Ebola and health information in African languages

The alarming ebola epidemic in West Africa - primarily Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, with a few cases in Nigeria - is now into its sixth month and still expanding. There are fears that ebola may explode into urban areas of the region. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) president Dr. Joanne Liu was recently quoted as saying that "the world is losing the battle to contain it," and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden was quoted as saying the epidemic is "spiraling out of control."

International and national responses to ebola in West Africa have naturally focused on measures to control its spread and treat patients (as much as can be done, given the high mortality rate and lack of available remedies). Public health education is recognized as an essential element in controlling the epidemic and helping the region's population to understand what the real risks and treatments are.

Ebola education in a multilingual region

West Africa is of course a multilingual region, and any effort to effectively communicate and educate in such an emergency must take account of its multilingual nature, with many languages, limited knowledge of the various countries' official languages (English, French, or Portuguese), and limited literacy in first languages and regional lingua francas. No one language can be relied on to get ebola information and advice to all the people who need it. This means finding ways to translate messages, assure quality in such translations, and provide them in appropriate mixes of text (for posters, scripts) and audio (for national and local radio). It also has longer term implications that I will come back to in a later post on this blog.

This linguistic dimension to public education on ebola in West Africa is recognized on various levels. The CDC for instance had radio spots produced in several languages of the affected area: Pular, several languages of the affected area. (links on language names go to Wikipedia descriptions). A Wellesley College prof, Dr. Donna A. Patterson, suggested that public campaigns should be available in "local languages" in an article entitled "Better Public Education Programs Could Help Stop the Spread of Ebola." And a news item on Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) mentioned translation on on the village level in the west of that country (although without the names of target languages).

The non-governmental organization (NGO), Translators Without Borders (TWB) has coordinated translation of material into Hausa (see image at right). Its collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters might be a good model for international and national collaboration on ebola messaging in African languages.

However, attention to the importance of African first languages and lingua francas for public health education is apparently not a given. In an interview with BBC's World Update, TWB president Lori Thicke pointed out that health NGOs working in rural areas aren't always aware of language issues. Without anyone minimizing their efforts, this is not surprising from what I know of development projects and extension organizations, which tend to deal with "local languages" on an ad hoc basis with interpretation by staff or local people when the need arises (see blog posts on this in context of agriculture in 2007 and 2008).

But it's not just a problem of NGOs in the field. In an interview on the US public television service, PBS, MSF's Dr. Liu referred to the need for clear messaging on ebola issues, but did not mention the challenges of quality translation of such messaging. She likely is well aware of that, but the fact it did not arise in either her statements or the interviewer's (Jeffrey Brown) questions is telling. Voice of America, in an August 20 article about media in West Africa and public education on ebola did not mention anything about languages or translation.

This is not to say that the issue of translation of information on ebola is necessarily easy, but that it is an issue needing attention, especially at higher levels. The kind of volunteer-based translation that TWB facilitates is impressive, as is the less visible daily work on local levels by officials such as discussed in the Côte d'Ivoire item cited above, but it certainly would help to have more resources to support translation and wider coordination of translation efforts (the latter in part because many languages cross borders, meaning potential duplication of effort and differences in wording).

Building resources for short- and long-term

Another important need for dealing with ebola in the immediate future and in years to come, as well as for improving individual and public health in general, is to collect, record, and compile medical and health education material in African languages. Aside from providing reference material for the future, it also should help avoid having to start translations from scratch each time a public health emergency arises.

Fortunately there is a volunteer effort to achieve this sort of outcome: the Wikipedia-based Medical Translation Project, which collaborates with TWB. An example of their work is an article on ebola in Hausa entitled "Ƙwayoyin cuta na Ebola" on the Hausa-language edition of Wikipedia

I plan to post more on this project later.

The problem with calling some languages "local"

Only in Africa, it seems, can a language spoken by millions be called a "local language." The term is used widely, not just in Africa, and although I've also used it, I'm increasingly finding it problematic as employed in African contexts for two main main reasons:

1. It is inexact, often serving as a catch-all term for languages other than the main Europhone official languages, from those like Akposso that are truly localized in use, to languages like Hausa spoken across many borders by many people of many backgrounds as a first or second language. 
2. It is misleading. As a term, "local language" implies a low rank of importance relative to "official language" or "language of wider communication," when for some languages and/or in some contexts such a hierarchy of importance would be inappropriate. In Senegal and Mali, for instance, Wolof and Bambara, respectively, are spoken more widely than French, but are sometimes referred to as "local languages." Such indiscriminate use of the term arguably pigeonholes languages and disincentivizes thinking about their use in communication, education, extension, etc.

At this point, I'd like to suggest that more thought be given to using the term "local language" when speaking and writing about African languages. It probably should be used much more sparingly than it is now. Sometimes a language really is local, but other times, what we may call "local language" in Africa is actually more widely spoken than some European languages that we probably never would call "local."

It may be that a key piece in more deliberate use/non-use of "local language" in Africa is informing development, health, diplomatic, and other specialists about the sociolinguistics, culture, and policies regarding African languages in areas they work. Should a basic course about African languages and multilingualism in development and contemporary society (this is different than studying a language or intro to African cultures) be part of the education of non-Africans planning to work in Africa?

"Neighbor languages" in an African context

A recent edition of The Economist has an article on Scandinavian languages (especially Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) entitled "Neighbour languages." Although the cultural context and the fact these languages are standardized and widely used in written form, make their situation different than what one would find in Africa, some of the discussion sounds like it could describe closely related languages like the several Manding languages in West Africa, for instance, or the Nguni languages of South Africa.

The term "neighbor language" is used in academic discussions of Scandinavian languages - note for example the description of the keynote by Prof. Arne Torp to the recent (July 2014) conference of the Association for Language Awareness - and apparently also in popular discourse about these languages in English (judging by a quick online search; I have no way of assessing usage in the languages themselves).

It is tempting to suggest wider use of this term in discussing the sociolinguistic situations and language policy and planning needs in Africa. The term "neighbor language" itself would be seem accessible to a wide range of people who are not specialized in linguistics or language issues - including development experts, who nevertheless may discuss "local language" issues where they work.

The problem however is another aspect of the sociolinguistic geography in West Africa that is very different than that of Scandinavia. The term "neighbor language" in Scandinavia, as Prof. Torp points out, is a reference to linguistic similarity rather than geographic proximity. But the latter makes the term's use more or less unambiguous in that region (despite some linguistic diversity there). In much of Africa, however, a group of linguistic "neighbor languages" may be geographically interspersed with other unrelated languages, such that one's geographic neighbors may speak as their first language, something not mutually intelligible. Speaking of a "neighbor language" in that context could be interpreted linguistically or geographically.

