<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="gmail-headline">Africa: How Can African Languages Be Protected?</h1><div class="gmail-figure gmail-picture gmail-inset gmail-left">
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African indigenous languages. </div>
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<cite class="gmail-byline">By Socrates Mbamalu</cite><p class="gmail-story-body-text">An
endangered language is defined as a language that is at a risk of
falling out of use as its speakers die out or shift to another language.
Many African speakers have shifted to other languages, mostly foreign
languages and many African indigenous languages are on the brink of
being endangered, nearing extinction. How African governments save these
endangered African indigenous languages?</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text">In a continent of
55 countries and over 2,000 languages, it is shocking that the official
languages predominantly used are foreign languages. It is even worse
that the medium of instruction in learning institutions are foreign
languages. The marginalization of indigenous languages leaves many of
the African languages without a role to play.</p>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text">For a language to
survive, it must have a defined and clear role that it plays in the
society. It could be used as the language of the immediate community to
communicate, which could as well be the mother tongue. It could be used
as the language of wider communication, (a language used by people as a
medium of communication across language or cultural barriers), which is
the case for example with lingua franca. It could be used as the
language of religion, for example Arabic in the Koran.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text">With the lack of a
clearly defined role, a language tends to get less used. When a language
has fewer speakers, the language eventually dies (language death). Due
to language shift, when speakers shift from using one language to
another, either due to economic gains or other reasons, the language
becomes endangered, and if not protected, it will eventually die.</p>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text">The role a language
is assigned is dictated by a language policy. In South Africa where
there are 11 official languages, the languages play a major role. When a
language is consistently used, there is constant improvement of the
language. More lexicon is added to the language and words that did not
exist in the language are created, and adopted. The language grows and
evolves to accommodate new terminologies, experiences, and concepts.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text">In a country such
as Nigeria that has over 600 languages, only three languages are
considered major. Nigeria doesn't have a national language policy but
the National Policy on Education identifies language as an important
issue, which needs to be addressed. The policy states that the mother
tongue should be used as the language of elementary level; this includes
pre-primary and primary levels of education.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text">The major
languages, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba are considered as the languages of
national culture and integration. English and French are considered the
official languages of Nigeria. This policy has not been implemented. The
slow implementation of the policy has an adverse effect on the state of
indigenous languages in Nigeria.</p>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text">In most East
African countries Kiswahili has been made an official language. However,
the elevation of Kiswahili leaves other indigenous languages out of the
picture, which raises questions. What is the possibility of the
survival of African languages surviving without language policies to
support their existence? In Southern Kaduna, within eight local
governments, 30 languages exist. In different parts of Nigeria there are
similar examples. The government's plan for the protection and
preservation of many of the indigenous languages is not clear.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text">The diversity of
cultures, languages and ethnic groups has been more of a source of
division than unity across the continent. In 2012 the United Nations
Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) predicted that
the Igbo language which has a current population of 25 million speakers
will be extinct by 2025,if nothing is done, by the authorities and
speakers to ensure that it is not only taught in learning institution
but also used as language of official communications within government
and business. Many other African languages have much lower population of
speakers. Those languages will die unless something is done to save
them.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text"><a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201703220695.html">http://allafrica.com/stories/201703220695.html</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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