Using language to strike the right chord (in advertising)

April 16, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on BizCommunity.com on 16 April 2009
By Refilwe Tsimatsima

When it comes to advertising, I have always been driven by the philosophy that we should, at all times, speak with respect to the people who will be shelling out money to buy the brands and services we tout.
And if your target is the South African masses, not only should you speak with respect, but your advertising should also play a role in promoting the values and aspirations of black people. It sounds obvious, and yet almost 15 years after the fall of the old regime, we’re still neglecting mother tongue communication, and perpetuating old stereotypes about black people.

As a first world industry firmly rooted within a mainly third world environment, we don’t always succeed in truly understanding the headspace of the lower and middle income consumers we target.

So how do we begin to do this? One way is to tell a story, and to tell it in the right language. I understand the fragmented nature of our languages, so which do you choose? But there are various types of SA language that are emerging or have emerged. There’s SA English, as you’ll hear on the SABC 3 ad breaks: “Be back now now”. There’s what I’ll call the modern vernacular, which uses English and mother tongue, such as in the Redds Phola communication. There’s the pure vernacular and finally, the ever popular tsotsi-taal. You get to choose which to use, depending on what age your target group is, and what their motivations are.

Telling a story is one of the most powerful means of communicating with this market. South Africa has a highly evolved ‘talk’ culture. Stories are our way of passing culture from one generation to another. They are also a way to pass on values. And our stories aren’t passive. Africans gesticulate and punctuate their storytelling with clicks, hand-slapping and body gestures. Narratives have great historical relevance to this market, not only in South Africa but on the continent in general.

A 30” ad can take the same form as a story, albeit in shorthand. Like music or literature, advertising should take people through the same highs and lows as an unforgettable story. The African narrative is not complex, and is therefore ideal for advertising purposes. It has clear vulnerable or hostile characters, and on most occasions, it ends with a lesson and the triumph of the human spirit. Brand communications should convey the idea that people can always be growing and evolving.

Despite narrative being so central to who we are, there are nonetheless few good ads out there which tell the South African story. Some brands however, have got it right. Think of the Halls “Free Your Throat” commercial, where a flying saucer tries to abduct a very large woman, but its tractor beam struggles to lift her weight. A woman watching puts a Halls in her mouth, and tells the aliens to “Voetsek”. Throughout the ad, everyday South African characters describe the event in their own colourful way.

There’s also the commercial for Knorr with Robertsons, which uses the idea of cooking rivalry that’s so prevalent in most black communities. The storyline is about a township lady who can’t help but chuckle at her take away food rivals who will do anything to get customers to buy from them. What they are not aware of is her secret – Knorr with Robertsons – which makes food taste real good, making her food a real crowd puller. And SABC 1 has the right idea in its positioning of being “Mzanzi’s official storyteller” – how that has been translated, some might say is open to discussion.

Use the right lingo
Getting the story right is one thing, we also need to tell it in the right language. There is such richness and substance in the mother tongue of African cultures, that it cannot possibly be substituted with a quick English translation. As advertisers however, we still hold fast to the conviction that people, especially those in the metropolitan and large urban areas, have shrugged off the languages of their childhoods in favour of English.

We’ve silently agreed that English is the language of choice for advertising, and have convinced ourselves that people hear and understand us, especially those who live outside the cities. But when did we all start speaking English? When did mother tongue become redundant, especially on television? (Radio is often chosen as the mother tongue medium, while TV, its glamorous sister, is the English vehicle.)

To not speak to your market in their mother tongue not only defeats the very purpose of the communications geared at them, but also has our mothers and grandmothers up in arms because our mother tongues are being relegated to the past. We need to make a change. A solution could be to have a dedicated department within agencies for linguists or translators, especially if the bulk of your business commands that you know and understand the black consumer. It’s a high call (which it shouldn’t be), especially when English is so convenient and to the point, but something needs to give.

Because language is important. Just think of the local dramas on SABC 1 and 2, like Generations, Mhuvango and Death of a Queen, which all have a huge mass market following. The success of these local dramas can be attributed to the storyline, content and relevance, but beyond that, the fact that they’re in the vernacular, or have vernacular translations, contributes greatly to their appeal.

As advertisers, we should understand that while parents want their children to progress and be successful, they don’t want this to be at the expense of culture. People like musician HHP are going all out to reinstate the importance of mother tongue. His Tswana hip-hop is a breath of fresh air, an example we advertisers should try to emulate in our respective fields.

