Metaglossia: The Translation World

Les émissions de la Radiodiffusion télévision du Burkina (RTB2 Centre) ont été lancées officiellement, le dimanche 20 janvier 2013, à Ouagadougou. (...)

la mise en route de la RTB2-Centre qui ambitionne de se positionner dans les informations en langues nationales (mooré, dioula et fulfuldé), selon le comité d’organisation de cette 7e rentrée RTB. En ce qui concerne l’équipe qui va piloter cette nouvelle télévision, le président du comité de mise en route de la RTB2-Centre, Pascal Y. Thiombiano, a précisé qu’elle se compose de professionnels issus de l’Institut des sciences et techniques de l’information et de la communication (ISTIC), de l’Ecole nationale d’administration et de magistrature (ENAM) et de l’ex-radio rurale.

....Ngugi was arrested and imprisoned without charge at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison at the end of the year, December 31, 1977. An account of those experiences is to be found in his memoir, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1982). It was at Kamiti Maximum Prison that Ngugi made the decision to abandon English as his primary language of creative writing and committed himself to writing in Gikuyu, his mother tongue. In prison, and following that decision, he wrote, on toilet paper, the novel, Caitani Mutharabaini (1981) translated into English as Devil on the Cross, (1982)....

Ngugi has continued to write prolifically, publishing, in 2006, what some have described as his crowning achievement, Wizard of the Crow, an English translation of the Gikuyu language novel, Murogi wa Kagogo. Ngugi’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages and they continue to be the subject of books, critical monographs, and dissertations.

Paralleling his academic and literary life has been his role in the production of literature, providing, as an editor, a platform for other people’s voices. He has edited the following literary journals: Penpoint (1963-64); Zuka (1965 -1970); Ghala (guest editor for one issue, 1964?); and Mutiiri (1992-)...

Giffen and Yakong hope people in northern Ghana will have better access to essential services...

Langues nationales et apports cognitifs
Par Dr. Seynabou Diop | Seneweb.com | Vendredi 05 octobre, 2012 20:55 | Consulté 533 fois | 4 commentaires Favoris
| -Imprimer| Envoyer
Contribution | Mots Clés: Langues nationales, Education, Senegal
Partager

source: Seneweb.com

Monsieur le Premier Ministre Abdoul Mbaye, lors de sa déclaration de politique générale devant les élus du peuple, le 10 Septembre dernier, a bien souligné que l’un des problèmes dont souffre le secteur éducatif au Sénégal est « la faible intégration des modèles alternatifs d’éducation». Je ne peux que me réjouir, en tant qu’éducatrice, de cette observation pertinente, à ce niveau du gouvernement, et à l’occasion d’un discours aussi important. Mais, comme l’a si bien suggéré Monsieur le Premier Ministre, le plaidoyer de l’intégration des langues nationales à l’école, comme «modèle alternatif d’éducation», a pendant longtemps existé sans grands résultats.

Pour un modèle alternatif d’éducation avec les langues nationales, au moins trois arguments pédagogiques fondamentaux existent : l’argument identitaire, l’argument de soutien au développement psychomoteur, socio-émotionnel et cognitif de l’enfant, et enfin, l’argument de pourvoyeurs de contenus aux autres disciplines académiques. Les termes, "langues maternelles", "langues de terroirs" ou "langues parentales", seront utilisées ici d’une manière interchangeable pour référer aux différentes langues nationales parlées par les enfants chez eux, et qui peuvent correspondre aux langues d’enseignement à l’école. Elles se réfèrent donc aux six langues nationales retenues officiellement en 1978 : Wolof, Seereer, Pulaar, Diola, Mandinka, et Soninké (Programme Décennal de l’Education et de la Formation, 2000). Il faut dire aussi qu’à ces trois arguments, qui ne sont développés ici que brièvement, pour introduire l’aspect cognitif des langues, s’ajoutent beaucoup d’autres, aussi plausibles, pour montrer l’importance des langues nationales à l’école.

