[lg policy] Africa: How Can African Languages Be Protected?

[Harold Schiffman]

Africa: How Can African Languages Be Protected?
Photo: ThisisAfrica <https://thisisafrica.me/>
African indigenous languages.
By Socrates Mbamalu

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?

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.

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.

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.
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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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