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Dear all,
I had a most educating interaction with Professor
Kwesi Prah (of the Centre for Advanced Study of African Societies, Cape Town,
South Africa) a while ago.
He is of the view (which I largely share) that the
myth of Africa being a Tower of Babel is just that. He also points
out that there has been an overcount of African languages, mostly a consequence
of the early efforts of competing missionaries who classified dialects of
the same language as distinct entities. Ever since, this myth has been a
convenient alibi of African policy makers to do little or nothing about
harnessing the diverse genius of our peoples for education and
development. We need to destroy this myth for the sake of the
survival and prosperity of our peoples.
Fortunately, there is a lot out
there for patriotic Africans to turn the tide. For example, the
Comparative Bantu On Line Dictionary
Project (CBOLD) hosted at UC Berkeley is
a handy resource for African linguists and activists, especially those who
recognize the importance of language as a tool of liberation. To
access the project Web site, point your browser at http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/CBOLD/
Even those of us whose native tongues isn't in
theBantu family can borrow a leaf from this comparative approach to study those
indigenous languages we are closely associated with. (The Summer Institute
of Linguistics has done a seminal survey of the Ma'di-Moru language family,
which includes my mother tongue. I will post the Internet link some
day.)
Vukoni
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