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A monolingual identity stretches from an idiolect to a language. A multilingual identity extends from the language of intimacy through the language of proximity to languages of regional, national and
international identification. As the layers are peeled off, a complex network of relations can be observed. In this scenario, each language is representative of an overarching culture. In this sense, each language
can be seen as the medium of more than one culture, as each culture can find expression through more than one language.
It will thus be seen that the context and ethos of the multilingual child is distinctly different from that of a monolingual child. But even in a multilingual society, due to the emulation of developed societies
where mono-models hold sway, artificially dominant monolingual settings are created through educational structures, resulting in the disintegration of societies. It is a pity that just when Western
societies have been compelled to recognize the emerging multilingualism and multiculturalism of certain groups, multilingual and multicultural developing societies are forgetting their traditions.
References
Baker, C. 1985. Aspects of Bilingualism in Wales. Clevedon Multilingual Matters. Baker, C. ed. 1988. Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon Multilingual
Matters. Fishman, J. A. ed. 1978.
Preface’. In Advances in the Study of Societal Multilingualism. The Hague, Mouton.
Gardner; Lambert.1972. Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, Mass., Newbury House.
Haugen, E. 1953. The Norwegian Language in America: A study in Bilingual Behaviour, 2 vols. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Pres.
McNamara, J. 1966. Bilingualism and Primary Education. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. Meena, A. 1992. Interview in Literature Alive. February.
Nettlesford, Rev. 1991. Inner and Outer Space: A View from the Caribbean. In: K. Vatsyayan ed., Concepts of Space; Ancient and Modern. Abhiman Prakasthan, IGNCA.
5
Title of a book by Marcel de Clerck, published by the UNESCO Institute for Education and reflecting the wealth of experience and situations that this veteran had to deal with during the thirty years that he spent with UNESCO engaged in
literacy work. To him in particular are due the philosophy and method of the operational seminar.
5. THE DISCOURSE ON MOTHER TONGUES AND NATIONAL LANGUAGES
Adama Ouane
The studies carried out and, in particular, the discussions and talks that took place reviewed experience and practice relating to language policy, language building and language management in national,
regional and subregional contexts. In addition, a transnational viewpoint emerged concerning these questions among those professionally involved and experts from several regions, which was the aim of
the dialogue. The harmonious dialogue nearly became a cacophony on occasions; and this musical image expresses in fact the incomprehension engendered by the different discourses, an incomprehension that
was quickly reduced to a problem of terminology.
Did you say terminology?
The discourse about reality and the reality of the discourse occasionally make experience opaque and mutual understanding difficult. This is made even worse by the effort to clarify concepts that is frequently made in
the hope of arriving at a common understanding of facts and situations. This internal viewpoint does not, however, say anything about the contexts in which those situations actually exist. This activity is characterized
by language being treated to some extent as a thing or, as Bourdieu says, by the tendency to consider language as an autonomous and independent object that can be subjected to a strictly linguistic analysis, ignoring the
fact that each particular element is the product of a complex interplay of social and historical circumstances and of educational policies. In addition to this detachment from any context, there is a current hypothesis that
language should be non-indexical, which is to say that it has no meaning in itself, being only a vehicle for beliefs, thought and social institutions. In the view of Bourdieu, the isolation of linguistic analysis from social
circumstances occurs as much in the structural approach as in Chomsky’s generative theory Bourdieu, 1991. These observations have their counterparts in the more general analysis of literacy and of the relationship of
written to oral language, a relationship which for a long time was restricted to one of dependenceautonomy. This is now rejected by a growing number of authors who argue rather for an integrative convergent model
and are thus opposed to the idea of a great divide or to the idea of a continuum. One consequence of this epistemology is the perception of the fragmented reality of literacy and the discovery of the various ‘literacies’
Street 1984 or forms of literacy practice.
5
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The discourse about reality
Does the discourse reflect reality or obscure it? In other words, what degree of consistency is there between discourseintention and actachievement? Do the words used say anything about the intention do they,
consciously or unconsciously, fulfil another function which is not always stated? Examination of the examples discussed shows that there is a gap between declarations and achievements and that there is a
tendency, reflected in the discourse, to mask reality.
The uncertainty of national policies is all reflected in the semantics of the discourse, which wavers between several terms that are intended to capture shades of meaning, with the aim of giving a precise
idea of the present state of development of language policy. As this is a process that is in perpetual motion or a state of becoming, the terms that describe it are often ambiguous, either deliberately or by
default.
