anglo-phone and franco-phone influences on the African continent can directly be attributed to colonialism–and subsequently, ‘colonial language’. However, lumping Kiswahili into this category raises a few questions. Was it actively used as a language of assimilation in its infancy? my ansser would be negative since it sprung up as a ‘language of Trade’ NOT colonialism. following colonial language logic one would have to assume that a colonial power would want it’s proper language, and not some hybrid to be the lingua franca. If Vasco Da Gama, and the Persian sultans had intentions of fully assimilating the occupied territory and it’s peoples, then I’d imagine that they wouldn’t want a baturdized(sp) version of their National language(s) to spoken by the locals. the evidence of portuguese, Arabic, and/or Persian involvement in actively teaching their respective languages to the locals (subjects?) is lacking, while the evidence of intermingling–as well as intermarriages–of cultures brought on by trade (including slaves) abounds.

you could very well argue that Kiswahili is a language borne through pure capitalism. A unique characteristic in and of itself when compared to other languages.

As far as the preservation of lesser known/spoken African languages (and other languages in general), the future looks somber. but in my estimation most of these languages will assimilate into relative, larger languages. for example most bantu languages are redundant in my opinion. the Nilotic languages of the Maasai and Rendile tribes are so similar that the distinction between the two tribes can seldom be made by reference to their respective lanuages. this can be said of most other tribal dialects in Africa. what we are seeing now is the amalgamation of quasi-disparate languages. not a loss, but a net gain. this is the way it was before and during the first intra-continental African migration of the diaspora.

Funniest quote of the week!

Quit hating LOLCATZ, the STILLZ RULE!

I think we should all learn like 4 languages each!

I was interested in particular by your observations on just who should be doing the preserving of endangered languages: “Why should I concern myself with the impending extinction of, say, Kurrama?” Indeed. Not because Kurrama is somehow less valuable than any other language, but because Kurrama is no more valuable than any other language… all languages merit protection, but all of them can’t be saved; it’s a conundrum.

On the one hand, if the speakers of the language don’t wish to preserve the language, no external party has (or should have) the right to force them to do so; on the other hand, the loss of a language is a loss to science and humanity in general. (Imagine if Pirahã had died out!)

There is a paper I’ve been meaning to get my hands on by the late great Peter Ladefoged which pointed out that directing funds that could be used for development to language revitalization is morally questionable. A life is worth more than a language.

But of course these are just extreme examples. The reality is fuzzy and drenched with human motivations, passions, politics, and everything else. In some cases, perhaps many, maybe even most, I would guess that speakers of dying languages are eager to save them, and accept the help of outside experts. It can be done with proper social and legal respect. But after having read a fair amount about revitalization efforts all over the world, my impression is that it’s very difficult to generalize in a textbook manner about how to navigate the political realities of a particular language community. (Techniques for actually _doing_ preservation work, once it’s been decided that preservation should happen, however, have been described in a pretty impressive literature already — googling Leanne Hinton will lead to some excellent introductions to that topic.)

Sorry for rambling on… I think I might end up squeezing another blog post out of the thoughts your post has raised. ☺