L’argument identitaire, le plus souvent avancé, met l’accent sur le besoin d’utiliser les langues nationales à l’école pour permettre aux élèves, dès la petite enfance, de s’approprier leur identité, ce qui leur permettra de mieux connaître leur culture et leur histoire. Cet argument constitue l’un des principaux motifs utilisés par les éducateurs, les politiques et les parents pour l’intégration des langues maternelles à l’école. Ainsi, il constitue le tronc commun de beaucoup de documents d’orientation de politiques générales avancées depuis les états généraux de l’éducation et de la formation de 1981 (PDEF, 2000). Le deuxième argument, l’argument du développement psychomoteur, socio- émotionnel et cognitif, soutient que l’enseignement des langues nationales supporte un développement équilibré de l’enfant. Le psychomoteur relève de tout ce qui ressort des fonctions psychiques et motrices travaillant ensemble, par exemple, dans la bonne coordination des yeux et de la main de l’enfant pour copier une information au tableau. Le socio-émotionnel se définit comme étant tout ce qui ressort des émotions, de l’affect et de la sensibilité de l’enfant par rapport à son milieu. Le cognitif relève de la faculté de connaître et des stratégies mises en place pour faciliter ce processus.

Indigenous language interpreting services will be boosted with the extension of a national accreditation system.

The federal government has announced it will allocate $286,000 to National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI).

The organisation will use the money to create testing materials in indigenous languages spoken in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

This boost will see extra languages covered as well as para-professional interpreters step up to the next level to receive professional accreditation.

There are more than 500 interpreters in Australia who help Aboriginal people overcome language barriers because English is sometimes their second, third or even fourth language.

Many interpreters work with people interacting with the court and health systems.

A parliamentary inquiry on indigenous languages released its report in September recommending extra funds to improve accreditation.

Limpopo Premier, Cassel Mathale, has encouraged South Africans to speak their languages with pride as part of their heritage.

He was addressing provincial Heritage Day celebrations in Polokwane.

Mathale says speaking one's indigenous language is a heritage that everyone needs to be proud of.

“We must promote our languages by speaking them more often without any shame and apologizing to anybody. We must never undermine the cultures of others but we must learn and appreciate them,” says Mathale.

He says that South Africans are one people under diverse cultures and must live together in peace and harmony.

IMPLEMENTATION of eurocentric knowledge has been to the detriment and annihilation of African cultures and identities.

Its adverse effect have resulted in high failure rate by African students who study at former white universities in a country whose medium of instruction is English.

African students have to adjust to new cultural dynamics when they enter SA’s former white institutions.

During the recent commemoration of Steve Biko’s legacy, newspapers carried articles lamenting the failure to implement indigenous languages in mainstream instructions and further queried the ignorance by white people who do not want to learn African languages — yet they talk of reconciliation and social cohesion.

Obviously most white people harbour a huge fear of Africans and thus would prefer the perpetual subjugation of Africans, their culture and language. This is why many dislike African languages because they have been indoctrinated to believe that their languages, culture and skin colour is superior.

The defence is that African languages do not have economic value in the world stage. This argument is riddled with errors. English as a language has been exported to many countries without its economic value.

Perhaps the problem lies with Africans themselves who find it difficult to rise from colonisation. Many are eager to perpetuate colonial mentalities and practices. Colonisation has paralysed Africans’ thinking.

Chris Ngoforo is the founder of Rooti Creations UK, a company that produces an educational, cultural and language-specific range of Rooti dolls aimed at Africans and their diaspora. Each doll is programmed to speak over 20 phrases in four different languages from a specific African geographic region. For example, the Nigerian-origin Nina doll, can speak over 20 phrases in four of the ethnic languages of Nigeria – Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and Ibibio. The Shiroh doll can speak in Swahili, Kikuyu, Somali and Luganda of Kenya, Somalia and Uganda.

