African Language

Word Count: 2438.

How would you answer a first-language speaker of an African language who says that African languages are inferior to international languages like English, French, Portuguese or Arabic?

Provide arguments to support your answer both from a descriptive linguistic and a sociolinguistic perspective.

It seems that a majority of Africans still suffer of an inferiority complex in relation to Europeans. The main reasons for this are: slavery and colonization. However with decolonization we could have thought that the African stigma would have disappeared. Nonetheless, the Africans still seem to endure and accept the superiority of the white population. This is seen with languages, Africa has over 2 000 languages however due notably to colonization 3 big European languages have imposed themselves as well as a Berber language called Arabic. Those three European languages are: English, French and Portuguese. Africa is the cradle of more than 2 000 languages; yet, Africans feel that their languages are inferior to those four International languages. Some reasons can be found for that and one of them could be that the governments of the 53 African countries whom after colonization decided to leave international languages as the/an Official national languages. This is the case in 52 of the 53 African countries; only Ethiopia does not have an International Language as one of their official language (Amharic). The feeling that African languages are inferior to International languages is therefore maybe not conveyed but at least forwarded and thought by the African governments who don't change the constitutions.

In this essay, we will try to understand why African languages are not interior to international languages by proving first of all that all languages are equal and how some of the 2 000 African languages can be superior in either a descriptive linguistic way or from a sociolinguistic angle.

First of all we will need to define the noun language. A language has two different functions. The first one is instrumental; it is used to do something, express feelings, emotion or desires. It is also an instrument, which people use to group themselves together or separate themselves from others, this is called the binding or separating function of language. The second function of language is Symbolic, language symbolises identity, and language is therefore like a national flag or like the national anthem of a state. Language is a key aspect in African culture, the reason being that there are so many identities in Africa that language is one of the only features that is able to make people identify themselves to a group of people. Therefore due to the broad amount of tribes and ethnos group language is the only feature capable of making the people identify themselves to one of the tribe or group. Those are the main reasons why language is key in the African society, however even though all African languages are fundamental in the African culture, Africans still consider their languages inferior to International languages.

We will prove in that essay by two different perspectives that this isn't the case. The first perspective is descriptive linguistic, this consists in the description of a language with respect to its phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics without a value judgement. Descriptive linguistics has two parts, the theoretical linguistics with the phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax. The second part is about the formation of the language with the grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

The sociolinguistic perspective is "the study of languages in relation to society". Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of languages on all the aspects of the society, embracing cultural norms, expectations and contexts. It is there to study the way language is used and how language affects the society.

We shall try to understand why Africans can believe that their languages are inferior to international languages. First of all, three of the four International languages come from Europe (English, French and Portuguese), the old continent (Europe) is considered more modern for several reasons: technologies, transports, economically and even politically. To add to this, Europe had the "control" of Africa for a long period hence Europe seems to be considered by some Africans as superior. Therefore, associating Europe with a developed and more modern area makes a majority of Africans believe that everything linked to Europe is superior. The complex of inferiority felt by the Africans seems to also include those three European languages. To add to this, (as seen in the introduction), African governments say they want to promote national identity and African languages however this seems totally hypocritical as 52 of the 53 countries still have an International language as an official language and that the last change of official language was done in Rwanda where English became the third official language of the country (with Kinya-rwanda and French). This proves that the government did not promote any of the dialects and just made English an official language, this emphasized the influence and importance, which Europe still holds on Africa. We could argue that this is a way for the governments to highlight the importance of Europe however, the policy of having two International languages as official languages diminishes the importance of speaking Kinya-rwanda and could on the long term make the people stop speaking Kinya-rwanda as they would believe that it is only a secondary language whereas it is the countries "real" language and it should be promoted in order for the Rwandese to identify themselves and promote Kinya-rwanda in Africa and even in the world.

Whereas it should be the roles of the African governments and even of the African institutions to promote the African language wealth throughout the world, this is not done and it seems that stigma of both slavery and colonisation still haunts Africa and that they do not want to move ahead and prove to the new generations, that Africans are equal to the rest of the world. Another reason which we would have difficulties to believe that it is a problem however it is, is the language variety. Africa has more than 2 000 languages, with some countries such as Nigeria or Cameroon with respectively 500+ and 300+ languages. Due to the wide variety of languages present on the African soil, there is a real language competition between the African languages and this has a negative impact on the influence of these languages in the world, it diminishes the strength and legitimacy of all the African languages. This can be one of the reasons why Africans believe that their languages are inferior