Suchergebnisse

This is the eloquent story of an arranged marriage, in the experience and judgement of an eminent Nigerian scholar of English, recording his life-long participation in the struggle over the status, standard, and stability of the language in his own nation.

Thewealth of ethno-linguistic units in Nigeria has been the object of anthropological, linguistic, historical, and political study since the country was first so named at the beginning of this century. But since independence in 1960, the federal motto of 'Unity in Diversity' has raised a central principle of language use which has been gradually articulated in successive constitutions and white papers on national policy in the educational and cultural spheres.

Language planning in Nigeria has closely followed the metamorphoses of the country's geopolitical structure. With the present geopolitical three-tier structure of federal capital territory, states, & local governments, the stage is set for participatory democracy of the Third Republic, in which each tier is largely responsible for language development within its own jurisdiction. Language planning & development has changed since independence from a denial of ethnicity, to using it as a cultural, social, & political resource. Nigeria, like other federations, in its process of nation building cannot emulate or copy the nineteenth-century language-nation-state, in which the multiplicity of territorial lects were suppressed in favor of a central, standardized language associated with a single prestigious group, a model of which has been France. Only in cases where the lingua franca was not an ethnic language, eg, Swahili in Tanzania, has it been possible to impose a single national language. The failure of Ethiopia in this respect is a lesson. And even in Europe, the language-nation-state is giving way to a three-tier triglossia of local/regional, state/national, & interstate/community language. 3 Tables, 1 Diagram. Modified AA

Few English-speaking scholars realise that a francophone network of scholars has powerfully developed the study of contact between French and African languages over the past decade, and that this is currently being synthesised in the form of an Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire. This corporate work, sponsored by the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (A.C.C.T.),1 is of considerable linguistic, educational, and sociopolitical significance, and deserves to be widely known in Africa. Indeed, it will be remembered that at the founding of the West African Linguistic Society in 1961 two surveys were mooted: West African languages and, later, English in West Africa, of which the former was accomplished with the help of the International African Institute and the Ford Foundation, while the latter was forgotten. With the 'Inventory of French in Africa', the francophone network of scholars has certainly stolen a march on English-speaking Africa.