part of developing and teaching a literary standard for Manding. In other words, the language itself is not lacking, but knowledge of the range and depth of its vocabulary may not be known to all native speakers educated primarily in French-medium schools.

I took the chance to listen to some of the audio via the ma.rfi.fr webpage (you can click on a couple of places at the head of the page to listen), and was suitably humbled (fast for my rusty L2 level), though I was able to get some of it. Overall, it sounded smooth, which I guess one should expect from this level of radio.

About Manding & Mandenkan

Manding is a term for a group of (mostly) mutually intelligible languages within the Mande language family of West Africa - notably Bambara, Jula (Dioula), Malinké, and Mandingo. It is spoken as a first or second language by significant populations in all or parts of several countries: Mali; Burkina Faso; Côte d'Ivoire; Guinea; Gambia; and Senegal.

Mandenkan is a way of saying "Manding language." Manding in English and Mandingue in French obviously originated from one or more of the Manding languages. However the term Mandenkan as a word in the language(s) to describe them together may be a recent construct (I recall hearing questions about it in the late 1980s, and a 2000 publication by Prof. Eric Charry seems to indicate that Mandenkan and another form, Mandekan, originated with linguists).

The kan suffix is interesting. While in English or especially French, "tongue" ("langue") is used to mean language or expression, in Manding, "throat" ("kan") is used to express language or voice. The endonyms for the Manding languages mentioned above are Bamanankan, Julakan, Maninkakan, and Mandinkakan.

RFI's choice of Mandenkan

RFI's choice of Manding is interesting for at least a couple of reasons. First, they deliberately chose a category that crossed many borders in West Africa (note the quote by Imogen Lamb in this piece from Mali Presses), as well as the standard linguistic demarcations (Bambara, Malinké, etc.). Compare with VOA's focus on Bambara in Mali. And second, this is the first African language service that RFI has undertaken in primarily a Francophone zone (demographically most of the potential audience for RFI Hausa is in Nigeria, not Niger). For a more complete discussion of these and related issues, see Coleman Donaldson's blog post from last year, when RFI's Manding project was still in formation, "RFI and Voice of America learn Manding."

(Of possible interest on a similar topic: "Hausa on the international radio websites.")

Translating Hope - Health Education in African Languages

In order to facilitate networking and resource sharing on ebola messaging in (West) African languages, a new online initiative is in the works, consisting of an email list, with a web-based platform for collaboration coming. Watch this space for more information.

Addendum (3 Nov. 2014)

The web-based platform is now up. It uses the BlackBoard system, and is hosted by the University of Alaska - Anchorage (UAA). This and the email list are intended to work in tandem.

I have the privilege of collaborating on this with Dr. Catherine Knott (UAA, Anthropology), who was a volunteer in Peace Corps/Mali at about the same time I was, and her colleagues at UAA.

Goals

The aims of Translating Hope (Health Education in African Languages) are described in the following (this list is posted on the BlackBoard site, and may be updated and changed there):

Understanding the importance of language in communication and learning, the necessity of good public education and health training for ebola in areas of West Africa affected by the ebola crisis, and the multilingual characteristics of societies in West Africa, this informal working group is established to facilitate communication across and about needs and initiatives for effective communication and learning in the languages of the region.

This includes, among other purposes:

• networking across diverse organizations working on ebola and those able to provide assistance with African languages (specifically translation and composition)
• facilitating access to existing information in African languages
• facilitating use of African languages in messaging by organizations, especially international donors, technical agencies, and NGOs (including via composition and via translation)
• facilitating review, storage, and reuse of materials on ebola in African languages, including standardized language names and use of approved orthographies
• facilitating work with cross-border languages with goals of harmonizing messages and standardizing terminologies
• considering best practices for use of technology to deliver content in African languages, from radio to mobile, and including links between technologies
• applying best practices for culturally sensitive and community approved approaches to messaging in African languages

This group also:

• recognizes the importance of the official and international languages of the region - English, French, and Portuguese - even as it focuses mainly on African languages
• respects the prerogatives of African nations, organizations, communities, and individuals concerning the use of their languages
• respects the role of the African Union's African Academy of Languages (ACALAN) in working on cross-border vehicular languages of the region 

Participating

If you can contribute to this effort, and/or if your work involves messaging on ebola in West Africa, you may join by subscribing to the Translating Hope email list. Subscribers can then be given access to the BlackBoard site.

Training sessions yesterday and tomorrow - for new PCVs. Big group, great attitude. For those familiar with Peace Corps and the traditional 3-month pre-service training, we have departed from that model, with a little over eight weeks training in basics before going out to post and then after a couple of months an intensive supplemental technical training. Niger is one of the first to try this in Africa.

