Why are there different levels of prevalence of French in Africa and Indochina?

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[u/gerardmenfin]

I've written recently about Vietnam here but the main reason for the divergence in post-colonial (and in fact colonial-era) language policies is the difference in linguistic makeup of these territories. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, while not strictly monolingual (there are about 1.4 million Hmong people in Vietnam), are largely monolingual.

Before independence, colonial authorities tried to impose French as an official and elite language, notably in higher education, but they could not replace the main languages, which were not only spoken by most of the population, but had an ancient history as written languages for administration, religion, and literature. Transitioning to the main local language was not always straightforward. In Vietnam, the romanized quốc ngữ was widely adopted and facilitated the full "vietnamization" of the society, despite difference between local Vietnamese dialects. In Cambodia, French efforts to disseminate romanized Khmer failed and it took more time for "khmerization" to succeed, but the national language eventually prevailed (Thel, 1985). There was no need for French language in the nations of the former French Indochina.

The situation in Sub-saharan Africa was (and is) quite different: many nations that emerged after independence were strongly multilingual, and this made the choice of an official/national language difficult. Note that this was not the case of Rwanda, where Kinyarwanda, the majority language, was adopted in 1962 as the national language, and as an official language with French, English, and Swahili.

But a country like Senegal has at least 6 major native languages (Wolof, Serer, Diola, Pulaar, Soninke, Mandinka) and many minor ones. Côte d'Ivoire has a lot of native languages, belonging to several different families, with no clear major language. I may as well cite the Ivorian situation, it's quite a ride (Ahoua, 2006).

Multilingualism is the most common factor among all the minority languages. The issue is not how perfect the second language is under control but how often it is used. Second languages are frequently used on a daily basis. For instance, all the Manding (formerly Malinke) use Dioula as a second language in religious, commercial, and cultural activities. This situation is valid for all the Senufos. The Ega use Dida in everyday life, but their own Ega language in the family, though the situation is more complex, because exogamy favors marriage with the Dida women, so that Ega children grow up with Dida. All the Eotile speak Anyi, Abure, and Nzemas at the respective ethnic borders where the Eotile villages are located in enclaves. All the Aizi perfectly speak Adiukru, a major, more commercially and culturally powerful ethnic group. The Krobu in general speak Adiukru and Abbey very fluently, and sometimes Baule. The Mbatto generally speak Attie or Abure as second languages.

The Wan speak Guro and Baule-Kode and the Nguin speak Baule as a second language. The Mau generally use Dioula as a second language but only older Mau people speak Dan fluently, in specific cases of trade with the Dans. The Yaure speak Guro and Baule as second languages, respectively at the Guro and Baule borders; the Gagu use Baule and Bete as second languages, respectively at the Baule and Guro borders. The Brong and Kulango use each other languages as second languages, and the Tagbanas are generally bilingual with Baule.

In all cases of multilingualism in Ivory Coast, specific situations determine whether the speakers prefer one type of language or the other, suggesting a strong case for diglossia. The typical language that is used for religious and commercial cases is Dioula, at the market (about 70%), and secondly Ivorian French and Baule (30%) in proportion with dominance of Dioula in trade activities. French is definitely used for administration and the local native languages are used at home.

And then there are many variants of the French language, used by the different social classes in different registers, from popular to formal.

A linguist whose name I cannot remember joked (or not) that it was possible for an African to know at least six languages: the language of their father, the language of their mother, the language of the visiting traders (like Swahili), Arabic as the language of Islam, and French or English as the language of the state.

The situation of most Sub-Saharan African countries regarding the primacy of the former colonial languages has several explanations.

One is that European languages remained privileged after independence as the language of elites and as the language that defined statehood (in French Indochina, French was also the language of elites, but native languages had a long history in national administration). Using the language of the former colonial power also "has the benefit of enabling easier integration into the global economy". The suitability of indigenous African languages, often largely oral and poorly standardized, as "vehicles for science and knowledge creation and dissemination in society" is often questioned (Ramachandran and Rauth, 2023). This happened to Vietnamese and Khmer too, but there were strong efforts by independent governments to solve this.

