ABSTRACT

Summary: Language policies in West Africa are contrasted with the East African region in which Swahili plays a unique role as the national language in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, and is used alongside English for some official purposes. In the light of the complex, multilingual and multi-ethnic situation in most developing African nations, the choice of local languages identified for language policy tends to be a compromise solution in reaction to the logistical and economic impossibility of providing education in every mother tongue. Yet even the compromise solution of choosing major ethnic languages, which serve as first or second languages of wider communication, is fraught with problems. In particular, current policies to introduce or consolidate the place of major African languages in education are hampered by the colonial language legacy, since English, French or Portuguese remains the target language of the educational system. This creates an imbalance in language policy with the status and function of the official language having a detrimental effect on current attempts to make local languages play a more dynamic role in curriculum development. It is argued that the successful integration of local languages into the educational system depends ultimately on greater government commitment to using these languages in areas of national life still monopolized by the official language.