Ama is originally from Ghana and can speak Twi, Ga, Ewe and Krobo. She wants to be a doctor someday.
How we made it in Africa asks Ngoforo about the inspiration, business opportunities and meaning behind the Rooti dolls.
What was the inspiration for the creation of these Rooti Dolls?
Over the years my wife and I have found it extremely hard finding real black dolls that can truly connect with our little daughters. The dolls out there in the market are nothing close to the real image of a black child in terms of features and other attributes. They are either too thin, too light or chiseled-faced and even the complexions of most of the dolls are kind of whitewashed. The unfortunate effect of this stereotypical misrepresentation is a case of low self-esteem among black children who have been directly or indirectly made to believe less in themselves as a black child. They have been made to believe that you have to look like a white doll to be accepted as beautiful or even good.

For centuries the language has defined what knowledge and truth are and by embracing it Africa will always be in a unequal position.

OUR COVERAGE

Common sense fails our students

How transformative is our practice of "academic development" in South Africa? I pose the question in the light of several recent articles in the Mail & Guardian on the subject, most recently by Chrissie Boughey and Penny Niven ("Common sense fails our students", August 10 to 17).

I was briefly involved in academic development in the early 1990s after returning from Spain, where I had been teaching English as a foreign language during the 1980s.

In a post-fascist society that had been politically isolated from Western Europe, Spain was trying to make up for lost time and insert itself into a global system in which computer and English language skills were seen as the basic prerequisites for development and progress.

Of course, that was only one ­element of the subjugation of Spain to various requirements for ­integration into the European Economic Community. Having followed the recipe for economic success, the Spanish economy today lies in ruins as large sectors of national industry have been closed because of their inability to compete with powerful German and French competitors.

However, this slow deterioration occurred after my return to South Africa in 1991. At the time I experienced a sense of déjà vu on discovering that, when I started teaching at post-school level, the prevailing concerns and priorities in education were much the same as they had been in Spain. Without proficiency in English and computer skills, no education was complete as South Africa prepared for its debut in the theatre of neoliberalism.

A pedagogical base
After 18 months of working on a pilot project in which nearly all the students were isiXhosa speakers and the teachers non-isiXhosa speakers, it occurred to me that it would probably have been more worthwhile to spend the same amount of time and money developing good study materials and glossaries in isiXhosa to establish a sound pedagogical base.

Despite the intentions of "enhancing the effectiveness of teaching and learning", which seems to be an ubiquitous tag line in academic development, what we practitioners were doing was perpetuating a relationship of power and a ­division between those with and without proficiency in English while contributing to the growth of a vast and lucrative global industry that is premised on the assumption that Western forms of knowledge constitute the "truth".

(August 2012) The 7th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL 7) was held at the University of Buea in Cameroon 20-24 August. The theme of this year’s event was “Language description and documentation for development, education and the preservation of cultural heritage in Africa.” WOCAL, which takes place every three years, began in 1994 as an international gathering focused on a broad range of topics in African linguistics with a strong emphasis on the participation of African scholars. An opening keynote address was provided by Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, Cameroon’s Minister of Higher Education.

More than five hundred researchers from around the world were expected to attend WOCAL 7, with more than two hundred presenting research, including twenty-nine staff of SIL and CABTAL,* a regional partner of SIL. SIL presentations of note include those by SIL President Dr. John Watters,
Dr. Mary Pearce, Dr. Ken Olson and Dr. Keith Snider.

Watters’ presentation, “Tone in Western Ejagham (Etung): Lexical tone on verb forms with segmental affixes,” built on his two previous studies of tone in the language. Ejagham is spoken in Nigeria as well as Cameroon, where Watters worked for many years.

Pearce and a group of linguists, students and members of local language committees from Chad led three poster sessions. The posters focused on features of Chadian languages and were developed by participants in a series of “Discover Your Language” courses. Many of the poster creators are members of the Chadian organization FAPLG,** which promotes language development in approximately twenty-five language communities of the Guéra region.

