While looking for a ref on written Ga language I came across this
phrase on a background info page of a site introducing the language:
"Even though English is the official language of Ghana, many ethnic
groups continue to use their own language."
http://www.addo.ws/language.htm
What I hear in this and quite a number of similar phrases in similar
contexts - especially from non-Africans - is a sort of implicit
assumption that the official language is what really counts and the
maternal tongues are sort of anachronisms. That this phrase appears on
a site introducing the language and culture of the Ga is a little
surprising, but not too much so.
There is a link between this sort of appraisal (I need to start noting
sourves on all of these) and policies both of donors and governments
that minimize or ignore African languages. There is sort of a
subliminal bias agaimst use of African languages that I noted in
another case ("And then there's the language problem" message #156
Dec. 2003 in which people using languages other than English at home
was described as a problem).
It is not necessarily a bias against things African, but often stems I
think from the notion that there is a tradeoff involved in languages -
you can't have both, which is fallacy #1; plus the notion that the
"modern" official languages from Europe are naturally going to replace
the indigenous languages as part of the development process - after
all, African languages are not suited for technology, science, and
complex reasoning, right? = fallacy #2.
In the world of software localization I ran across the notion that
software in the official languages should suffice for Africa, after
all, anyone likely to use a computer will have English or French,
right? Then it turned out that some software producers had the same
assumption elsewhere, for example in India ("but everyone speaks
English, don't they?") or Hawaii (where the notion of localizing in
Hawaiian language was scoffed at). We're moving past that now in many
places, but it's another part of the larger problem.
For a non IT exampple of the same phenomenon: I ran across two
references to Setswana in Botswana. The first in a business
publication stated that English is more widely used than Setswana and
the second in a more authoritative source on languages said that
Setswana is used in all domains of life for the vast majority of the
country but English is important and may dominate in certain domains.
To me the first article seemed to reflect the view of outsiders whose
interactions with a certain segment of the population give them a
certain impression, but what they published creates an arguably
mistaken impression.
Responses? There's a need to educate first of all. But foreigners will
not respect African languages unless they see them being used
seriously in domains that they see. Often they are ignorant of the
level of usage in popular culture, media, community life,
business/commerce and government -
Then I wonder about the negative effects of calling a language "the
official language of...." The irony in the case of Ghana, though, is
that English is not the official language by law, just de facto. Not
sure what to do in this case, but raising one or more major indigenous
languages to the status of "official" as some countries have done
would go a long way to countering assumptions that all that matters is
the former colonial tongue.
Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
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