Geography, the number of speakers, the place, the relationship to or the distance from the seat of power, the ethnic group, the community round about and its members, the functions and fields of use,
and social status are decisive factors in the typology of the terms that are used. The following terms have been encountered: mother tongues; national languages; State languages; global languages;
international languages; languages adopted by a nation nationalized languages; languages of national groups; official languages; semi-official languages; associate official languages; official national
languages; official State languages; associate official national language; working languages; majority languages; minority languages; ethnic languages; native languages; vernacular
languages; linguae francae; languages of general communication; widely spoken languages; community languages; languages of a group; languages of the community round about; languages
of the immediate community; dialects, and so on.
Even if semantics and formal discourse analysis in the purest linguistic tradition can make it possible to find one’s way round this list of terms, or words, the use made of them by official experts or
individuals is most disconcerting. There is not even unanimity among the various users about the meaning of
mother tongue’. To avoid family feuds and the splits inherited from patri- or matrilineal traditions, Louis-Jean Calvet 1987, pp. 95-106 suggests keeping to the neutral-looking expression
first language’, taking his cue from the promoters of bi- or multilingual education.
Instead of being defined in genetic’ or
biological’ terms, the mother tongue is defined with reference to a particular linguistic community and having regard to how and when the language was
acquired. It therefore comes down to the first linguistic tool or tools depending on whether languages were learned simultaneously or at different times used by an ethnic community to which the person
belongs, provided that the person has already acquired it. The mother tongue is thus the language through which the socialization of the individual occurs within the smallest community, usually the
family. In any event, this idea avoids socio- and psycho-linguistic phenomena such as language loss and attrition, switching and shifting, dual first language, intelligibility between languages of claimed status
and the reflection of status in the claimed mother tongue Davies, 1986, p. 9. The expression
vernacular
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6
Vernacular writing, education and language were celebrated and encouraged as they tend to promote a kind of education that corresponds to the people’s social life and culture and not to the standards of the educational institutions Street, 1993.
Pattanayak also stresses the authenticity of the vernacular. Nevertheless, many scholars living in dominated societies in developing countries feel that this serious attempt to introduce an endogenous element is suspect. In addition, the etymology
of the word, which relates to domestic slaves according to the first editions of many reference dictionaries, makes it quite unacceptable to most African scholars.
7
In his article, Obanya uses this expression in a different way to designate languages whose areas of expansion, or isoglosses, roughly coincide with national boundaries. Examples of this are Somali, Malagasy and KirundiKiruwanda.
language’ provoked reactions ranging from enthusiasm to indignant rejection.
6
A discussion of these two questions and a particular view of them are provided by Pattanayak in the preceding section.
There is a similar controversy about the national language NL’. Some consider that there can be
only one national language Indonesia, the United Republic of Tanzania or a very limited number Bolivia, India, Nigeria, Senegal whereas others feel that all the nation’s languages should enjoy this
status Mali, Niger, these languages being called by some languages of national groups’ Ethiopia.
Pattanayak settles the matter by asserting that all languages are national and, with a touch of irony, saying that no language is anti-national. In short, there is already a shadow over the semantic dualism that arises
from the use of the word ‘national’ to express a geographical meaning the extent of a nation and a symbolic power the unity of the nation. These two aspects appear in the definition that Fasold provides
of the mother tongue, which has to meet the following criteria:
it must serve as a symbol of national unity and identity; it must be used in everyday life;
it must be spoken fluently and with ease by a sizable proportion of the population; it must the chief candidate for such a role because there is no alternative nationalist language in the
country; it must be acceptable as a symbol of authenticity;
it must be seen as a link with the glorious past Fasold, 1984, p. 74. This definition leans very much in the direction of one single national language since there is no
alternative to symbolize the nation and serve it. The reality is nevertheless quite different. Further confusion is caused by the situation that prevails in Africa on account of the presence and
domination of external colonial languages English, French and Portuguese, since these are often referred to as national languages. Calling them by this name is not in accordance with any of the criteria
mentioned. None of the ordinary people in Africa are proficient in the colonial languages. These languages are thus not widespread nationally and cannot therefore claim to embody the national identity
and still less promote national unity. This is perhaps the ambiguity that the expression ‘nationalized languages’
7
aims to dissipate, these being languages that, for historical reasons, have had national status on account of their presence, their role and their influence in a country. The coexistence of national
languages with an international language, sometimes called a widely spoken language to disguise its intrusion on the national scene and the resulting cultural take-over and also to weaken its domination by
depoliticizing its name, in every case creates a situation that tends to deprive the expression
national language’ of its symbolic substance, since in contact with the international language a national language
loses all its power.