All of this has me wondering if some term analogous to"neighbor languages" might be helpful in framing discussions and planning relating to languages in Africa. We already have "cross-border languages" to describe the common situation where first languages or regional lingua francas are spoken in two or more countries, and this concept was used by the African Academy of Languages in constituting several "Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions" to consider issues like harmonization of orthographies across borders.

But there does not seem to be an easy term to use when discussing "linguistic neighbor languages" in Africa.

This is important in Africa because for instance efforts to develop educational materials in a language that has close "linguistic neighbors" may be undertaken in isolation from (if not ignorance of the existence of) those neighbors. This has hidden costs in missed opportunities for sharing and adapting information among related languages. A way to easily refer to and call attention to those "neighbors" might facilitate awareness and productive discussions in this regard.

In any event, "neighbor languages" is a phenomenon not unique to Scandinavia and Africa, of course, and there are useful lessons to share across regions in how to accommodate and take advantage of similarity of closely related languages.

See you in Bamako in 2016?

Forty-eight years ago today, in Bamako, Mali, began a UNESCO-supported expert meeting on the "Unification of Alphabets of National Languages."* Running from 28 February until 5 March, 1966, this meeting was a key part of efforts to harmonize or standardize writing systems for several West African languages, which fall under the category that we now refer to as "cross-border" languages. Would the 50th anniversary of this event be an ideal time to revisit its impact, and ongoing challenges and opportunities for written African languages in general?

The Bamako 1966 meeting followed several smaller meetings and built on efforts that began during the colonial period. It in turn was followed by others, notably one in Niamey in 1978 that attempted to take the harmonization up a level with a proposed standard reference alphabet for all of Africa. One of the issues with writing African languages that had limited or no written tradition has been how to accommodate sounds that were not readily represented by imported alphabets. Another was how to develop standards for languages that crossed Africa's new borders - which in many instances were also borders between areas where different Europhone languages, and their respective phonetic systems, were dominant. These meetings dealt with both, drawing on national experiences and expert opinions.

The result of these meetings was a remarkably coherent set of standards that has guided many African countries on developing orthographies for their national languages (as the term tends to be used there).

In later years, conferences and expert meetings on planning for African languages dealt more with policy, and applications such as literacy and localization. Yet there are still issues with African languages in print and writing, some larger, some dealing with details, and some that could not have been anticipated by the notables and experts of half a century ago. Some of those are certainly being addressed by the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN)'s Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions and National Language Structures.

Ultimately it would be for ACALAN and/or other African language organizations to decide on the utility of a general meeting in the near future, but what might a conference on the 50th anniversary of the seminal Bamako 1966 expert meeting have on its agenda? As indicated above, one issue might be a kind of stock-taking of how the work of the early expert meetings has served a range of efforts in African languages, from education and literacy, to literature, and via Unicode, to social media and mobile devices.

And about Unicode, how is it supporting written African languages? One issue which seems to have receded as the technology has improved, is how well dynamic composition works for complex Latin (where characters have accent/tone mark combinations not included as single characters in the Unicode standard - some languages such as Yoruba and Igbo have this). There may be other details such as that of the capital "eng" letter.)

A larger issue is how the focus on "unification" of African alphabets on the one hand and country-level practice on the other relate. "Harmonization" seems to be a fortuitous concept, but is it, and how should it work going forward, when dynamic local usage may seem to go the other way? (See for example the earlier post on "Texting in Wolof & implicatons for standard orthographies.")

Since the early conferences (and indeed language policy in many states) focused on the Latin-based alphabet, a new conference might also consider other scripts, such as Ethiopic/Ge'ez, Arabic (often referred to as Ajami when used to write African languages), and N'Ko. The focus could be more technical, including issues such as harmonization (especially for Ajami) and transliteration, to support more policy options for countries where diverse scripts are used.

We're still two years out from the 50th anniversary, but it is not too early to discuss the utility of using that occasion to bring together a new generation of experts working on support for written African languages.

* The French language version is available on the Bisharat website.

Language, Peace and Security

On this International Mother Language Day, the US Institute of Peace, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and SIL International have organized a "Symposium on Language, Peace and Security" at the USIP in Washington, DC. It is being webcast on the event page (in break as I write and post this).

A Twitter hashtag is being used for some live tweets: #langpeacesec. In one tweet, @USIP indicated that the proceedings will be made available online about a week after the symposium.

Description (excerpts from event page):

The role of language—both as a means of communication and as an expression of identity – is a vital consideration for any serious discussion of peace and security. The Symposium on Language, Peace, and Security, which marks UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, will:

• Look at the overlooked linguistic and educational dimensions of a simmering conflict pitting Pattani Malay-speaking Muslims against the government of Thailand.
• Address the importance of ensuring linguistic human rights through educational policies and practices that value and promote linguistic diversity.
• Consider language policy in education and how it may serve to exacerbate or mitigate violence.

Can careful consideration of language and communications in discussions of peace and security lead to real solutions to conflicts? How do issues of language, language complexity, and communication play out in peace-building efforts and ongoing security? How can language issues be identified and addressed effectively in policy planning and execution?
...

Keynote Presenters:

Patricia Friedrich
Associate Professor of Linguistics/Rhetoric and Composition
Arizona State University

Suwilai Presrirat
Professor of Linguistics and Founder of the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia
Mahidol University, Thailand

Terrence Wiley
President
Center for Applied Linguistics

Zeena Zakharia
Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Education
University of Massachusetts, Boston

George A. Lopez, Keynote Discussant
Vice President of the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding
U.S. Institute of Peace

Peter Weinberger, Moderator
Senior Program Officer
United States Institute of Peace

Perspectives from the Grassroots
Community-based practitioners reflect on the relevance of language to peace and security.
Joel Trudell, SIL International; Unian Samoh, Mahidol University; Cecilia Ochoa, Save the Children; Micael Olsson, World Vision

Personal perspectives

The symposium topic and presentations helpful in expanding discussion of the importance of language(s) in planning and development-related work.

For some time I have discussed links among language, development, and information and communications technology. My work in support of localization and interest in applications of human language technologies address the language - technology connection. The connection between language and development, as others have observed, still needs more work. The connection between language on the one hand and peace and security on the other is an important complement to the latter.

Having in recent years worked more in relation to peace and security, I appreciated the opportunity to hear from others making the connections between those concerns and language planning.

Language is never the cause of conflict (as some scholars have pointed out in the past), but in some cases it might be a focus in conflict. Moreover, as several presenters showed, attention to first languages may be important in alleviating factors (such as social exclusion) that may lead to conflict.

