French is a Black Language

[mbewane]

I’ll put this out there: I’m not too well versed in Arabic politics outside of the news I hear about the middle east every now and then. The latest move I know regarding North African countries and SS African countries in regard to alliances is Morocco vying for citizenship in ECOWAS (a move I strongly oppose for various reasons but the biggest being that Morocco has an economic/trade agreement with the EU which could open the door for the EU to dump goods in ECOWAS using Morocco as it’s “in”)

As per people wanting to remove French but not English, again, it points to the style of colonization in my opinion and the control the French still have is Francophone Africa (again, back to the CFA being pegged to the Euro). The French were direct and in your face. The English, to a lesser extent. Again, the Anglophone countries are fairing much better than their Francophone counterparts.

Now, while I do agree about promoting native languages, I recognize the burden that would be on the state. First, the language would have to be standardized in both written and spoken form. All official documents would need to be translated and you would need to create an infrastructure within society to have the local language incentivized. However, the biggest issue, I think, is in deciding which language you select as the “official” local language.

In Nigeria alone, we have over 200 languages give or take. The official language is English, but Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo are recognized as official languages due to them being the larger recognized groups ethnic. If you pick one of those 3 as the official language of Nigeria you would run into some very very heated social debates. Best thing to do is leave English as the official “neutral” language. I would imagine many other African countries face this issue of wide spread linguistic heterogeneity. In that case, it’s best to pick a “neutral” language. English and French.

Yeah I heard about the whole Morocco in Ecowas thing, good reason indeed imo to oppose it. There are other ways to boost cooperation.

Indeed I agree with all the rest, which is basically what I always say to those who something seem to be on a anti-french tip : whether we like it or not, just as english, french is a "neutral" language AMONG africans, a lingua franca (among others) for people to communicate in the most linguistically diverse continent on Earth. That's why English and French are ofiicial languages in various countries, often times alongside national languages. It would be counterproductive to decide to do without a tool that is there for you to use : it's up to africans to decide how we use french (and english, for that matter). A revolution can be led in french, just as anti-colonialism and panafricanism was. Colonization happened, there's no changing that : might as well look if we can find something we can use from it. A world language is a skill and tool that would be stupid to throw away imo. That's why i have no problem saying english, french, portuguese...etc are african languages : they are languages that are being spoken and thus shaped by africans every day.

But yeah the end goal imo should be to work on local languages, but I agree there are huge challeges ahead. Initiatives are happening here and there but yeah it's complicated. Ideally we would move towards people speaking 2 or 3 languages, among which one would be of these "neutral" languages. There are already a lot of polyglott Africans from what I understand, so speaking several languages isn't the issue : it's indeed organizing their teaching. Long road ahead.

 

[BigMan]

The reason why no one has a problem with anglophone Africa is because a lot of us are all stuck up monolingual English speakers. Plus admitting that English is also a colonial language won’t allow folks to diss Francophone Africans

 

[mbewane]

The reason why no one has a problem with anglophone Africa is because a lot of us are all stuck up monolingual English speakers. Plus admitting that English is also a colonial language won’t allow folks to diss Francophone Africans

That's what I feel is at play to some extent. Everything can and should be criticized, but obviously the very fact that the term "french-bashing" exists shows how much it happens in the anglophone world, which includes anglophone blacks. The irony of it being blacks and africans dissing fellow blacks and africans according to euro and colonialist divisions.

 

[BigMan]

That's what I feel is at play to some extent. Everything can and should be criticized, but obviously the very fact that the term "french-bashing" exists shows how much it happens in the anglophone world, which includes anglophone blacks. The irony of it being blacks and africans dissing fellow blacks and africans according to euro and colonialist divisions.

its almost like people think the english were "better" than the french when it comes to slavery and colonialism

 

[Misreeya]

I just realized : why do people discuss so much about the french language in Africa (not only in this thread), but not english? or portuguese? or arabic? the two first ones are just as european languages as french is, were both imposed by colonization as well, and the last one was also imposed by force at the detriment of local languages

There is a Difference between Portuguese, English, French vs Arabic? and you are probably wondering why?

There is no indigenous IndoEuropean language family on the African continent, besides what had been imported. However within the African continent there are multiple indigenous language families that is related to the Arabic language which is a branch of Afroasiatic. Here are a list of them.