Another item - Unicode-Afrique, a Yahoogroup I set up two years ago, marks two years of existence. A modest success, I think, with promise. It is far from the most active Africa & ICT list, but it seems to be filling a niche:

Il y a deux ans aujourd'hui qu'on a crée Unicode-Afrique comme instrument d'éducation, échange d'information, et même collaboration sur les potentialités de l'Unicode pour faciliter l'emploi des langues africaines dans l'informatique et sur l'internet.

Je voudrais prendre l'occasion de rémercier toutes et tous pour votre fidélité au groupe et pour avoir contribué vos questions, reponses et points de vue sur l'Unicode et les langues et écritures d'Afrique.

Que la prochaine année vous porte du succès dans vos travaux et nous permette de continuer et avancer les débats concernant l'Unicode et l'Afrique!
. . .

Back to Peace Corps ... APCDs, and Peace Corps staff generally, have their role described sometimes as in loco parentis, which is not really accurate since PCVs are are all well of age, but it does reflect our role in looking after basic safety & security, making sure that living conditions meet a certain minimum, etc.

A lot of what we APCDs do relates also to aspects of work and even providing advice/mentoring and other info. I had an interesting set of questions from one volunteer recently on vacation westward from Niger in West Africa which let me act momentarily in loco professoris. Anyway the questions and imprompt answers follow:

1. What role did peanuts play in the local economy before the French turned them in to a cash crop? How has the average Nigerien's use of the peanut and it's products changed?

The history of peanuts has been more prominent in countries west of Niger it seems. In Senegal as you saw it was big time economically and socially. Somewhat less so in Mali. In Niger there are not a lot of areas which can produce the crop that well. There was a peanut oil factory in the east of Niger, but either the crop production apparently couldn't support it or it was otherwise unprofitable.

Peanuts of course are native to Brazil, and like other new world crops (like corn) long ago found places in farming systems and foodways. The colonial emphasis on it in some areas may have increased its cultivation and use, but offhand I can't think of any study on this.

2. Why do Fulans and Wodabes seem so much less religious (Islam) in Niger than they do in Cameroon, Mali, Senegal?

Interesting question re Fulɓe and Islam. Up until the 1700s many Fulɓe were pagan (for lack of a better word). For various reasons there was a series of independent "revolutions" or reform movements in which Muslim Fulɓe took power in Fuuta Jalon (Guinea), ~1776; Sokoto & the Hausa states ~1804; Maasina (Mali) 1818; and Fuuta Tooro (Senegal River valley) mid-1800's. For a while you could actually talk of Fulaphone West Africa much as you do Francophone West Africa today (though nobody did).

The character of each was different. Fuuta Jalon was a theocracy with almost feudal hierarchy but an interesting system of rotation of power between two clans (which proved their undoing when the French could play them off against each other). Maasina also maintained the traditional "caste" system in the much more varied ethnic palette of the inland Niger delta, but is mostly known for a far-sighted reorganization of the herding system and interaction with agriculture.

I know less about Sokoto, but the Fulɓe involved apparently became pretty much absorbed into the Hausa state system (at the top), such that you'll sometimes read of Hausa-Fulani states (and one poorly researched article recently mentioned the "Hausa-Fulani tribe" of northern Nigeria). Between the Hausa states and Maasina (which includes Liptaako, Dori, western Niger), the Fulɓe were not as much caught up in it, and even less so in the open expanses to the north.

Fuua Tooro produced Al-Hajj Umar who battled the French in Senegal and when he lost a key battle in Medina on the Senegal River in 1852(?) turned his attentions eastward, conquering Kaarta (Bambara kingdom in western Mali) in 1860(?) and Segu (another more powerful Bambara kingdom) and Maasina in 1862. This is complex and the latter was the cause of some bitter blood and decades of chaos before the French took over.

I'm not as up on the situation in Adamawa (N. Cameroon) or why the Fulɓe are more Islamized there.

3. In Cameroon, the French left the Fulans in power when the country was granted independence? Did the colonizer favor Fulans in other countries as well? Why?

The relationship between the French and the Fulɓe was complicated in part by romantic notions of the origin of the latter and practical issues in that they found them in power in many places. I don't know my Cameroonian history well enough to say why Ahmadu Ahidjo et al were in power when the French left. I am aware that historically the Fulɓe in the north subjugated other peoples (and in fact ran across an interesting article once on the use of tree and bush plantings in that region for village defenses in that area - militaro-forestry?).

In other countries it was really a question of convenience. The Fulɓe had a bit of an advantage with the French in Guinea (they are still the largest group by a small margin) and indeed tended to vote for the French in the famous 1958 referendum in which the rest of the country didn't and which led to Sekou Touré's "non."

4. Why are grazing lands decreasing? Is it because of desertification, Hausas moving north and taking the land for farms, bigger herds, or some combination of these factors?

Combination of factors. More people either owning more animals or looking for more farmland, plus land-degradation and longer term trends in rainfall. I usually shy away from using "desertification" as it covers more than it reveals.