Last week's China-Africa summit in Beijing covered a lot of items in a rapidly changing relationship. Interesting to note that African languages did not escape mention (as they often due in discussions of development dominated by economics and politics).
In this case (see article appended below) the mention is in the context of discussion of education and relates to the teaching of African languages in Chinese universities. It will be interesting to see what other dynamics might develop in the wake of this. I've been given to think that one strategic angle in the development of African languages will be the relationship with the Chinese language as it develops in the inevitably growing interaction between China and African countries. I come at this from a personal angle beginning with a brief exchange with a Chinese in Bambara in Segou, Mali in 1985 (he and his brother had a kind of small carry out place) - it was the only language we had in common. It was one of the things that got me started on thinking about the relative roles of languages in interactions among diverse peoples. Some years later while in Bamako I worked briefly on a Chinese-Bambara wordlist mainly for my wife (though we ended up in Niger instead, so nothing came of that). Back in the 1980s I mentioned to friends in Mali and Guinea that it would be ideal if one of their children studied Chinese as a foreign language - German, Russian, these are important but Chinese was destined to become much more important when their kids were grown. I don't think anyone paid much heed. The issue then or now is not that Chinese becomes the new or an additional linguistic preoccupation of Africans - pushing indigenous African languages into relative insignificance - but how to access Chinese. Can one develop Chinese language learning materials in African languages for instance - which in some or many cases might make a lot more sense. Chinese and Bambara for instance have a number of superficial similarities and it has always seemed to me that learning one from the other would be a lot easier and more productive for native speakers than to work via a third language like French or English. It also goes deeper than the superficial aspects like being segmental languages, having tones, using postpositions, etc. First I think a lot would be lost in translation passing via a third language. Second, from my brief study of Chinese, I remarked at one point that some features of Chinese that were awkward to explain in English were automatically apparent to me from study of Bambara in particular. This sort of thing makes a difference to a language learner but also probably to the way tne native speaker sees his/her own language. So what are the strategic issues? First whether, as Chinese universities and/or development programs adopt/adapt or develop learning materials, to what extent will they work directly with the African languages. Second, the reverse, to what extent will materials for learning Chinese be developed in/using African languages? Both of these are important not only for the quality of materials and learning but also for the relevance of African languages in this growing relationship and beyond. This sort of dynamic between Chinese and African languages could have a very interesting fallout for development of other materials in African languages. I'm thinking about a description of new national language materials for primary schools in Senegal as being straitjacketed in literal translations from French - could active translation and materials development with Chinese bring new energy and insights into approaches for African language materials? Ultimately the issue for the languages of any world region is IMO not how they relate to languages of other regions, but how they define and see themselves and their own frame(s) of reference. It is not necessary in principle to use another language to define one's own, though perspectives from other languages may help. So, in the case of African languages there is discussion of vernacular language literature, monolingual dictionaries etc., and these have their own dynamic and purpose (and they are of course complemented translation, bilingual dictionaries, etc.). However, African languages have been for so long defined through European languages that it may seem that that is the natural order of things. The extent to which Chinese language can provide not so much a counterweight as a fresh perspective is one that would seem to have great potential benefits for work in and use of African languages (and by extension, development, education and culture). Anyway, these are some thoughts... Don --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "d_z_o" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The following item from the People's Daily online was seen at http://english.people.com.cn/200611/06/eng20061106_318578.html ... DZO Action plan outlines closer China-Africa cooperation in education UPDATED: 08:07, November 06, 2006 The Chinese government will establish more Confucius Institutes in African countries to meet the locals' needs in Chinese language teaching and will encourage Chinese universities to teach African languages, says an action plan adopted on Sunday by China and 48 African countries attending a two-day gathering in Beijing. The Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi in Kenya's capital, the first of its kind in Africa, was inaugurated last December as a nonprofit organization specializing in Chinese language teaching and cultural communication. Confucius Institutes have been set up over the past year in South Africa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe while some other African countries are seeking to have similar institutions established at their universities and colleges. In September, the Office of the Chinese Language Council International signed a letter of intent with Cairo University to jointly set up a Confucius Institute. Statistics from China's Ministry of Education show at least 8, 000 African students are studying Chinese and the number is still on the rise. Nearly 120 schools in 16 African countries had opened Chinese courses by July 1, 2005. China has sent 200 teachers to Africa to meet the growing demand of African students who wish to speak good Chinese, which will help them find jobs as tour guides for the increasing number of Chinese tourists or at Chinese-invested companies. China has also assisted African countries including Cameroon, Egypt and Mauritius in building linguistic labs for Chinese language learning and provided Chinese textbooks. Closer ties with China have made Chinese language increasingly popular in many African countries. Yet due to limited resources, universities often have to restrict the number of students taking Chinese courses, said Isaac Mbeche, principal of University of Nairobi's College of Humanities and Social Sciences and dean of the Confucius Institute. In China, only a few leading universities, including Beijing University and the Beijing Foreign Studies University, teach African languages, but increasing exchanges with Africa in recent years have boosted the demand from the locals, particularly engineering and medical professionals working in Africa and business people who wish to invest in African countries. The action plan also spells out China's decision to help African countries set up 100 rural schools in the coming three years and increase the number of scholarships for African students in China to 4,000 a year by 2009 from the present 2,000. The Chinese government has also vowed to provide annual training for a number of educational officials as well as heads and leading teachers of universities, primary, secondary and vocational schools in Africa, according to the document endorsed at the two-day Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the largest gathering between Chinese and African leaders that concluded Sunday afternoon. "The two sides resolved to encourage more exchanges and closer cooperation between institutions of higher learning of the two sides, take steps to ensure the effectiveness of the bilateral student exchange programs, and carry out consultation on concluding agreements on mutual accreditation of academic degrees, " the document says. 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