Other widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include:

• Hausa (Chadic branch), the dominant language of northern Nigeria, Ghana, and southern Niger, spoken as a first language by over 27 million people and used as a lingua franca by another 20 million across West Africa and the Sahel[8]
• Oromo (Cushytic branch), spoken in Ethiopia and Kenya by around 33 million people total
• Amharic (Semitic branch), spoken in Ethiopia, with over 25 million native speakers in addition to millions of other Ethiopians speaking it as a second language
• Somali (Cushytic branch), spoken by 15 million people in Somalia, Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya
• Tigrinya (Semitic branch), spoken by around 6.9 million people in Eritrea and Ethiopia
• Kabyle (Berber branch), spoken by around 5 million people in Algeria.
• Central Atlas Tamazight (Berber branch), spoken by around 2.49 million people in Morocco[10]

Along with Coptic or ancient Egyptian all afroasiatic languages.

Afroasiatic languages - Wikipedia

As the other three languages is not related to any African languages, whereas Arabic to the contrast is related to other African languages. Which is different from the European counterparts.

 

[IronFist]

It's not about similarities but about regular sound laws that establish the link.
"sound law". It's a rule linkage a sound in the first language to its correspondent sound in the other language. For instance, French p equals English f as in Père versus Father, Pied versus Foot, etc.

also a it pertains to AfroAsiatic issue is deep i ask that those who are in agreement post the proto-language. [reason i ask this too]

 

[Lesfilles]

French speaker here - in most parts of western Africa it's kind of a buffer language IMO for those people with the resources. If you don't go to school, you won't learn french, so you won't be able to hold government positions or get hired by research firms, NGOs and other corporate entities, no matter how few there are. French speakers will know Houssa and can communicate with poorer locals, and the younger kids will desperately try to learn some french to increase job opportunities.

Honestly, I always thought it would be nice for black people to take up french en masse. It has a history in the southern US and it's spoken widely in western Africa. A lot of AAs have origins in Mali...every time I'm in Africa I'm happy to speak french with the locals and they appreciate it. I'm sure when they travel to the US/UK it sucks for them to see people who they look similar too but can't communicate with. But, in some countries, like Rwanda, the thought towards french is changing - they don't want to speak it anymore and are trying to shift to English.

I remember I wanted to learn Wolof...

It would serve the global black community to have a common language that's not English IMO.

 

[Civilisé]

There are Africans who speak [haitian] Creole in West Africa and Swahili in East Africa. It would be best to concentrate on those as Africans (Continental and Diaspora) than English, French, or Portuguese.

No offense friend but that's most likely impossible, these are very different languages. It's like saying Nigerian Igbos and Ghanian Twi speak Bajan creole. My bet is you met Haitian refugees in Senegal (Senegal welcomed many Haitian students after the 2010 earthquake) but certainly not a native senegalese or ivoirien.

 

[Civilisé]

I just realized : why do people discuss so much about the french language in Africa (not only in this thread)

I know you already answered, just here to validate your point. My own experience confirms what you said: one of the main reason is the French-bashing existing in the English speaking world, especially in the "intellectual" world. We are all somehow products of our language's history...and France&England have built their identity against each other for centuries. To pretend there are no consequences in the way we think would be lie.
I noticed it myself in the US: many AA and Anglo-Africans immigrants even more, have integrated this anti-French bias when it comes to politics analysis and history discussions. It's like some of them have been brain washed or are proud to have been colonized by the "Queen"... Of course those who master this art of what I call "anglo supremacism" the best are white liberals in American colleges, but this is another discussion.

Again, the Anglophone countries are fairing much better than their Francophone counterparts.

I've heard this argument so many time and I never thought it was a valid one. One because it's often used in an ideological way by scholars (these who are economically pro-liberal and anti-regulation) and two because it's really hard to compare different geographical areas. It's a too simplistic if you want. Most of the dynamic and model economies are in East Africa. I don't think they do well because they speak English or were colonized by England but because of a blend of: ethnic situation, common language/culture (esp. Swahili) and geographical situation (they are less isolated than West Africa). In other words, if East Africa were a former French colony they would do well as well.
Now if you look at W.Africa there are plenty of Anglo countries that are doing awful (economically and politically speaking) and the francophone countries are certainly not the worst in this part of Africa. People are going to tell me that Nigeria is the biggest regional economy but honestly they should do way better with all their gas and it's one of the most corrupt country in the world.
Côte-d'ivoire, which is francophone, was doing pretty well economically and politically until Gbagbo started messing things up. I mean even other West Af. were emigrating to CIV in the 80's and 90's. Many scholars used to think of CIV as an African model-country, even tho it's probably the African country France has the most interfere with.