Olson and Snider both presented research on the speech sounds of African languages. Olson’s presentation was entitled “The geographic distribution of bilabial trills in Africa.” There is evidence that the distribution of the speech sound known as the bilabial trill is very similar to the distribution of several other linguistic features noted by previous researchers. These features are common in a certain area of Central Africa with a high level of contact between language groups. Snider shared his findings from “Vowel length in Chumburung: An instrumental study.” Chumburung is a Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana.

CABTAL linguists Ndokobai Dadak and Jacquis Kongne Welaze, who both hold advanced degrees from the University of Yaoundé, presented research on grammatical features of the languages they work with. Dadak’s presentation, “Reduplication in Mafa and Cuvok, two Central Chadic languages of Cameroon,” examined the form, syntax and function of reduplication in these two languages, with observations on the role that this feature plays in the categorization of word classes. Dadak is a mother-tongue speaker of Mafa. Welaze’s presentation, “Documenting the information structure of the Tunen language,” described the significance of deviations from the language’s standard word order and the impact of those variations on information structure. Welaze’s conclusions were based on natural narrative, hortatory and expository texts collected in collaboration with native and fluent speakers of the Toboagn dialect of Tunen spoken in Ndikinimeki, Cameroon.

Submitted on 2012/08/18 at 7:10 am How nice if our National Broadcasting Commission would take a cue from this and “do something before (the languages all) die” (apologies J J Rawlings.) Let one te...

In many African countries, dozens of different languages are spoken by different ethnic groups. And while each country often has a European language as its "official" language, most people don't even begin to understand it. That presents a problem for aid groups, trying to share information.

For Hillary Clinton’s latest trip to Africa, she probably didn’t need to take along many translators or interpreters.

Maybe just a French speaker. Of the nine countries on her itinerary, seven are considered Anglophone and two Francophone.

That, of course, does not tell the whole story — far from it. In one of those Anglophone countries, Nigeria, more than 500 languages are spoken.

It’s mainly the elite who speak these colonial languages. In Uganda, it’s English, in Senegal, French, in Mozambique, Portuguese. But most people — especially outside the big cities — don’t understand those languages.

The South African government took a step towards promoting the equitable use of the country's 11 official languages when Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile tabled the Use of Official Languages Bill in Parliament in Cape Town on Tuesday.

The Bill was approved without dissent and will now go to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.

It is aimed at ensuring that the government elevates the status of indigenous languages, in particular, and promotes their use. The Bill will also make a contribution towards the national effort to promote multilingualism.

"This Bill is not aimed at diminishing the significance and use of any of the South African official languages. Through this Bill, we will promote equitable use of all official languages," Mashatile said.

"In the long run, we will endeavor to equally promote the use of sign language."

It also means South Africans will have an opportunity to use the official languages of their choice in interacting with government.

"This, we believe, will strengthen efforts to ensure equal access to government services and programmes and contribute to the goal of building an empowered citizenry," he said.

Read more: http://www.southafrica.info/services/languages-080812.htm#ixzz230V1MagY

Google has ramped up its operations significantly in sub-Saharan Africa over the past few years and currently has offices in six countries across the region.

Joseph Mucheru, Google Kenya country manager
Some of the services Google has rolled out in the region include: the Google Apps Supporting Programs (GASP), which facilitate online learning through Google; Wazi WiFi in Kenya that provides high-speed wireless internet at a low-cost; and a TV White Spaces pilot in South Africa, which covers large areas with broadband.
In addition, YouTube is available in a number of African languages such as East Africa’s Swahili, Ethiopia’s Amharic and South Africa’s IsiZulu and Afrikaans. Google has even launched a virtual Amharic keyboard which allows Ethiopians to search for and upload videos containing Ethiopic text, eliminating a real barrier to broadcasting themselves.
Google Trader, a free classifieds service that allows users to buy and sell products and search for jobs, has been launched in a number of African countries. Users without internet access can also post items and search for deals by sending an SMS to a special short code.
Others Google services include the recently launched Gmail SMS, Maps and Google+ in Swahili, Amharic, Afrikaans and IsiZulu. Google Baraza (which means “council” in Swahili) allows people in countries across the continent to share knowledge with each other by asking questions and posting answers.
Google country manager for Kenya, Joseph Mucheru, told How we made it in Africa that the technology giant is serious about Africa, and its strategy is to get users online by developing an accessible, relevant, vibrant and self-sufficient internet ecosystem. Mucheru pointed out that while the cost of access to internet bandwidth is falling, it still remains high for many Africans.