Various interesting lessons and case studies in the symposium, with two presentations that explored the particular issues and approaches in southern Thailand. Some useful concepts included: "peace linguistics" (Dr. Friedrich); and "equity in learning" (Ms. Ochoa).

The Gallup World Poll and African languages

Gallup, Inc. has conducted its World Poll survey in 160 countries annually since 2005. Such an undertaking naturally involves many translations of the questionnaires (research instruments) for use in many different societies. According to Gallup's Country Data Set Details (2005-2013), in the 26 African countries where the poll was taken, questionnaires were translated into the following African languages, in addition to the Europhone official languages of most countries - English, French, or Portuguese (this list was keyed in from the country-by-country info in their data table; outlinks on language names are to Wikipedia articles):

Afrikaans Arabic Chadian Arabic Moroccan Arabic Ateso Bambara Bariba Bemba Dioula Ewe (Ghana, Togo) Fon Fulfulde (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali) Hausa (Ghana, Niger, Nigeria) Igbo Kabye Kaonde Kinyarwanda Kirundi Krio Luganda

Malagasy Mende Moore Ndebele Ngambaye Runyankole Setswana Shona Silozi Songhai Sotho Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania) Temne Tonga Twi Wolof Xhosa Yoruba Zarma  Zulu

This represents a significant effort, involving translations that are, as I understand it, done on the country level. It also implies a number of issues that would be interesting to explore further, such as how translations are handled for the several cross-border languages used in the poll (indicated in the above list by two or more country names in parentheses). A related issue is whether there is any cross-reference in the translation process between versions in very closely related languages (such as Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, or the Manding languages,.Bambara and Dioula (Jula), or the Nguni languages, Ndebele, Xhosa, and Zulu).

Another issue is assuring equivalency among translations from the original language (English) version into the whole range of languages. This is an obvious challenge for something of such wide multinational scope, for which the usual equivalency testing would be too hard and expensive (at least with available human language technology). How well can tight revisions of translations from the main language version(s) country-by-country, pair-by-pair assure that the same thing is being asked across diverse languages?

Yet another issue is how easily enumerators who speak the languages fluently, but have had little or no familiarity with the written forms of those languages can become competent in reading and administering questionnaires in them. Most if not all of the above languages have a written form, but some of these have had limited use - schools in Africa often focus uniquely on Europhone languages, and it's not uncommon to hear educated Africans say that they cannot read or write their mother tongue.

Finally, thinking about survey work in African languages generally, what might be the possibility of survey companies like Gallup and scholars doing academic research somehow sharing data on their translated questionnaires? Could this be useful towards developing terminologies for all future survey work, as well as for any attempts at analysis in languages of the surveyed?

ICT4D and L10n programs: Shall e'er the twain meet?

Graduate programs in information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) was the subject of recent postings on the Web2forDev list. There are also graduate programs in localization (L10n). Is there any overlap, any treatment of L10n approaches and technologies in ICT4D programs? Any discussion of work on ICT4D in L10n programs?

These are two emerging interdisciplinary fields that would seem to have a lot of potential links on the technology and communication sides, especially as concerns work in multilingual societies of Africa and much of the rest of the world.

In any event, here is a quick, selected, and certainly incomplete list of graduate programs in each:

ICT for Development

• Master of Science in Information and Communication Technology for Development (MS-ICTD), Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society, University of Colorado - Boulder
• Master's Programme in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D), Department of Computer Sciences, Stockholm University
• ICTs for Development MSc, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester
• Practising Sustainable Development (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) (MSc/PGDip), Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London

Localization

• MA Translation and Localization Management, Monterrey Institute of International Studies
• Multilingual Computing and Localisation MSc (& distance), University of Limerick
• Master 's Degree in Translation and Localisation Technologies, Universitat Jaume I
• Certificate in Localization: Customizing Software for the World, Professional and Continuing Education (Dept of Computer Science & Engineering, Dept. of Human Centered Design & Engineering, and Dept. of Linguistics), University of Washington 
• (there are many programs in translation that may deal with aspects of localization)

It would be interesting to know of other programs in either, and especially to know of any crossover or combined programs.offerings. Do any institutions have programs in both ICT4D and L10n, and if so, what happens there?

Addendum

If you take ICTs out of the equation, the larger, longer term issue of connections between applied linguistics and the study of languages on the one hand, and the field of development (study and practice) on the other becomes clear. This is a topic I have raised before and hope to come back to again.

The field of localization (L10n) is broad with what I'd characterize as two main areas of focus: content and communication; and software and interface. Localization is often treated together with translation, and from the outside sometimes looks like a sub-field of the latter. This is understandable as it almost always involves translation of terms and text. However localization also involves cultural considerations. Technically, in some contexts, localization might not involve what we usually consider translation at all, if it is simply a matter of adapting content and software for speakers/readers of the same language in different cultural areas.

This cultural dimension, if you will, of localization would potentially be another connecting point of localization and ICT4D, though hopefully without omitting the essential linguistic dimension. (17-12-13)

The "eng" times for unified capital ŋ?

Perhaps the most widely used "extended Latin" character, the letter ŋ (pronounced "eng" or "engma"), has two different upper case forms that are not used interchangeably, but used alternately by different groups of languages. One of these resembles an N but with a descending hook on the right leg ("N-form"), and the other resembling a larger version of the ŋ ("n-form"). The latter, in turn, has stylistic variations in which the right leg either descends below the line, or stays above it.

Forms of letter "eng"*

The current status and future of these dual forms of capital, and how best to handle them technically for displays were the subject of a brief discussion last month (Nov. 2013) in the wake of proposed change in Dejavu fonts that was first brought up on the developers list for the latter:

• Dejavu-fonts list under title New glyph for U+014A
• Also on "The Eng" list, a specialized forum managed by Michael Everson

In fact, this is a potential issue that has long been known, since different regions tend to use different forms, and different fonts have one or the other form. Consequently,there are many situations where doesn't know what form the capital will take. A larger issue is whether there needs to be a new Unicode character for one of the uppercase forms - what would be called "disunification" of the existing capital letter.

Background

In linguistic terms, the letter ŋ stands for a "velar n," which is pronounced as "ng" in the English word, "king." If it were used in standard English spelling, you might come across something like "siŋiŋ a soŋ." It is used in the orthographies of a range of languages from Saami in northern Europe to a number of African languages (mainly in the west and central regions, but also Dinka in South Sudan and Karamojong in Uganda), to some Aboriginal languages in Australia. (It also figures in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which of course does not need an upper case).

