Languages in Africa: Multilingualism, Language Policy, and Education
In: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
People in many African communities live within a series of concentric circles when it comes to language. In a small group, a speaker uses an often unwritten and endangered mother tongue that is rarely used in school. A national indigenous language-written, widespread, sometimes used in school-surrounds it. An international language like French or English, a vestige of colonialism, carries prestige, is used in higher education, and promises mobility-and yet it will not be well known by its users. The essays in Languages in Africa explore the layers of African multilingualism as they affect lang