Initiation à la grammaire tem Chapitre 3 : Le nom Leçon 6 : Les propriétés du marqueur de genre
Le nom commun tem est composé au minimum d’un radical et d’un affixe. L’affixe représente deux sortes de marqueur : un marqueur de genre et un marqueur de pluriel. Le marqueur de genre présente quatre propriétés : son schème phonématique, son schème accentuel, sa position par rapport au radical et sa sensibilité par rapport au contexte d’insertion.
1. LE SCHÈME PHONÉMATIQUE

Les quatre marqueurs de genre s’expriment à travers trois schèmes phonématiques : le schème V, le schème CV et le schème C. Les schèmes V et CV sont représentés, chacun, par un marqueur de genre. Le schème C, quant à lui, est représenté par deux marqueurs de genre.

En structure de base, comme le montrent les schèmes de marqueurs, on peut trouver des structures à syllabe finale ouverte (finissant par V) ou à syllabe finale fermée (VC). En structure de surface la langue reformate la structure de base afin de la transformer en structure à syllabes ouvertes exclusivement. Un radical de schème CV par exemple peut accueillir un marqueur de schème C. La structure /CVC/ qui en découle est acceptable comme structure de base. Mais en réalisation de surface, /CVC/ doit devenir [CVCV]. Au stade de la réalisation le schème C du marqueur se voit attribuer une voyelle épenthétique. Les deux marqueurs de schème C sont /ɖ/ et /k/. Au marqueur /ɖ/ il est affecté la voyelle de soutien [ɛ] et au marqueur /k/, la voyelle de soutien [ʋ]. En surface donc, les marqueurs /ɖ/ et /k/ deviennent [ɖɛ] et [kʋ], respectivement. Les voyelles [ɛ] et [ʋ] sont des soutiens apportées à la forme suffixée. En position de préfixe la voyelle de soutien est unique pour les deux marqueurs ; elle est [ɩ]. Donc en préfixe et en surface /ɖ/ et /k/ deviennent [ɖɩ] et [kɩ], respectivement.

As far as nine-year-old Jesse Iriah is concerned, she is not a Nigerian. And she may be right. She was born in New York to a Yoruba mother and Edo father.  She speaks only English.  She knows a lit...

The Technical Committee on Drafting the Zambian Constitution has extended the period for the informal public consultative process on the first draft constitution by fifty days from 1st August to 19th September, 2012.
Constitution Conventions Coordinator Rueben Lifuka tells QFM News in a statement that the extension is merely for the benefit of members of the public that relying on the translated popular version of the first draft constitution to receive and study the document before submitting their comments.
Mr Lifuka said this because the Committee has encountered some delays in producing and translating a popular version of the first draft constitution into seven major local languages.
He says the translated versions are in the process of being printed and will be available for distribution to members of the public soon.
Mr Lifuka adds that the Technical Committee will work with relevant stakeholders in the constitution making process to ensure that copies of the translated popular version are distributed to all the ten provinces.

At the flag off ceremony of the 2012 edition of ‘Read Africa’ project, an initiative stemming from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), UBA Foundation, held at the bank’s headquarters in Lagos, the renowned Kenyan writer, Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who was the guest speaker at the event lamented the total neglect of African languages in affairs of Africans and African states. He frowned at the preference among Africans for European languages and culture. Flaying what he referred to as the enslavement of Africa by Africans, the literary icon expressed the view that Africa will not be free through the mechanical development of material forces, but it is the hand of African and his brain that will set into motion and implement the dialectics of liberation of the continent from self-imposed mental slavery.
Ngugi, who flew into Nigeria from California, United States of America, spoke with CHIJIOKE IREMEKA on the need to give a face-lift to the dwindling reading culture in Nigeria and Africa. He also called on Africa to take its place and secure its base through the promotion of its languages, literatures and culture. The author of Weep Not Child was pained by what he termed ‘criminality,’ raising Africans that speak European languages but do not speak African languages, adding that it amounts to empowerment for an African child, when he speaks African languages as well as foreign languages.
Ngugi called for linguistic power sharing in African, just as he extolled Nigerian literary giants — Prof. Chinua Achebe, Prof. Wole Soyinka and JP Clark, among others, describing them as the sources of imaginations for all African writers.