Some might wonder whether mother tongue can be aspirational. I would say yes, it can be. Mother tongue in music for example, can be both ‘sexy’ and ‘asiprational’. I do not see why it cannot fit equally well therefore, with the premium cues or sexiness of your ad or brand, depending on the target market demographics and mindset. Already, we have a choice of which type of vernacular to use (street, tsotsi and so on). Everything else which makes your brand premium or sexy will come into play with complimentary creative expressions.

We must speak the language of our markets. This doesn’t mean writing a catchphrase in township lingo, or translating an English ad into the vernacular. Rather, it means we should capture the true essence of our market with original copy in the vernacular, with those elements that are distinctly African, which might just breathe new life into and elevate your brand.

In this way, consumers will be more disposed to actually listen to the flood of messages with which we constantly bombard them.

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Bilingualism: The Process – The Need – Types – Behaviour – Attitude

April 11, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Point Blank on 11 April 2009
By Usmang Salle Leinyui

1. INTRODUCTION:

Bilingualism is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that has received much scholarly attention, not only because of its importance in communications but also because of political and demographic considerations that have led many sociologists to brand some languages as major and others as minor in multiliguistic settings. This classification forces African languages into subordinate positions on the grounds that only a few of them have been codified, and fewer still are used in instruction; hence the superiority of European languages in Cameroon, where the term “bilingualism” immediately brings to mind a mastery of English and French. In this wise, handling the topic “bilingualism” becomes a difficult task to the African mind as it has to grapple with the decision whether or not to consider local tongues in the study.

On the other hand, the definition of the term has also been a subject of much debate. The dimension of this debate is clearly shown by two definitions which could best be considered as being polarised: while Bloomfield defines bilingualism as “a native – like control of two languages”, Diebold gives a minimal definition when he uses the term “incipient bilingualism” to mean “the initial stages of contact between two languages”. These two definitions imply that we are forced, in studying bilingualislm, to consider it as something entirely relative because the point at which the leaner of a second language becomes bilingual is either arbitrary or difficult to determine.

It goes without saying, however, that sociolinguists are interested in all languages. In addition, speakers of a particular speech community are always made up of many groups; with the speech of the members of each group reflecting their age, place of origin, professional interests, and educational background, among others. This renders it difficult for one speaker to internalise all the variants; thus the difficulty in determining how perfect language use by a speaker is. It is on the basis of these two considerations that in its attempt to discuss the notion of bilingualism, this paper will include both local and foreign languages; and consider bilingualism as the alternate use of two languages (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). Given the complexity of the Cameroonian context, a bilingual in this paper will refer to (1) a speaker of a national language plus an official language, (2) a speaker of two official languages, and (3) a speaker of two national languages.

Furthermore, the paper will, among others, attempt to examine bilingualism mannerisms and attitudes towards it.

2. BILINGUALISLM AS A PROCESS:

To understand the process of bilingualism, it should first be understood that human beings inherit the ability to speak, though they do not inherit the ability to speak a particular language. A child therefore learns to speak the language of those who bring it up from infancy. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica points out that these, in most cases, are its biological parents, especially the mother. But one’s first language is acquired from the environment and learning. Adopted infants, whatever their race and whatever the language of their actual parents, acquire the language of the adoptive parents who raise them just as if they had their own children.

The learning of a second and any subsequently acquired language is quite a different matter. Except in case where the child’s parents / foster parents are bilingual, or from different linguistic backgrounds, learning a second language becomes either a deliberate activity or one imposed on the child by extraneous social, political or religious factors acting on him.

3. DETERMINANTS OF THE NEED FOR BILINGUALISM

At both the individual and societal levels, the need for bilingualism might variously arise from the following reasons:

4. Geographical Proximity:

Geographical proximity of two communities naturally leads to the need for communication among their members for purposes of trade as no community, it is usually said, is an island. Since language might pose as a barrier to effective communication, members of the two communities each learn the other’s language. This inevitably leads to bilingualism. Furthermore, this proximity occasions exogamous marriages leading to the creation of bilingual families.

5. Historical Factors:

Historical events such as conquests and colonialism made the newcomers wield much influence in all spheres of life. Since “the most powerful groups in any society are able to force their language upon the less powerful” (Romaine, 1955:23), all official transactions were done in the foreign language. This is evident in most African countries where colonial masters bequeathed their language as “official” languages in a multilingual sub – Saharan Africa. With her historical contortions, Cameroon ended up with two foreign languages as official languages, which are learnt in schools.

