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The Vernacularization of African Languages after Independence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Herbert Chimhundu

Extract

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To vernacularize a language is to reduce it to a vernacular. In 1953, UNESCO defined a vernacular as the language of a group that is politically or socially dominated by a group that speaks another language. This paper argues that this domination need not be colonial or racial, and that in fact many postindependence African rulerships are more comfortable in situations that are contrived to ensure that the indigenous languages of their own countries continue to be vernacularized. The same foreign language that was used in the past by a racist colonial minority is now used by an indigenous elitist minority to keep the majority disempowered by making grassroots participation in national issues and debates difficult or impossible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 41 , Issue 161 , March 1993 , pp. 35 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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