In many languages, the eng is distinguished from "ng" which is a prenasalized "g," pronounced "n-g," and in any event is especially useful in the beginning of words.** In the Fula language, for instance, the difference between "ng" and "ŋ" at the beginning of a number of words is meaningful. The root ŋor- at least in Maasinankoore has to do with a riverbank, while ngor- is derived from the root for male, wor-. A hippopotamus might be referred to as ngabbu, but the root ŋabb- has to do with climbing something or mounting a horse. Ngari is came or arrived; ŋari is beauty. There are other such examples.

Personally it was in Togo that I first encountered use of the letter ŋ, in the Ewe name for Peace Corps and when learning some of the Ewe and Kabiye languages. Then later in Mali when learning Fula and Bambara. The capital letter was always in the "n-form" in those places and in all I ever saw in African languages.

Later I found that a reason for that consistency of usage probably had to do with efforts to standardize letter forms, notably with the African Reference Alphabet proposed 35 years ago in Niamey by the Meeting of Experts on the Transcription and Harmonization of African Languages. (The glyph used in the pre-Unicode African special character standard ISO 6438 [1983] varies for some reason, with an earlier version having the n-form, and later versions from the 1990s showing the N-form.)

Rotated G

One aspect of the graphical history of the letter ŋ is worth noting before moving on: Apparently early printers would sometimes rotate a capital G to produce this character. So in effect the so-called "n-form" capital ŋ actually also looks like it could be called "turned-G form" capital ŋ. (I've produced the one at the right for comparison purposes only.***)

What's the problem then?

The problem with the two main forms (or "glyphs") of the capital ŋ - "n-form" and "N-form" - boils down to not being sure which form you are going to get since different fonts have one or the other form, and with the alternative forms being preferred or required in different places for different languages. This is because the two main forms are treated as the same character in Unicode, with the same "code point" (which a computer software uses to call up the appropriate symbol from the selected or default font).

These are not new issues, but now that they are getting more attention (which may actually be a good sign to the extent that more is going into print in the languages concerned).

From where we are now, there appear to be two options:

1. Continue as is, but develop means for locales or language preferences to select the appropriate form ("glyph") of upper case ŋ from fonts that have the desired glyph. However the technical feasibility is apparently an issue. 
2. "Disunify" the capital ŋ into two characters, with one of the major forms being given a new Unicode code point. This would be disruptive, but extremely so if it also required a new code point for a paired lowercase ŋ (with the exact same appearance as the one used throughout this posting) - all kinds of existing digital texts, fonts, and software would have to adjust for the change in some significant set of languages.

Unicode in principle calls for a separate code point for each character so one question is, that with two very different forms/glyphs being historically used and preferred (with varying degrees of intensity) in in different regions, how was the decision made to treat these as variants?

I'm actually looking over some past discussions to see how the issue and alternative approaches were treated. A 20+ message exchange on A12n-collaboration on 4-6 April 2002 among Peter Constable, John Hudson, Andrew Cunningham, and me dealt mainly with forms used in Africa and to a lesser degree Australia, with mention of Saami. (I am reconstituting the 2002-2004 archive of this list to post on A12n-archive.) However that treated all forms as variants.

Ultimately however the main question is the best way forward for all concerned. It is worth noting that Sjur Moshagen's otherwise well-framed proposal to disunify (at the end of the recent email discussions cited above) would put all the burden of change on Africa and anyone working with the numerous African languages which have the ŋ in their orthographies. Disunification the other way would similarly cost those using Saami and Australian Aboriginal languages - so it's a difficult set of choices.

A Niger exception?

A quick note about Denis Jacquereye's statement in the recent email discussions that in Niger, the N-form capital ŋ is more common - this despite the n-form being established in Niger's orthographies and in the "harmonized" orthographies used across the region. It would be of interest to see any examples, but one wonders if a limited choice of fonts might have been a major factor. A larger issue in terms of planning would be the cost of introducing or establishing such a variation ("dis-harmonization"?) in a wider regional usage, and how that might impact font development, software localization (Fula is a regional cross-border language; Zarma is part of the cross-border Sonrai cluster, for which localization is being done), etc. This would be even more problematic if Unicode were to decide to "disunify" the character.

---

* Source of illustration: Wikimedia Commons
** In the orthographies of many East African languages, such as that for standard Swahili, an apostrophe after ng is used to indicate this difference: ng' = ŋ.
*** "Turned-g" is actually a character used to transliterate text in the Georgian language script.

Apprendre le bambara à Paris

Je viens de decouvrir deux initiatives pour enseigner la langue bambara (Bamanankan) à Paris :

• Donniyakadi, une association créée en 2008 en France, qui a pour but "le développement des échanges culturels entre la France et le Mali, notamment dans le domaine des langues nationales maliennes." Ils depense des cours de soir en bambara depuis trois ans déjà. (Dɔnniya ka di en Bambara veut dire "le savoir est bon, agréable, plaisant.")
• INALCO, l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, dont les programmes sur le Mandingue (qui comprend le Bambara) sont signalés par le blog Apprendre le bambara. L'INALCO ( Langues O'), existe depuis longtemps, bien sur. Il enseigne plus d’une centaine de langues, et délivre des diplômes divers.

Ce qui m'intéresse est de savoir les dimensions d'utilisation et d'instruction des langues africaines en France, surtout quand il s'agit des initiatives entreprises par des associations privées ou ONGs telles que Donniyakadi. Et aussi de telles initiatives d'instruction en langues africaines (bambara / mandingue, ou autres) qui existent ailleurs dans le monde hors de l'Afrique. Une autre question intéressante est comment les communautés africaines dans les lieux comme Paris organisent et/ou s'associent avec des programmes d'enseignement et apprentissage des langues africaines - soit par des associations ou par des institutions telles que l'INALCO.

On voit sur le site web de l'INALCO, qu'il offre les langues africaines suivantes (en plus que le Mandigue) : Amharique, Arabe maghrébin, Berbère, Comorien, Haoussa, Peul, Soninké, Swahili, Tigrigna, Wolof, et Yoruba.

A noter que les sites (blogs) d' Apprendre le Bambara et Donniyakadi donnent des liens divers qui seraient utiles à ceux qui veulent apprendre le Bambara.

Quick notes: ANLoc offline & Yahoogroups RSS problem

The African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) website is still down. Although I am not personally involved in its management, hopefully there will be some update to share soon. Hence the site RSS (and that for the subsidiary PanAfriL10n wiki), as seen in the right-hand column/sidebar, are not working.

Also still haven't sorted out how to revive the RSS feeds for Yahoogroups also featured in the sidebar. Hope to resolve or reformat soon. (Per discussions online, this apparently relates to a group setting changed when Yahoo updated the groups features.)

