11 still negotiable. Higher education, however, is much less open to such negotiations of
curriculum and medium of instruction. The language of higher education in Northwest Province is incontrovertibly English, and the curriculum followed is aligned closely with
English-language national examinations. It is important to understand this limitation on mother-tongue promotion through the
formal school system. Languages with populations of a few hundred thousand, such Bafut, Kom and Nso, stand very little chance of insertion into the Cameroonian national higher
education system; the commitment to English- or French-language curriculum at that level is too strong.
Given this limitation, is it still worthwhile to develop these smaller languages for use in primary schools? This study will show that those groups of community members who
promote local language use believe strongly that it is indeed worthwhile, regardless of the dominance of international languages in secondary and higher education.
1.5. Personal motivations for the investigation
My own interest in minority-language literacy dates back to a clumsy and ineffectual attempt in 1980 to teach a Hmong refugee to read in English, a language she did not speak.
Naïve as only an idealistic 20-year-old can be, I had no idea what I was doing wrong; but when a few years later I became involved in local language literacy work among the Huanca
Quechua people of the central Peruvian Andes, I began to understand the intimate connection between language, learning and identity.
Around this time I also became aware of the impact of official-language education systems - both formal and nonformal - on minority peoples sense of identity and their
relationship with national society. It seemed that there must be something wrong with a language policy that led people to conclude that their mother tongue was not actually a
human language.
11
Not only so, but I also witnessed the impact of introducing the written mother tongue to a people who had been repeatedly told that their culture and language were
worthless. Though these peoples language had been denigrated for 400 years by national
11
A middle-aged Quechua man made this statement in my hearing in the town of Andamarca, Peru in the early 1980s.
12 political and educational authorities, their own attachment to it quickly emerged as they
learned that it could after all be represented and used in written form just as Spanish is.
12
The true impact of sociocultural and political pressure on minority languages was further clarified to me when, upon moving from Peru to Kenya in the early 1990s, I was
stunned by the difference in language attitudes between minority language communities of the Peruvian Andes and those of sub-Saharan Africa. The stances of the formal education
system were similar, with little or no space permitted for valuing or using local languages and local knowledge in school. Still, a far greater sense of the value of the mother tongue and
local culture seemed to be the norm in the minority communities I visited across the African continent between 1993 and 2000.
The Nso, Kom and Bafut language communities of Northwest Cameroon seem to embody this phenomenon. I was struck by their positive attitude towards their languages, and
the determination of certain community members that the written mother tongue should become part of the life of the community - including the primary school. Of course the
obstacles to such an increase in use of the local languages are great, given the hegemonic position of English in the formal education system and its general prestige in the wider
national society. Yet even so, it appears that there is still space for the advocate of mother tongue to advance his or her cause in the local community.
This is how I was brought to the central questions of this study: What are the chances of establishing the written mother tongue as a viable alternative for learning and
communication? Does the environment really exist in the Bafut, Kom and Nso language communities for this to happen? If there is no such chance in these minority language
communities, where so many factors seem to favour it, then the outlook for sustained mother tongue use in less propitious circumstances around the world is indeed bleak. If however the
written mother tongue has a future in these Cameroonian communities, perhaps something may be learned there about sustaining local language use in other minority language
communities elsewhere in the world.
12
Paulston 2000:29 recognises the impact of the newly-written mother tongue on minority language communities, noting that for any linguistic minority . . . to have its own written language is a source of pride
and prestige.
13
Chapter 2. Discourse and Design
