ABSTRACT
The approximately 35 newly sovereign states in sub-Saharan Africa have been forging policies with respect to language use as part of their larger concern with governmental operations. This chapter explores language policies of the governments of sub-Saharan states as these relate to questions of ethnicity maintenance. Decisions to select so few languages out of the total potential repertory have implications both in the short term and in the longer term for interethnic relations and for the distribution of power and access to power. Many Africans have been enculturated in social systems where multiple language or dialect acquisition have been regarded as normal. In many areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the resulting repertories have included lingua francas, which have further expanded the communicative field in which individuals can perform. The first massive injection of European languages is no more than about a hundred years old. The transition to colonial administration and from that to independence has all occurred in that brief span.