Amid ongoing negotiations over Egypt's new constitution, Maspero Copts United – a Coptic-Christian revolutionary movement – announced its rejection of recent proposals to make Islamic Law "the sole source" of Egyptian legislation.
"We will not approve a constitution that abolishes the civil state and encourages discrimination," the group declared on its official Facebook page on Wednesday.

The movement is calling on all Coptic-Christians to take part in a protest outside Cairo's Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiya on Friday at noon. Protesters will call on Coptic Bishop Bakhomios, who is currently acting as interim pope, to withdraw all church representatives from Egypt's Constituent Assembly – tasked with drafting a new national charter – "after their failure to preserve constitutional articles and allowing Egypt to be turned into a religious state," according to the group's statement.

A final decision has yet to be taken regarding the constitution, yet Salafist parties – members of which adhere to an ultra-conservative brand of Islam – have stepped up efforts to impose strict Islamic tenets on Egypt's new constitution. The two leading Salafist parties, the Nour and Asala parties, both seek to change the first three articles of Egypt's 1971 national charter. While they have been successful in their attempts to change the first article, they failed to change the second or third articles due to pressure from Egypt's Al-Azhar institution and liberal forces.

On Article 1, the Constituent Assembly’s basic components committee approved the Salafist request to add the word 'consultative' (a literal translation of the Arabic shura) to the article. Mohamed Emara, an Islamist thinker and committee chairman, said the revised article now reads: "The Arab Republic of Egypt is democratic, consultative, constitutional and modern, based on the separation of powers and the principle of citizenship." It adds that Egypt "is part of the Arab and Islamic nation, with strong ties to the African continent."

Previously, Article 1 had read: "The Arab Republic of Egypt is a democratic state based on citizenship. The Egyptian people are part of the Arab nation and work for the realisation of its comprehensive unity."

On Article 2, Salafist parties insisted on removing the word 'principles' on the grounds that it provides judges with a means of circumventing implementation of Islamic Law. They also believe that Islamic Law, not merely its principles, should be the main source of legislation to ensure that the hudood, or the ordinances of God – such as amputating the hands of thieves – be applied.

Activists rallied Thursday morning in Nouakchott to demand the formalization of Soninke, Fulani and Wolof, all African languages the government of Mauritania has marginalized since Independence in 1960.

Militants from the TouchePas movement gathered in front of the Presidential Palace to bring the question of African languages to the forefront at the Estates General on Education currently in session.

TouchesPas activists in Mauritania denoucing de-Africanization
In order to achieve its long-desired goal of complete Arabization of all populations - including indigenous Blacks - the government of Mauritania begun early on to use language as an effective instrument of de-Africanization

By 1966, Mauritania had already passed Arabization Acts No65-025 and 65-026, making the Arabic language compulsory in Secondary Schools. African students took to the streets at the news of the legislation but their revolt was brutally repressed by the authorities, who went even farther by purging nonconforming Black Africans officials out of the administration.

The second round of forced Arabization came in 1979. Only, this time around the street protests resulted in a compromise in which the 3 African languages were officially recognized and a committee was set up to study the insertion of these languages into the educational system within 10 years.
However, when the term of the panel ended in 1989, the government was in the midst of a genocide campaign against blacks. Killing and expelling Afro-Mauritanians out of the country were the main priorities. The recommendations of the educatinal committee on African language were never known.