The presentation of sites and groups on Beyond Niamey was discussed more fully in a recent post.

I've also started building some short pages on this blog site, which are linked via tabs below the header.

Nelson Mandela and African languages

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. (Nelson Mandela)

As South Africa, and indeed the world, mourns the passing of Nelson Mandela, a remarkable leader who the New York Times called the "Peaceful Liberator of a Torn South Africa," here is a quick look at his legacy as concerns languages in Africa. Actually a very quick look, as I don't personally know much on the topic  and find relatively little on line, other than the well-known quote above and some details below (so hopefully more information can be filled in via comments or a future post).

Mandela's first language was Xhosa, an Nguni language very close to Zulu, which he apparently also spoke. He learned English in school, and it was in school where his biography says he met his first non-Xhosa friend, a Sesotho speaker. Later he learned Afrikaans while a prisoner on Robben Island. It seems Mandela was as much a product of a multilingual society as he was of a multiracial and multiethnic one..

The process* leading to the inclusion in the new constitution of all 11 of South Africa's main languages as "official" happened during the country's transition to majority rule. While I don't find any discussion of Mandela's direct involvement in that process, a fellow former prisoner at Robben Island who he knew well - Neville Alexander - was prominent in it. I'm not sure how South Africans would see it, but from afar, it seems that the officially multilingual policy of the country is part of Mandela's legacy.

Other thoughts...

A couple of other thoughts not related specifically to language upon reflecting about aspects of Nelson Mandela's legacy. First, the NY Times obit (referenced above) has this passage and quote in the context of discussing leadership style:

In his autobiography, Mr. Mandela recalled eavesdropping on the endless consensus-seeking deliberations of the tribal council and noticing that the chief worked "like a shepherd."
"He stays behind the flock," he continued, "letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

Reading the analogy, I am reminded on a literal level about a dismissive comment about Fulani pastoralists I heard from some American development experts while in Mali in the 1980s - to the effect that the herders spent their lives looking at the rear ends of cattle. There are a lot of problems with a statement like that of course (misunderstanding of pastoralism and herd behavior, attitudes regarding development,etc.), but taking it all back to the level of analogy and leadership, it has me thinking about how outsiders (primarily Westerners) conceive of or misunderstand community leadership and decision-making processes, not only in Africa but also in Asia.

Second, I came across an article about how in April 1994, the then new South African president Mandela surprised the outgoing president DeKlerk's official staff when he arrived and they did not know what to expect. The article continues, "he drifted to one end of the room and started shaking hands with every single person present. ... Many a staffer who never had the opportunity to speak to a president was dumbfounded by the personal attention they received from the living legend." Yet this seems, from my limited experience elsewhere on the continent to be considered good form when joining a meeting** - although not expected of a high status person. But as the article implies, this was an example of Mandela's style of leadership.

One wonders if, in the brief conversations Mandela had with the staffers that day, there were any exchanges in the diverse languages of the country...

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* The following paper has a lot of this history: Beukes, Anne-Marie, "Language policy implementation in South Africa: How Kempton Park's great expectations are dashed in Tshwane," Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 38, 2008, pp. 1-26.
** It's a habit I personally got comfortable with after several years in West Africa. I remember in one gathering I joined shortly after returning to the US, realizing folks were dumbfounded as to why I, a living stranger, was shaking each person's hand.

Ethnologue and "national languages" in Africa

In this post I'll discuss the second of two aspects of Ethnologue's presentation that seem to me to detract from its overall quality. The previous one was on cross-border languages being titled simply as "a language of" a single country. This one deals with how the new, 17th edition of Ethnologue* uses the term "national language" in presenting summary information about countries.

The Country information/summary pages in the current version of Ethnologue appear as the first tab in a set of pages for each country. These Country information pages feature a table that in the third row indicates "National languages." This replaces "National or official language(s)" in the 16th edition** (there is also a significant redesign of the presentation). This seeming simplification actually is problematic in the case of many African countries which use the term national language in a way different than that in the current Ethnologue. .

For example, if one goes to Ethnologue's current page on Niger, one sees a single language - French - listed as the national language (compare the page in the previous edition) - the same as for France. However in Niger and by Nigeriens, French is not called the national language, but rather the official language. "National language" (langue nationale in French) is a legal and widely understood category for the endogenous languages, that is separate and distinguished from "official language." Same with perhaps 20 other countries in Africa. The choice of terms by these countries was (is) deliberate and meaningful, but was it taken into account when revising Ethnologue's use of terms?

Although one appreciates the challenges of finding terms that work in a reference that seeks to cover all languages and all countries, this particular choice of term on a summary page does not seem at all fortuitous from the point of view of information on Africa.

Official, national, and local languages: An example

When I was on the Peace Corps staff in Niger in the early 2000s, a somewhat similar question arose. The then new regional training officer for West Africa - an American - referred to the consideration of language training approaches in terms of a choice of emphasis on "national language or local languages." However, "national language" in most of the countries we were talking about actually means what in Peace Corps is often referred to as "local language." The real distinction for our use, I suggested, was actually between "official language" and "local languages" (although those terms also have some shortcomings).

The issue was communication, not just semantics or formality of usage. If we started using the term "national language" in a way different from our host country colleagues and counterparts, it could create unnecessary confusion (aside from appearing to ignore what is effectively a common regional usage). And by the same token, since many American staff would tend to hear "national language" as "nationwide" language, it would not make sense to oblige everyone to conform to host countries' use of the term. Better simply to avoid the term "national language" in our planning in favor of alternatives that were known and clear to all.

The choice in this case was fairly straightforward, but it may be worth keeping in mind when considering the more complicated set of terminology choices facing Ethnologue.

"National language" in Ethnologue

Ethnologue defines its current use of the term "national languages" on the country information pages in this way:

"Languages which have been categorized as national languages at EGIDS [Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale] level 1 are listed here. This includes all the languages that are actually used for education, work, mass media, and government at the nationwide level, regardless of how they are classified in legislation."

Ethnologue's use of the term national languages on the initial country information page therefore comes out of a broader system for classifying languages and helping to understand their status and condition. This is important work and the schema they have developed is of great value. The issue here however is terminology.

In that system, references to "official language" have effectively been eliminated. Editor Paul Lewis, in discussing the terminology changes in his Ethnoblog posting, "Functions of Languages in Countries" (31 October 2013), gave the example of the Turkish language, which is listed as a "statutory national language," even though in the Turkish constitution reference cited (article 3) it is actually called the official language.

