MULTILINGUALISM IN AFRICA: REALITIES, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Multilingualism in Africa is dynamic and diverse. It varies between regions and countries, rural areas and urban centers, ethnic and linguistic communities, and between generations. (Trans)national migrations and multiple language contact situations increase the complexity of multilingual realities.
In this panel, it is possible to study how communicative norms affecting co-present codes (lingua francas, vehicular languages, urban codes, etc.) are established, the phenomena of contact and code switching, as well as the role played by languages from the point of view of social indexicality and “communicative efficiency” (Ambadiang 2003). It is interesting to reflect, from theory and practice, on the multiple dimensions of African multilingualism that can be interpreted in terms of scale or scope, as well as of general adaptability, considered common to Africans, and of the use of specific languages in specific situations (Fardon and Furniss 1993).
THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS
Based on the above, we can reflect on recent analytical proposals that are articulated around concepts such as linguistic repertoires (Lüpke & Storch 2013), translingual practices (García & Wei 2014), linguistic racialization, language (dis)invention (Makoni & Pennycook 2007), language provincialization (Canut 2021). African multilingualism can also be addressed through the management of languages in the public space, the media and social networks. All this puts the focus on the local space and on speakers as situated agents of their own communicative activity, which also translates into language planning at the sub-state level (cf. W’App discussion groups on language issues among lay speakers). The aim would be to show the need for locally focused studies, including ethnographic approaches (Esene Agwara 2020), and to adapt linguistic theories, tools and methodologies to African specificities (Mufwene 2020) and perhaps even rethink them.
LINGUISTIC POLICIES AND INTER-LINGUISTIC HERARCHIES
When several languages coexist in a single space, it is most likely that their relationship is conditioned by power relations, associated with divergences of status, recognition and prestige (Bolekia Boleká 2001; Mufwene 2020; Schlumpf 2024). In particular, linguistic asymmetries materialize when official languages are pitted against non-official languages and between European/(ex)colonial languages and indigenous languages. However, the position, uses and functions of each language vary according to the specific communicative circumstances (Band 2020).
Recently, the widespread absence of African languages in the language policies of many countries has been discussed as a result of historical hegemonies and Eurocentric ideologies (Bamgbose 2000; Dambala Jillo et al. 2020). It is questionable whether it is still valid to bring the multilingualism of African societies as an argument against the official status of indigenous languages, giving them preference to European languages as unifying alternatives (Zeleza 2006: 20). It would be timely to reflect on new language policies that are less monolingual and hegemonic, bottom-up language policies (Webb 2009) and the need (or not) to introduce African languages into education systems. In addition to being related to culture, many of these issues are linked to collective identity and its relationship with individual identity, giving rise to a rethinking of the relevance of linguistic unity for a nation.
LANGUAGES IN AFRICA AND EUROCENTRISM
We understand Eurocentrism as an attitude that makes Europe the center of a worldview and thus places it at the highest level of a hierarchy in which the geographical and cultural “other” appears subordinate or inferior (Wintle 2021). In linguistic terms, this means that European languages are considered superior to African languages, which is seen in the linguistic nationalism of the colonial era and finds a certain continuity, in times of globalization, in linguistic imperialism. From a theoretical point of view, it would be interesting to reflect on anti-hegemonic discourses, which, unintentionally and often without being aware of it, can reproduce essential ideas about languages and their relation to identity and culture.
On another level, Eurocentrism also predominates in linguistics in the sense that concepts, theories and terminologies that have been created in the West are used to describe foreign sociolinguistic realities (mother tongues, dialects, native speaker, bilingualism, etc). It would be necessary to rethink such concepts from the African context.
It would be necessary to rethink such concepts from the properly African context.
Finally, Eurocentrism is also observed in denominations of linguistic areas (e.g., Francophone Africa) and in affiliations of creole languages (e.g., fá d’ambô in Equatorial Guinea as Portuguese-based creole) (Mufwene 2020: 293).
LINGUISTIC IDEOLOGIES AND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
In multiethnic contexts, complex relationships are created between languages, identities and ethnic affiliations. The need to communicate and the concern to maintain and/or make visible one’s own culture and identity do not always coincide; they can lead to conflicting circumstances and require “intercultural awareness” (Ambadiang 2003). Linguistic ideologies, attitudes and representations influence the use, valuation and intergenerational transmission of languages. In particular, heritage or indigenous languages, even if they do not have official status or serve for supra-regional communication, constitute crucial elements in individual and collective identities (Bituga-Nchama & Nvé-Ndumu 2021; Cobbinah 2020).
The cultural identity of a people is also reflected in its literary production. Outside Arabic-speaking Africa, literatures in exogenous languages continue to predominate, even though they are not the first languages of the majority of the population (Zeleza 2006). There are also, however, calls for African literatures in African languages (cf. Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1986). In this respect, comparing the efforts of linguistic communities to give visibility to their languages with the communicative (multilingual) plasticity that characterizes their members can help to refine the study of the necessarily situated conditioning factors of these attitudes, which can be ideological, technological (access to writing and dissemination), as well as symbolic and economic (language as capital).