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In Wolff’s contribution, the example of Niger, which could equally well be that of Mali, Senegal and other countries with a similar socio-linguistic set-up, is forcefully described. In Wolff’s view, in the
context of Niger, the status of national language means that: 1 a proportion of the speakers of the language live more or less permanently on the territory of Niger
and are, generally, citizens of Niger; 2 The language is used, within certain time-limits and a restricted range, on radio and television
essentially for news, occasionally for advertisements; 3 the language is or might be used in the basic education provided in the secondary sectors of
education such as: a
experimental schools which represent only 1.6 per cent of all primary schools; b
non-formal literacy campaigns covering only between 1 and 2 per cent of the target population;
4 the language may be used in post-literacy activities, i.e. in the monthly or bi-monthly newspapers of the village presses the newspaper Ganga is distributed throughout the country, with a circulation
of over 1,500 copies in each of the two major languages, Hausa and Zarma; 5 or the language is absent from public life and its speakers are expected to make use of the official
language, i.e. French which hardly 10 per cent of the population can use correctly for matters of public affairs Wolff, 1993, see Chap. 16 in this volume.
In response to the first version of this summary, Brann objected that the research group simplified the position of the colonial languages in Africa. In his view, the appropriation and adaptation of these
languages form a continuum which may transform them into mother tongues or local languages such as pidgin on the west coast or into community or national languages such as Ivorian French. The
research group nevertheless holds the view that the unsympathetic attitude shown towards these variants that have resulted from adaptation, and the narrow circle of those who speak the ‘pure’ forms of these
languages make them instruments of discrimination in spite of their monopoly status in education.
The same attitude prevails regarding conferral of the status of Official language’. Some people
consider that one language alone can enjoy this distinction although, in places, qualifications are introduced through the use of terms such as
semi-official’ or associate’ language India, Nigeria, or
language of official use’ Aymará and Quechua in Peru so as to express the extent to which the languages are permitted and to show their limits. It should be pointed out that this distinction is found
not only at national level but also regionally Quechua being the official language of fourteen regions in Peru. This example is typical of federal structures such as are found in India and Nigeria where the idea
of State languages plays a decisive role. It should also be mentioned that other authors still, such as Fyle, completely reject the idea of official language, which they describe as merely a label, and opt for
the functional modelling of languages, laying stress on the daily use of a particular language at national level. Abdulaziz draws our attention to the debate about the interesting dichotomy between national
languages and official languages. In his opinion,
the national language is normally the language which identifies the State and is the basis of national culture and unity. It may or may not be used or only partly used in the administrative, legal,
commercial and educational systems of a country Y
Official languages are those that are used in the
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8
Term used by C. Brann 1990, p. 4.
modern sectors of the State including legislative, judicial, commercial and educational areas Abdulaziz-Mkilifi, 1972, p. 169.
Similarly, the notions of majority and minority languages are relative. A majority language in one country may be a minority language in another. In absolute terms, any language may be a majority
language in one situation and a minority language in another. Even if one were to adopt just the number of speakers as a criterion, the importance of this number in any particular country depends on its
proportion to what demographers call
the mother population’ or universe. There is clearly a significant difference between a linguistic minority in relation to the population of a given country and the speakers
of a minority language, i.e. a minor language which is not a standard or national language in any country Coulmas, 1984; Bamgbose, 1984.
Minorities nevertheless generally account for between 40 and 60 per cent of the total population of most African States. Of the 410 languages found in Nigeria, about 390 are minority languages and their
speakers number between 20 and 30 million. The attention of the political authorities has been mostly concentrated on the three
decamillionaire’
8
languages Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba and on the large number of
millionaire’ languages. As Pattanayak reminds us in his contribution, India is a country of linguistic minorities. There is therefore no critical numerical threshold. In any event, as Fyle states see chap. 9
in world terms, a language with even some 200,000 speakers or so is by no means a small language. In Africa, given the high demographic concentration of the speakers, 90 per cent of the total population of
any state could be reached by devoting development efforts to languages with more than 50,000 speakers. As for the residue, as Fyle calls them, some groups are so small that they hardly feature in national
communication at all. The other, larger, groups must be examined in the light of language trends to determine which should be included in the pattern of national communication.