However this schema also relies on various modifications of "national language" (and terms relating to nation and nationality):

• Under EGIDS, "national" (meaning effectively "nationwide" but overlapping a lot with common and language policy use of "official language")
• Under "Official recognition categories and definitions," which is how Ethnologue now deals with official status, several descriptors:
• Statutory national language
• Statutory national working language
• Statutory language of national identity
• De facto national language
• De facto national working language
• De facto language of national identity
• Language of recognized nationality

As it stands, it does not seem that Ethnologue has a way of describing the language situation in many African countries that does not collide with established local and indeed regional usage. The official language is called "national" and the national languages seem to fall mainly under the somewhat sterile rubric "recognized."

Nation, national, nationality ...

A lot revolves around the meanings assigned to and understood by the term "nation" and its derivatives. These can on the one hand refer to a country or nation-state (nationwide, or in/by all of the country), which is how Ethnologue appears to use them. On the other hand, they may also have more visceral and identity-related meanings, which is how I understand the main African use of the term. Ethnologue's categories relating to languages of national idendity are also along the latter lines.

Part of  the problem is that Ethnologue uses "national" across this range of meanings, even if primarily in the "nationwide" sense. And in the case of many countries of Africa it has in effect switched the potentially more identity-related term "national" with the more formal term "official" for some languages, and the more formal term "recognized" for "national" in the case of other languages.

To a certain extent, one can in academic and reference publications use a term in a particular way by defining it clearly, as Ethnologue attempts with the above. However, when one's chosen usage is at variance with an existing legal and common use of the term, and the term itself has many applications and colors of meaning, it is often worth looking for alternatives.

Distinct meanings of "national  language"

The term "national language" actually turns out to have more than just the two uses discussed above (per "nationwide" and legal status as "national language"). Conrad Brann, who has taught and researched on language policy and multilingual societies for decades in Nigeria, suggests that in Africa there are actually "four quite distinctive meanings" of the term*** (which I've numbered for ease of reference):

1. "Territorial language" (chthonolect or chtonolect) of a particular people
2. "Regional language" (choralect)
3. "Language-in-common or community language" (demolect) used throughout a country
4. "Central language" (politolect) used by government and perhaps having a symbolic value.

The African usage that I highlight above is probably mainly under #1, but depending on the country, nos. 2 (DRC, Ethiopia) and/or 3 (see below). In a few African countries it corresponds with #4 and with Ethnologue's usage (Lesotho, Burundi).

Ethnologue's definition of "national language" seems to overlap #4 and in some cases #3 in Brann's typology. However, in some countries more than others, the official languages Ethologue lists as national languages may be less "languages-in-common" (#3) than some languages that those countries call national: The case of Wolof in Senegal, used widely as a first or second language, comes to mind.

Looked at from this perspective, "national language" seems to be a conglomerate of concepts, which requires clarification as to intent based on the context and intent. As such, it seems ill-suited for using in a quick reference page of any sort. Add to that the fact that many African countries use the term in a particular way, it would seem less than fortuitous for Ethnologue to choose it to use as a simple category for all countries.

Another look at Ethnologue's Country information pages

Another problem with Ethnologue's current approach to listing "National languages" is that for countries like Niger or Senegal, the top of the language summary gives the impression that French is the only language of importance. On the Senegal page, Wolof, for instance, does not appear anywhere. Nor do any of the other main languages of the country. On the other hand, there is a list of "immigrant languages" by name. As such the country information page - the first place a user would come in this reference to find information on languages in a country - seems very selective in the information it highlights.

A related question: Paul Lewis's Ethnoblog posting referred to above refers to continued use of the category "National or Official Languages" on the Country information tab, under which one would find all languages that they "have identified as national languages, or national working languages, or national languages of identity whether statutory or de facto." Is it possible that the issues discussed in my posting here may have arisen from a recent change within Ethnologue 17th edition's presentation of information on the Country information pages?

Alternatives

For a reference like Ethnologue that aims to cover all countries and all languages, a term that means different things to different people by itself would seem to make it a problematic choice for an information heading. One simple way to resolve this would be to return to the use of the former rubric - "National or Official Languages"- or something similarly broad, which allows naming of principal languages on the Country information pages.

Considering the issues I've raised with "national language" as well as the range of uses of the term highlighted by Prof. Brann and indeed by Ethnologue's own schema, it may also be worth considering whether and how to avoid using "national language" altogether in the schema and the titling, just as Ethnologue now omits "official language."

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* Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2013. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 17th ed. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com
** Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th ed. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/16
*** Brann, C.M.B. 1994. "The National Language Question: Concepts and Terminology." Logos [University of Namibia, Windhoek] Vol 14: 125–134.

Ethnologue and the cross-border languages of Africa

Two content features seem to me to detract from the overall quality of Ethnologue - which is the indispensable reference on all the world's languages. One is that pages on cross-border languages - a prominent sociolinguistic feature in Africa - are titled as the language of only one of the countries where they are spoken. The other is that in the current online version, the country pages list "national language," which is a problematic heading, given diverse use of the term, notably in a number of African countries. In this post I will deal with the first of these two items.

A continent traversed by cross-border languages

Due to the way borders in Africa were drawn, a great many of its ethno-linguistic groups are split among two or more of the modern African countries. The languages spoken by such groups can today be called "cross-border languages," and in fact this is the term used by the African Academy of Languages for some of the work it is doing, notably the Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions.

Languages that are spoken in more than one country - whether as a first language, which is often the case, or as a vehicular language, which is also frequent - have been a concern of language planning in Africa since independence. The various conferences on African languages that I have cited in some previous posts reflect this concern. Cross border languages were also highlighted by former Malian president Alpha Oumar Konaré, who compared them to "sutures" uniting African countries.*

"A language of" one country, more than one country, or a region?

When one looks up one of these cross-border languages in Ethnologue, however, they are as a rule listed as "a language of" a single country. It bears noting that when borders divide a language community, that community is rarely split in equal parts, so it appears that Ethnologue usually assigns the language to the country where there are more speakers. Other countries, regardless of significance in the language usage, are placed under "Also Spoken In:..."

So, for instance Hausa, the first language of 18.5 million Nigerians (according to Ethnologue, based on a 1991 SIL estimate), but also of about half the much smaller population of Niger, and used across large parts of West Africa (as a lingua franca), is titled simply "... a language of Nigeria." Is Hausa any less a language of Niger, given that the historic home of most Hausas (sometimes called Hausaland) extends well into the latter country? Better "A language of Nigeria and Niger"? Or given the number of other countries where it is "also spoken," maybe Hausa is really "A language of West Africa"?