6. Migration:

Either collective or individual migrants fleeing from war or searching individual attainment have settled in foreign linguistic communities. For purposes of communication and job hunting, they have been compelled to learn the languages of host communities, thus becoming bilingual.

7. Religion:

Some religions like Islam consider the language of their sacred scriptures pure and holy. As such, clerics in such religions have to learn the language in which the sacred books were originally written.

8. Public / International Relations:

In multilingual countries like Cameroon and Nigeria, need soon arises for citizens to interact at the national level, implying the inevitability of a lingua franca. Whereas some countries have adopted African languages along European ones for communication purposes, others have maintained those of their colonial masters, which must be taught in schools. Nigeria, for instance, has Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo as well as English to facilitate personal relationship within the country. Similarly, relations between countries have also become indispensable, demanding of politicians, traders and diplomats a mastery of Languages of Wider Communication (LWD). This has necessitated the elaboration of many language teaching programmes within countries. In Cameroon, programmes exist for the teaching of English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and even Chinese.

9. TYPES OF BILINGUALISLM:

Though bilingualism may be classified according to the pairing up of the languages spoken, Weinreich (1963) discussed three types bilingualism in terms of the ways in which it was thought that the concepts of a language were encoded in the individual’s brain (Romaine, 1995). The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, however, identifies two main types, which have adopted here. These are:

a) Coordinate Bilingualism:

In this type, the person learns the languages in separate environments, and words of the two languages are kept separate with each word having its own specific meaning. An instance of this is seen in a Cameroonian child learning English at school. This may also be referred to as subtractive bilingualism.

b) Compound Bilingualism:

Here, the person learns the two languages in the same context where they are used concurrently, so that there is a fused representation of the languages in the brain. This is the case when a child is brought up by bilingual parents, or those from two different linguistic backgrounds. This is additive in nature.

It is worthy of note that the above classification has given rise to several models of bilingual education programmes. Larsen and Long (1994) distinguish two main types:

i. The model devised to help students continue to grow in their first language while acquiring a second language, and

ii. The immersion programme permitting native speakers to receive all of their initial education in a second language. After early grades, more and more content courses are taught in the target language.

10. BILINGUAL BEHAVIOUR

Bilingual people are known to show some of the following dominant traits, which are themselves subject to different interpretations.

a) Interference:

This occurs in a case where a speaker consciously or inadvertently brings in pronunciation, sentence formation and vocabulary of the source language while using a target language. Ruke – Dravina has argued that interference is always present in bilingualism, especially when the two languages are closer in their phonological, syntactic and morphological features. It affects pronunciation as can be seen when Francophone students pronounce the “ch” as “chicken” as “sh”, and might include whole sentences syntactically as in * “John is come here” for “John has come here”. This occurs in the intralingual stage when Francophones misapply rules binding the use of auxiliaries in English.

b) Code-switching:

This occurs when a speaker drops into his target language a word or phrase from his source language. This sometimes makes up for inadequacies, especially stylistic, in the first language. This can be seen when the Franco-English bilingual wishes his guests “ Bon appetit”, an expression considered absurd by users of English.

In Cameroon code-switching may result more often than not from language group influence or occasional lapses which speakers want to fill. It may also be prompted by the bureaucratic influence of the dominant language. Hence, most civil servants prefer “dossiers” to “files”; and gendarmes have a habit of asking for “identities”.

c) Translation:

Since a bilingual person masters two mutually incomprehensible languages, he becomes a translator. The problem with translation is that any translated version must lose something of the author’s original intent. Especially in poetry, the translation is sometimes said to be a better work than the original and, in such cases, one is actually dealing with a new, though derived, work and not just a translation. Hence, the justification of the Italian epigram: “Traduttore traditore” (The translator is a traitor).

11. ATTITUDES TOWARDS BILINGUALISM:

Many writers have examined various attitudes towards bilingualism in multilingual situations. It has been agreed that in the final analysis, some language groups end up viewing bilingualism with suspicion or contempt. These negative attitudes are based on one or more of the following reasons:

(a) Linguistic Basis:

Monolinguals often consider bilinguals as proud. For the most part, language purists view certain bilingual behaviours like code-switching and interference as impure admixtures and detest them because they lead eventually to language shift and eventual death of minority languages, especially as relexification is often a threat to the structural integrity and maintenance of the minority languages. This happens to be true if,, after introducing certain structures into a target language, initiators of these structures maintain them; thus creating pidgins, Creoles, hybrid or mixed languages. According to Romaine (1995), these substratum interferences result from imperfect group learning during language shift. It can be found when a group of speakers shifting to a target language fail or refuse to learn the new language perfectly. From this, one can validly contend that what is commonly referred to as “Francanglais” qualifies for substratum interference which, allowed to grow, threatens the structural integrity of Cameroonian English, considering that most of those perpetuating it cannot express themselves in grammatically acceptable structures.

