West African Languages : Medium and Message
Indigenous knowledge in Africa, and the world over, is expressed in language, and usually in an "indigenous" language - in short, the mother tongue of inhabitants of the locality, or a lingua franca in regular usage by them. Are these lan...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/02/1089547/west-african-languages-medium-message http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10809 |
| Summary: | Indigenous knowledge in Africa, and the
world over, is expressed in language, and usually in an
"indigenous" language - in short, the mother
tongue of inhabitants of the locality, or a lingua franca in
regular usage by them. Are these languages simply a neutral
medium? Are they just instrumental "vehicles" for
the expression of local knowledge and daily life? Or do the
languages themselves play some role, by their very structure
and usage, in what is thought and known? The examples in
this Note are principally drawn from Hausa, the second most
widespread tongue in Africa and a member of the
"Chadic" group of languages. It is principally
spoken in northern Nigeria and central Niger, but is used as
well as in several other countries of the region. The
patterns are nonetheless roughly representative of a host of
western and central African language traditions. |
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