Read more: http://mjem.org/4/post/2012/07/apartheid-the-mauritanian-way-no-african-languages-allowed.html

Conférence Ouest - Africaine des universitaires sur la Recherche Comparative
Mardi, 17 Juillet 2012 05:06 Louckman ADEGBINDIN

La promotion des langues nationales au cœur des échanges

A l’initiative de l’institut d’enseignement supérieur Sonou d’Afrique en partenariat avec les universités sœurs de la sous-région, se tient depuis hier à Porto-Novo une conférence sous-régionale des universitaires sur la promotion des langues nationales..
Plus d’une centaine de participants tous des universitaires venus de plusieurs pays de la sous-région prennent part à cette grande rencontre dont le thème principal porte sur la « quête pour le développement et l’intégration ouest-africaine avec les langues facteurs déterminants ». Ainsi, pendant trois jours, ces participants auront droit à une cinquantaine de communications avec des experts sociolinguistes.

Tout autour du monde, apparaissent des militants des langues qui font la preuve que mes médias électroniques peuvent jouer un rôle pour mobiliser et encourager la prochaine génération de locuteurs de langues autochtones et menacées de disparition.

A quoi sert la linguistique en Afrique?
1er champ de recherche: Identification et description des langues congolaises

Mes premières recherches post-doctorales étaient centrées autour de la question lancinante de la multiplicité des langues dans notre pays en particuliers, en Afrique sub-saharienne en général.

Combien de langues existe-t-il au Congo? Question cruciale, du fait que les législateurs trouvent là un argument massue pour ne pas aborder le problème du choix de ou des langue(s) officielles du pays; et que les populations elles-mêmes ne savent pas faire la différence entre langue et variété ou dialecte d'une langue.

Les linguistes eux-mêmes n'aident en rien à la clarification du problème. Pour une population globale estimée à 700 M d'habitants, l'Afrique possède, suivant les auteurs, entre 700 et 3000 langues (pour un peu plus de 6000 au monde). Le très sérieux Ethnologue (SIL, 2009) nous donne le tableau suivant:

....

Il apparaît donc que l'Afrique, avec 12,2% de la population mondiale, utilise 30,5% des langues du monde; tandis que 26,1% de cette population vivant en Europe n'utilise que 3,4% des langues de notre continent.

Bulawayo 2012 Festival organisers have indicated that the African language will not be used in the short story competition for this year whose deadline is July 31, 2012. Both Shona and Ndebele are excluded from the annual writing feast.

Shona is accommodated in the WIN Global Arts Trust Short Story Writing Competition whose deadline is Friday July 20, 2012. The 2012 www.goldenbaobab.org short story writing competition for children’s stories has been in English with a deadline of June 24, 2012.

The competitions in short story writing would seem to use more of English than the African language. It is possible too that in Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Italian- Africa, etc., the writing will be more dominant in the external language – known in linguistic parlance as languages of wider communication (LWC) or lingua francae.

Irele Amuta, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa’Thiongo, among many African writers, have argued at one time or another, for the use of the African language in writing African poetry, drama, short stories and novels. Some of these authors have been more famous through writing in an LWC! The manner in which competition writing sticks to the medium of English in Zimbabwe might be indicative of the limited success that has been associated with writing in the African language!

It is not necessary to go through all the arguments for the use of the African language, but it is disturbing that the trend is more toward English than the African language in the writing of stories in 2012.The concern should be addressed to Ndebele which would seem not to have been accommodated in writings for2012.

The dearth of works in Ndebele writing affecting Intwasa could be linked to a variety of reasons in addition to justification for Ndebele exclusion offered by Intwasa. Intwasa insists that Ndebele could not be competed for in Bulawayo – the presumed seat of professional Ndebele writers; if Ndebele cannot be written in its own backyard then there is a cause for absolute concern because potential Ndebele writers, like the Bulawayo industrial potential, have located to Harare.

We live in a global village where we move a lot, travel a lot and rely on almost standardized knowledge, does it really matter what language we use to interact with each other and to convey our tho...