Le français en Afrique Occidentale Française

In: Diasporas, Band 2, Heft 1, S. 154-161

Abstract

French Language in Western French Africa. Linguistic Construction, Representations and Colonial Dominance.
This paper offers a reflection on the French language in the Western African colonies based on the cultural history and the history of representations. The main point of the exposition is focused on the linguistic production popularized by a specific form of press and littérature, i.e. the French spoken by Colonial Troupes. Through a great variety of sources, the authors show how this «language» turned to be one of the main instruments of French domination in Africa. They show also that the French native soldier has been partly «invented» as the caricature shows, and analyse the sense of the general contempt attached to this language, both in the French and African representations. This article illustrates ultimately the apprenticeship of the colonizer's idiom at the colonial school and the richness of the linguistic creativity exclusive to the African French language.