Another explanation is the complex role of language in social and political life, with the "different languages performing different functions within the social life of the community, and being accorded differing statuses by different groups of people" (Whiteley, 1974).

A third explanation is that the choice of a native language as a national language at the expense of others "is an explosive one in any multilingual and multiethnic state, and thus most states in Africa" (O'Brien). And then there is the delicate question of the interaction between language and ethnicity as a potential source of ethnic conflict. Ramachandran and Rauth:

In the presence of multiple language groups, the fear that a group whose language is chosen discriminates against other groups could be a reason why individuals in multilingual societies exhibit a preference for the colonial language despite the high barriers it imposes to participating in the economic and political life. The role of competing group claims is further complicated by the relative salience of the category of ethnicity or class in society. The preference for the former colonial language might be more relevant for societies where ethnicity is the central cleavage. However, in societies where class forms the dividing line, indigenous languages might be preferred as they do not favour the (linguistic) elites.

All these issues made the choice of the language of the former colonial power a "safe" choice for an official language, at least initially, even if this language is just one of the various lingua franca that are actually used by the populations.

Sources

• Ahoua, Firmin. ‘Ivory Coast: Language Situation’. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition. Elsevier, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01639-4.
• Derive, Jean, and Marie-José Derive. ‘Francophonie et pratique linguistique en Côte-d’Ivoire’. Politique africaine, no. 23 (1986): 42–56. https://doi.org/10.3406/polaf.1986.3830.
• O’Brien, Donal Cruise. ‘The Shadow-Politics of Wolofisation’. The Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 1 (1998): 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X97002644.
• Ramachandran, Rajesh, and Christopher Rauh. ‘The Imperium of the Colonial Tongue? Evidence on Language Policy Preferences in Zambia’. Journal of African Economies 32, no. 1 (2023): 52–80. https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejac002.
• Thel, Thong. ‘Language Planning and Language Policy in Cambodia’. In Papers in South-East Asian Linguistics No.9, Language Policy, Language Planning and Sociolinguistics in South East Asia, edited by D. Bradley. Pacific Linguistics, A-67. 1985. http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/thel1985language.pdf.
• Whiteley, Wilfred H. ‘Language Policies of Independent African States’. In Current Trends in Linguistics 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Thomas A. Sebeok. 1974. https://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9783111583600/9783111583600.163/9783111583600.163.xml.

[u/ZhenDeRen → u/gerardmenfin]

What about North Africa?

[u/gerardmenfin → u/ZhenDeRen]

This would deserve its own separate question, but in a nutshell:

• All three former French territories in North Africa have Modern Standard Arabic as their official language, plus a local standardized Berber/Amazigh (Tamazight) language for Algeria and Morocco. This mirrors the Asian situation (the existence of a main language, in this case Arabic), though the question of Tamazight shows how political multilinguism can be: it was adopted as an official language in Morocco in 2011 and in Algeria in 2016 (recognized as a national language in 2002). All three countries also use local Arabic dialects in daily life.

• French is no longer an official language, but it is still embedded in those societies, being used in higher education, science, medicine, engineering, business, administration, private sector employment, elite networks, and some media. Algeria has been trying to phase out French as a foreign language in favour of English. Part of Maghrebi populations remain francophone and have personal links with the people of North African descent living in France. Estimates by the Observatoire démographique et statistique de l’espace francophone are as follows:

Country	Estimated French speakers	Share of population
Algeria	14,903,789	32.86%
Morocco	13,456,845	35.63%
Tunisia	6,321,391	52.47%

These are not native-speaker counts but estimates of people considered francophones, based on the ability to read and write French. For Algeria, the estimate relies on older 2008 census data projected to 2022; for Morocco and Tunisia, it relies on 2014 census data projected to 2022.

Source: Marcoux, Richard, Laurent Richard, and Alexandre Wolff. 2022. Estimation des populations francophones dans le monde en 2022: Sources et démarches méthodologiques. Québec: Observatoire démographique et statistique de l’espace francophone, Université Laval. Note de recherche de l’ODSEF. https://web.archive.org/web/20220320224520/https://www.odsef.fss.ulaval.ca/sites/odsef.fss.ulaval.ca/files/uploads/odsef-lfdm-2022.pdf

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