Another example is the Ewe language, spoken by a population split between southeastern Ghana and southern Togo, which is listed as "... a language of Ghana." Similar to the case with Hausa in Nigeria and Niger, Ewe is spoken by more people in Ghana, but by a larger percentage of the population in Togo. So why not "A language of Ghana and Togo"? The reverse is noted in the case of Southern Sotho, which has more speakers in South Africa, but a higher percentage of population speaking it in Lesotho (it has legal status in both countries) - and is listed as "A language of Lesotho."

Examples abound, among which the major regional language of Swahili is listed as a language of Tanzania (see also discussion of macrolanguages, below).

Ultimately it seems (1) misleading to title pages on cross-border languages as languages of one particular country, and (2) inconsistent the way it is done. Going back to Ethnologue's "Plan of the Site" page, one finds mention of counting "each language only once as belonging to its country of origin" - but what if the area of origin of a language (to the extent one can determine that with any precision) is divided by borders?

Would it not be possible to develop a simple set of criteria by which cross-border languages were given titles  based on the extent (countries) of their major use?

Cross-border macrolanguages

The category of macrolanguage - defined as "multiple, closely related individual languages that are deemed in some usage contexts to be a single language" - takes this issue up another level. Although defined on linguistic criteria, macrolanguages in Africa are even more likely to cross borders, often many borders. There are 14 African macrolanguages by my count, with many of those being cross-border and some really looking like regional languages. Yet all of those are listed as being of one country or another:

• Arabic, "A macrolanguage of Saudi Arabia" (spoken in many countries, including at least 9 in Northern Africa)
• Dinka, "A macrolanguage of South Sudan" (spoken mainly in South Sudan)
• Fulah, "A macrolanguage of Senegal" (spoken in well over a dozen countries, mainly in West Africa)
• Gbaya, "A macrolanguage of Central African Republic" (spoken in CAR and Cameroon)
• Grebo, "A macrolanguage of Liberia" (spoken in Liberia and Ivory Coast)
• Kalenjin, "A macrolanguage of Kenya" (spoken mainly in Kenya, and also in Uganda and Tanzania)
• Kanuri, "A macrolanguage of Nigeria" (spoken in 5 countries of West and Central Africa)
• Kongo, "A macrolanguage of Democratic Republic of Congo" (spoken in DRC, Angola, and Congo)
• Kpelle, "A macrolanguage of Liberia" (spoken in Liberia and Guinea)
• Malagasy, "A macrolanguage of Madagascar" (spoken mainly in Madagascar)
• Mandingo, "A macrolanguage of Guinea" (spoken in 7 countries of West Africa)
• Oromo, "A macrolanguage of Ethiopia" (spoken in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia)
• Swahili, "A macrolanguage of Tanzania" (spoken in at least 9 countries mainly in East Africa, among which some governments have accorded it legal status)
• (Akan is described as "A language of Ghana" in Ethnologue, and is also a macrolanguage in ISO 639-3. Either way it is considered to include Fanti and Twi, and is spoken mainly in Ghana.)

Here again, would it not be possible to adjust certain titles to more accurately convey the range of use? For instance, Fulah as "A macrolanguage of West Africa" and Swahili as "A macrolanguage of East Africa." The macrolanguage items may be easier to modify on a case-by-case basis, as there are fewer of them than languages, and their respective circumstances are somewhat unique. The language entries on the other hand might, as suggested above, need a set of criteria to avoid case by case discussion.

Final thoughts

These observations and suggestions are made in the spirit of helping improve the Ethnologue resource, with a mind particularly to what kind of information that people new to the study of languages of Africa would take away from their initial encounter with it. Cross-border languages exist in all world regions, of course, but perhaps in none more than Africa, where borders were never intended to respect the integrity of ethno-linguistic groups. This category of languages seems to me to merit attention and appropriate revision in how it is presentated.

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* "Les langues nationales transfrontalières doivent être non pas des points limitrophes, des points de démarcation, mais des points de suture entre nos pays."

Microsoft giving Africa LIP(s)

Where are we now with software localization in African languages? I'd like to try to take stock in several quick installments, beginning with desktop/laptop software and then moving to mobile devices. This post starts it off with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, due to no particular ordering - I just happened to come across something recently relating to Microsoft's (MS's) localization efforts.

MS's products are offered in diverse languages, but in what might be described as a tiered arrangement. A number of languages have fully localized versions - for MS Office 2013, for instance, there are by my count 40 such versions (which includes only Arabic among African languages, as well as the principal Eurphone languages used in Africa). But for other languages, MS's Local Language Program develops Language Interface Packs (LIPs) for Windows and Office. A LIP includes translations of about 80% of commands (the most frequently used), and is installed over another version, basically changing the language interface to the language of the LIP.

MS has added a number of African language LIPs for Windows and Office over the past decade. This represents a significant amount of work, notably on terminology (another key topic I hope to return to).

MS Windows 7, which was released in 2009, had 10 African language LIPs. Windows 8, released in 2012, introduced 3 more African LIPs (Kinyarwanda, Tigrinya, and Wolof), a Botswanan version for Setswana, and allowed installation of Hausa LIP on French in addition to English base language. The following list, derived from lists on the Windows site, summarizes African language LIP support under Windows 7 and 8 (in parentheses are the base languages on which the LIP can be installed, as well as indications for those languages added with 8 but not available for 7):

• Afrikaans (English base language editions)
• Amharic (English base language editions)
• Hausa (English base language editions; in Windows 8, French base language also)
• Igbo (English base language editions)
• Kinyarwanda (in Windows 8 only; English base language editions)
• Sesotho sa Leboa (English base language editions)
• Setswana 
• Botswana (in Windows 8 only; English base language editions)
• South Africa (English base language editions)
• Swahili (English base language editions)
• Tigrinya (Ethiopia) (in Windows 8 only; English base language editions)
• Wolof (in Windows 8 only; English base language editions & French base language)
• Xhosa (English base language editions)
• Yoruba (English base language editions)
• Zulu (English base language editions)

The number of MS Office LIPs for African languages has gone from three for Office 2003 to 13 for Office 2013 (that's out of a total of over 100 LIPs worldwide). The table below is adapted from information on their Office Language Interface Pack (LIP) downloads page (check marks indicate LIP available):

Language	Native name	MS Office 2003	MS Office 2007	MS Office 2010	MS Office 2013
Afrikaans	Afrikaanse	✔	✔	✔	✔
Amharic	አማርኛ	-	✔	✔	✔
Hausa	Hausa	-	✔	✔	✔
Igbo	Igbo	-	✔	✔	✔
Kinyarwanda	Kinyarwanda	-	-	-	✔
Sepedi / Northern Sotho	Sesotho sa Leboa	-	✔	✔	✔
Setswana (South Africa)	Setswana	-	✔	✔	✔
Swahili	KiSwahili	✔	✔	✔	✔
Tigrinya	ትግርኛ	-	-	-	✔
Wolof	Wolof	-	-	-	✔
Xhosa	isiXhosa	-	✔	✔	✔
Yoruba	ede Yorùbá	-	✔	✔	✔
Zulu	isiZulu	✔	✔	✔	✔

I have no information on any plans for other African languages.