So at the end we shouldn't put too much weight in the importance of language in the organization and economy of a country and not give too much voice to the neocolonial lectures of Africa (esp when they are made by ideologues).

 

[intruder]

This thread title is a damn sad example of our lack of pride in our own. Always trying too hard to claim shyt that's not ours. It annoys the fukk out of me when people be in aw seeing hearing myself or other blacks speak French or Portuguese or Spanish. We're all just using the slave-master's language that we've adopted

No wonder there is this sentiment among some Africans that all this pro-African movement going on with people wearing kentes is a mere trend/fad.

 

[BigMan]

This thread title is a damn sad example of our lack of pride in our own. Always trying too hard to claim shyt that's not ours. It annoys the fukk out of me when people be in aw seeing hearing myself or other blacks speak French or Portuguese or Spanish. We're all just using the slave-master's language that we've adopted

No wonder there is this sentiment among some Africans that all this pro-African movement going on with people wearing kentes is a mere trend/fad.

You nikkas need to learn to read and think ciritically

No one is in awe of you speaking creole. My mother speaks six languages alone you’re not special

 

[intruder]

You nikkas need to learn to read and think ciritically

No one is in awe of you speaking creole. My mother speaks six languages alone you’re not special

And that's the thing, tho!

Even among Haitians, many have never taken pride in Kreyol as a language until recently, ie 90s until now with the rise of famous bands like Boukman Ekperyans and Boukan Guinen who SPECIFICALLY made songs about taking pride and owning our language. That's when that talk about "kreyòl se lang manman nou" really spread out.

Growing up in Haiti I spoke kreyol at home and french in school and other environments. But my mom's family were from them aristocrat type haitians and while with them, we as children were forbidden to speak kreyol unless an adult specifically starts a conversation in kreyol. Among ourselves the children we'd be downstairs playing and we'd start speaking kreyol and my aunt would come out of nowhere on some "qu'est ce que ça veut dire??? Exprimez vous en français". In my mind id be thinking like woman, werent you the one just speaking kreyol to your friend just a minute ago??? The only people we would address in kreyol and didnt catch any heat for was the maids which were typically young women from the countryside who werent very educated and their french was limited or non existent.

And I never claimed i was special, doggy. Just saying people tent to be more impressed with hearing black people speak english, french, portuguese and spanish than they do african languages.

 

[BigMan]

And that's the thing, tho!

Even among Haitians, many have never taken pride in Kreyol as a language until recently, ie 90s until now with the rise of famous bands like Boukman Ekperyans and Boukan Guinen who SPECIFICALLY made songs about taking pride and owning our language. That's when that talk about "kreyòl se lang manman nou" really spread out.

Growing up in Haiti I spoke kreyol at home and french in school and other environments. But my mom's family were from them aristocrat type haitians and while with them, we as children were forbidden to speak kreyol unless an adult specifically starts a conversation in kreyol. Among ourselves the children we'd be downstairs playing in we'd start speaking kreyol and my aunt would come out of nowhere on some "qu'est ce que ça veut dire??? Exprimez vous en français". In my mind id be thinking like woman, werent you the one just speaking kreyol to your friend just a minute ago??? The only people we would address in kreyol and didnt catch any heat for was the maids which were typically young women from the countryside who werent very educated and their french was limited or non existent.

And I never claimed i was special, doggy. Just saying people tent to be more impressed with hearing black people speak english, french, portuguese and spanish than they do african languages.

I’m saying, you missed the point of the thread

 

[intruder]

I’m saying, you missed the point of the thread

Yes it's that most french speakers are from black countries. But the same can ALMOST say the same about English. But understand it's still not OURS.

 

[Secure Da Bag]

My bet is you met Haitian refugees in Senegal (Senegal welcomed many Haitian students after the 2010 earthquake) but certainly not a native senegalese or ivoirien.

Nah. You lost that bet. This was in 1998. And those people were native.