In its discussions, the research group was of the opinion that the word ‘minority’ was to be avoided as it had an adverse connotation that was transferred to the groups concerned, highlighting the
discrimination shown towards them and the stigmatization and marginalization of their languages and revealing how long this exclusion had lasted. For the same reason, Mackey Mackey and Siguan, 1987
rejected the use of the technical relationship term
minority’ in speaking about ethnic groups and their languages. In his attempt to map linguistic identity, Peter Sutton supports the use of the word
code’ to designate any language or its variant. Given the inflated use of words such as dialect, sociolect, ethnolect,
ergolect, chthonolect mother tongue, demolect community language, politicolect official language or indeed any other sublect or register that is socially, territorially, individually, politically or otherwise
distributed, the neutral word ‘code’ has the advantage of indicating that the use of two and more variants is not limited to bilinguals alone and even occurs within one language Sutton, 1991, pp. 137-8. In short,
having a peripheral status is a complex phenomenon. The status certainly exists but the perception of it by those concerned, both at the centre and at the periphery, may be very ambiguous.
To be convinced of this, it is enough to glance at the conclusions drawn by from the linguistic map of the world. He estimates that there are some 6,200 languages distributed among some 170 sovereign
States. More than half of these languages are spoken in Asia, Oceania and the Pacific, a third in Africa, a fifth in America and only a tenth in Europe and the Middle East. Four languages from Europe and the
Middle East nevertheless serve as official languages in 125 countries. Only 1 per cent of the world’s languages has more than 500,000 speakers. Half of the world’s languages are concentrated in only seven
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sovereign States Mackey, 1993, pp. 12-3. As has been seen above and as the illustrative studies in this publication confirm, the situation as regards the countries directly concerned by the present study shows
the same diversity.
Furthermore, it is clear that, on account of its status and its use, a language may combine several of these attributes, which gives rise to real difficulties in making a clear distinction between the different
categories. In addition, every language exists in many different forms, even if, in practice, no speaker employs two codes or registers simultaneously. A multilingual person acts in the same way. In the
contexts studied, there were not only a multitude of languages but also a multitude of dialects and characters. In many cases, a social multilingualism comes into being in addition to individual
multilingualism. In such a situation, particular attention ought to be devoted to the dynamics of the languages.
In their contributions, Fyle and Obanya draw attention to the surveys carried out in Africa on the determination of community languages. In every multilingual context, whatever its density, one or more
languages are used as the dominant and general means of communication within a district, province or other administrative division. These are the languages referred to as community languages. In a 1979
study, the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa BREDA listed 159 such languages in 45 African countries, and estimated their total number at about 200. The graduated strategies of bilingualism
are based on this concept, which is the cornerstone of linguistic stratification.
To define the means of communication at community level is no easy task, however. Use is made of several notions such as language of the locality or language of the immediate ambient community.
In Nigeria, the expression occupies a central place in the educational formulae that are officially promulgated. Akinnaso clearly illustrates the ambiguity surrounding it and the difficulty of applying it
in practice. He argues that, as the term is left undefined, conventional wisdom and clarifications provided by the authorities indicate that the phrase could refer to the dominant language of a village, town, city
or state or simply the dominant language of the community or the neighbourhood in which a school is situated. Thus Kalabari, a minority language spoken in Rivers State, could be used as the medium of
instruction in a school located in some part of Ibadan a predominantly Yoruba-speaking metropolis in Oyo State if Kalabari speakers are the dominant speakers in the school’s neighbourhood. However, these
two interpretations are often in conflict, the conflict usually being resolved in favour of the dominant language of the wider community of the village, town, city or state Akinnaso, 1993, p. 261. Mali had
to face the same difficulty in the choice of languages for entry to education in mother tongues, as part of its experiment in the use of mother tongues in education. Social mobility and the mixing of ethnic groups
make this exercise more complex still, even in areas that are apparently compact from the linguistic point of view.
However, according to Fyle, the unpopularity of the term community language’ and its limited
acceptance are due not to any uncertainty on the part of African states about the importance of these languages but to the fact that no or almost no African state has really managed to make room for them
in its education system or allowed them to make their way into the school curricula, and use has not been made of them in any significant way in literacy work. He further suggests that mother tongue and
community language should be combined into one single category in order to cut costs and eliminate languages with only a few thousand speakers. He maintains that even compact and apparently
monolingual rural communities would need the community language more than the mother tongue s. In addition, the adoption of a community language would facilitate class teaching in urban and semi-