MS additionally offers Multilingual User Interfaces which provide language interface options on a single device, though it is not clear whether any of these offer any African languages. (The term Language Packs, as distinguished from LIPs, has me [and apparently also Wikipedia?] a bit confused as it seems to be used in different ways.)

See also MS's Language Portal for additional information on their localization efforts. Also worth noting that evidently MS completed the LIPs much more quickly with recent releases than they had in the past.

I'd invite any comments - corrections or additional information. In getting back up to speed on this I again encountered MS's ever complex array of sites and pages about different programs, products, and versions, so it's probable I missed some relevant information... 

What does "bilingualism" mean in multilingual Africa?

A couple of questions seen in a recent tweet raise a number of issues about perceptions of languages, bilingualism, and multilingualism in Africa:

@mwasa BTW,Why is "Bi-lingualism" only limited to the knowledge of 2 european languages? What if I know 2 African languages fluently?
— Mukizawabo. (@mukizaedwin) November 20, 2013

The answer to the last question would seem straightforward wouldn't it? Bilingual of course! Yet it does seem that the description of "bilingual" in Africa is often applied to the ability to speak two "Europhone" languages without consideration of African languages, despite the fact that there are many of the latter, spoken by many polyglot people in the many multilingual societies of the continent.

There is no shortage of examples, but one that comes to mind is a statement in 2003 by then Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade during a state visit to the Nigerian capital Abuja. Speaking of regional cooperation, he chose to broach the issue of language, remarking that it is too bad the peoples of their two countries are not bilingual* (the implied languages being English and French). Although I do not have a complete reference at hand, it is mentioned in a later discussion of  remarks by a Ghanaian scholar on the occasion of release of a book on the history of the Ewe people of Togo and Benin,** to the effect that more bilingual education was needed - again in terms of English and French. There was specific reference in this case to linking "Ewe-speaking" scholars who work academically in English or French, but with no mention of the language that this group has in common across all borders.

"Official" bilingualism?

Part of the issue certainly is focus on the official languages, which for so many African countries are only those languages inherited from the colonial period and put to use since independence for administration, education, and wider communication. This appears to be the case for example in a Q&A between a reporter from the Senegalese daily Le Soleil and the French ambassador in Dakar in 2012. The question had to do with the "temptation" of some Francophone states in Africa to "bilingualism,"*** again bypassing the multilingual context of Africa and attending to official languages and language policies. This particular question was likely a reference to Rwanda's addition of English as an official language, and Burundi and Gabon considering similar moves (although Rwanda's move made it officially trilingual as Kinyarwanda, the first language of the population, and French, inherited from the colonial period, were retained as official languages).

In any event, the French ambassador's response reframed the question slightly to distinguish between the policies of countries and the decisions of individuals, including reference to maternal languages under the latter. I won't venture any interpretations other than to speculate that in some cases, it almost seems that "bilingual" is used as a code word for "adding English at the same official level as French" (I hope in the future to treat the area of policies of donor nations - former colonial powers among them - with regard to language and languages in Africa).

Bilingual and multilingual education

The term "bilingual" is also used in the context of so-called mother tongue/bilingual education, which typically involves an African language and a Europhone official language. This is a topic that has received significant attention from organizations and scholars involved in aid to and study of education in Africa (including Maurice Tadadjeu of Cameroon and Neville Alexander of South Africa, whose work has been mentioned previously on this blog). And it is a major focus in other world regions as well (a major Asian conference on mother tongue based/multilingual education - MTB/MLE - was just held in Bangkok earlier this month).

However, one notes that in some contexts references to bilingual education in Africa actually mean instruction/learning only in Europhone languages.

African multilingualism has been implicitly or explicitly recognized in various policy and applied contexts including a number of expert or ministerial-level conferences. In recent years, the African Academy of Languages, which functions under the auspices of the African Union, has sponsored a number of activities including the Bamako International Forum on Multilingualism (19-21 January 2009) whose recommendations included adoption of MTB/MLE. .

The case of Cameroon

The country of Cameroon is an interesting case to consider here, as it has two Europhone official languages - English and French - while also having some of the greatest linguistic diversity on the continent. It is common to hear the country described as bilingual, when in fact it is multilingual, with 280 living languages (by Ethnologue's count) . It is this juxtaposition that Prince Kum'a Ndumbe III was addressing when, on the occasion of a book fair his organization AfricAvenir sponsored in 2007, he stated: "The Cameroonian is not bilingual, he is multilingual."

Some of the complexities of the situation in Cameroon are explored in a short paper entitled "Bilingualism" by Usmang Salle Leinyui, which includes a discussion of different kinds of bilingualism in the country, and in an overview entitled "Multilingual Cameroon: Policy, Practice, Problems and Solutions" by Tove Rosendal (2008; University of Gothenberg Africana Informal Series, No. 7).

Cameroon has had an interesting history of efforts to promote literacy in its national languages (that term in much of Africa used for African first languages, and is a usage I would like to return to later). Much of Tadadjeu's work related to that, as did the AfricAvenir event mentioned above. However, "bilingual education" officially involves only English and French, as do various references to "bilingualism" in official documents (see Jacques Leclerc's L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde for more on this and related language policy issues). And although there have been efforts to promote use of and literacy in Cameroon's national languages (including proposal of a trilingual education model), and the constitution and high level documents mention them, Leclerc describes official "indifference" towards national languages, and Rosendal notes lack of implementation of policies to favor them.

Summary and closing question

So part of the issue of "bilingualism" in multilingual Africa often referring to Europhone languages and not African languages has to do with what have been designated "official languages." Another part may have to do with the status of languages - with it often seeming the case that knowledge of European languages is accorded more prestige than knowledge of African languages. Those two parts are certainly interrelated.

How then would a person be called who speaks one African language, one Europhone language, and, say, one Asian language?

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* "Helas! nos peuples ne sont pas bilingues."
** Lawrance, Benjamin N., ed. 2005. The Ewe of Togo and Benin. Woeli Publishing Services (Ghana).
*** "Des pays africains francophones sont de plus en plus tentés par le bilinguisme. Que pensez-vous de cette évolution ?"