From: mukasa@panix.com (Michael K Mukasa)
Subject: Re: soc.culture.african.french (RE:African Languages)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 19:55:08 GMT
Distribution: soc
Organization: Panix, NYC

In <BIEM.92Dec18110752@hsun21.atr-hr.atr.co.jp> biem@atr-hr.atr.co.jp (Alain Biem) writes:


>   Our pride as being Africans certainly lead us to find attractive
>the idea of chosing an africam langage to be thaught to all african.
>Though I will support this idea, I can't help myself asking some
>questions over the ability of such a language to help us maintain our
>level in the international geo-politic system led by western countries.
> To say think simpler, there is no for example, scientific books nor
>reports written in any african language and it may take time and money
>to get them translated in a case such an africam langage was chosen.
> There is also, the writting problem. I mean, we 're now using the
>western way of writting. So, thinking of a new  Africam langage means
>thinking of  our proper way of writting. There are some examples
>throughout history of the development of African scriptures (think of
>Egyptians 'hieroglyph or Cameroon'Sultan Njoya...). But, the African
>Culture is essentially oral. Nowadays,  the powerful langages are the
>ones with their proper way of writing (Think of Japanese, Russian,
>arabic... , for example). What I want to say is that, Scripture is a

[stuff deleted]

> Alain Biem
> Advanced Telecommunications Research Labs (ATR).
> Kyoto, JAPAN

What is needed IMHO in Africa today the political will and determination
by leaders to make the tough decisions for the benefit of the continent.
I do not believe that the way a language is written (i.e the script) is as
important as how the ideas are expressed for as many people as possible to
understand.  Even languages like French, German, Arabic and Japanese
translate alot of material back and forth in between their respective
languages, because it is not so much how something is written but what is
said in the message.  So I believe if African languages are taught using
the Roman script verses Arabic one is a moot point.  What matters is how
many people understand what is said.  Written African languages are not
very technical for two reasons, I believe.
1) Because they are not widely taught (i.e number of people)
2) The languages that the technical terms are being borrowd from are
themselves just defining these new terms.

In Africa today 36 million people speak Hausa and 46 million speak
Swahili, i.e a combined total of 82 million people.
This total is grater than 
Thai-49 million
Italian-63 million
Greek-11 million
Korean-73 million 
Turkish-57million

Why can't both these languages (Hausa and Swahili) be taught in ALL
African schools?  They comprise 10% of the African TOTAL population.  If
you removed the number of people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libiya and
Egypt, the percentage would jump to 12%.  To say 12% of Africa speak one
of two languages is a significant proportion (A number just shy of the
TOTAL population of Nigeria.).
There are only three other African languages that exceed the 10 million
mark in number of speakers (Amheric 18, Igbo 17 and Yourba 19).
If the OAU had the determination and care instead of just bickering, they
would hand down recomendations that ALL nations in Africa start teaching
these languages in school.  The excuse that one language once adopted as a
national language will kill the rest is absolutely ludicrous.  Africans
speak French, English and Portugese and their indigenous languages have
not died.  In countries like Kenya nd Tanzania where Swahili is the
nationallanguage, the other languages have not died.  If anything it has
helped by increasing the spread of ideas and helping lessen the impact of
tribalism, through fostering better understanding through dialog in a
local language.
In a speach that I heard Ali Mazuri speak at he centered on East Africa. 
He gave an example of the importance of language.
He said, in Kenya to qualify for President you have to be a speaker of at
least 3 languages.  Your constituencie's, English and Swahili.
In Tanzania you have to speak at least 2 languages to be President. 
Swahili and the language of the people where you were elected (i.e your
constituency)
In Uganda TODAY you only have to be able to speak ONE language to become
President.  Because of the tribalisim, it would actually be better to only
speak English if you ran for President in Uganda today.  Imagine that,
Uganda could concievebly have a President that ONLY spoke English.  I
think Malawi has one NOW in Banda, but i could be wrong.
Do these rules apply to any other African country if you want to be President.
If they do How far have we come since colonisation????
Not Far Enough

My two cents,

Kiggundu.

p.s Sorry I could not translate into French.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african