African Languages, Development and the State PDF Download

Author: Richard Fardon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134868049
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
This shows that multilingusim does not pose for Africans the problems of communication that Europeans imagine and that the mismatch between policy statements and their pragmatic outcomes is a far more serious problem for future development

Author: Richard Fardon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134868030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
This shows that multilingusim does not pose for Africans the problems of communication that Europeans imagine and that the mismatch between policy statements and their pragmatic outcomes is a far more serious problem for future development

Author: Ericka A. Albaugh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139916777
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
How do governments in Africa make decisions about language? What does language have to do with state-building, and what impact might it have on democracy? This manuscript provides a longue durée explanation for policies toward language in Africa, taking the reader through colonial, independence, and contemporary periods. It explains the growing trend toward the use of multiple languages in education as a result of new opportunities and incentives. The opportunities incorporate ideational relationships with former colonizers as well as the work of language NGOs on the ground. The incentives relate to the current requirements of democratic institutions, and the strategies leaders devise to win elections within these constraints. By contrasting the environment faced by African leaders with that faced by European state-builders, it explains the weakness of education and limited spread of standard languages on the continent. The work combines constructivist understanding about changing preferences with realist insights about the strategies leaders employ to maintain power.

Author: Cécile B. Vigouroux
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108479332
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
By bridging the gap between linguistics and economics, this book sheds light on a range of mutually valuable topics.

Author: H. Ekkehard Wolff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108417973
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
The first global history of African linguistics as an emerging autonomous academic discipline, covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Author: Don Osborn
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 0796922497
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
With increasing numbers of computers and diffusion of the internet around the world, localisation of the technology, and the content it carries, into the many languages people speak is becoming an ever more important area for discussion and action. Localisation, simply put, includes translation and cultural adaptation of user interfaces and software applications, as well as the creation and translation of internet content in diverse languages. It is essential in making information and communication technology more accessible to the populations of the poorer countries, increasing its relevance to their lives, needs, and aspirations, and ultimately in bridging the 'digital divide'.

Author: Gerrit J. Dimmendaal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027287228
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
This advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation.

Author: Richard Fardon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032340425
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This shows that multilingusim does not pose for Africans the problems of communication that Europeans imagine and that the mismatch between policy statements and their pragmatic outcomes is a far more serious problem for future development

Author: Birgit Brock-Utne
Publisher: Symposium Books Ltd
ISBN: 1873927177
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
The theme of this book cuts across disciplines. Contributors to this volume are specialized in education and especially classroom research as well as in linguistics, most being transdisciplinary themselves. Around 65 sub-Saharan languages figure in this volume as research objects: as means of instruction, in connection with teacher training, language policy, lexical development, harmonization efforts, information technology, oral literature and deaf communities. The co-existence of these African languages with English, French and Arabic is examined as well. This wide range of languages and subjects builds on recent field work, giving new empirical evidence from 17 countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as to transnational matters like the harmonization of African transborder languages. As the Editors – a Norwegian social scientist and a Norwegian linguist, both working in Africa – have wanted to give room for African voices, the majority of contributions to this volume come from Africa.

Author: Elizabeth C. Zsiga
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1626161534
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
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 language policy and education. Through case studies ranging across the continent, the contributors consider multilingualism in the classroom as well as in domains ranging from music and film to politics and figurative language. The contributors report on the widespread devaluing and even death of indigenous languages. They also investigate how poor teacher training leads to language-related failures in education. At the same time, they demonstrate that education in a mother tongue can work, linguists can use their expertise to provoke changes in language policies, and linguistic creativity thrives in these multilingual communities.