(b) Political basis:

Conflicts involving language are usually not about languages but about fundamental inequalities between groups which happen to speak different languages. A language can become or be made focus of loyalty for a minority community that thinks itself suppressed, persecuted or subjected to discrimination.That staunch SCNC(Southern Cameroon National Council)* members abhor hearing French spoken in especially Anglophone Cameron well illustrates this fact. To them, Francophone administrators, French signboards, and documents published in French are all tantamount to symbols of colonial masters in conquered territory. This has not stopped Francophones (the majority) from using their numerical strength to devise means of obtaining high posts, businesses and landed property in these parts, thus justifying to a certain extent the apprehensions of the SCNC.

Secondly, a language may become a target for attack or suppression if the authorities associate it with what they consider a rebellious group. The Rwandan genocide of 1994 is just one of the many examples.

(c) Educational basis:

Bilingualism in Education is generally a matter of public policy. Many critics, however, usually hold that children brought up bilingually perform poorly in other subjects, as a greater amount of mental effort has to be expended in the mastery of two languages. While the Cameroon government viewed its introduction of French at the primary School Leaving Certificate Examination as a move towards national integration, Anglophone critics regarded it as a move to assimilate them by confusing their children.

(d) Religion:

Although Islam to a certain extent promotes bilingualism, it also inhibits its practice on the grounds that translation makes a text lose something of the author’s original intent. The Qur’an, for instance, is written in a form of Arabic that Muslims consider pure. Consequently, it is considered blasphemous to use its translated version for prayers and other rituals. This makes many Muslims, especially extremists, regard translators of the Qur’an with disdain.

12. CONCLUSION:

We live in a universe of linguistic diversity accounted for by the biblical tradition of the Tower of Babel. Since the recent attempts at globalisation necessitate high-level human transactions, present strides towards bilingualism are justified. We have examined not only the factors that usher in Bilingualism and those that militate against it,but also their reasons for doing so. Political and religious thinking may make us loathe bilingualism; but that it is a treasure sought by all is relevant. Acquiring “the compound state of mind with two grammars” (Cook: 2003) still remains an ideal attained by relatively few individual (even in a “bilingual” country like Cameroon), but this does not mean that there are few bilinguals, for this paper holds the view that bilingualism is a continuum ranging from mastery of the official languages to the mastery of two national languages.

It will not suffice to end without remarking that African languages validate all criteria for making any vocal system quality for a language. Since no language serves as a measuring rod for another, denouncing bilingualism in them is sheer inferiority complex, for learning them requires the same effort as dues any European language.Jacobson (1953 [Cf: Romaine, 1995]) wrote: “Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.” It really is, given the linguistic reality that all languages are equal in complexity and in mastery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Cook, Vivian (2003): Effects of the Second Language on The First. Multilingual Matters Ltd, Clevedon. Pp 168-214

2. Larsen-Freeman, Diane & Long, Michael H. (1994): An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. London. Pp 1-5.

3. Romaine, Suzanne (1995): Bilingualism. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. Pp 1-5, 9-11, 183, 205-291.

4. Spolsky, Bernard (1992): Conditions for Second Language Learning. OUP. Pp 131-146

5. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica

6. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. G & C Merriam Company, Springfield.

* An Anglophone movement now striving for the independence of the English-Speaking part of Cameroon.

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African Languages – What is Spoken Where?

April 10, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on About.com on 10 April 2009
By Anouk Zijlma

There are literally thousands of indigenous languages spoken in Africa and many more dialects. Every African country you visit will no doubt be home to more than a dozen (if not several hundred) languages, even the smaller countries. But because of the sheer amount of linguistic diversity, every African country has an official language (or 11 in the case of South Africa) which acts as the lingua franca for (at least) a reasonably sized region.

Since almost every African country was at one time a colony, speaking English, Portuguese, or French will also help you communicate. Many Africans will speak Creole or pidgin versions of these European languages and they may not be so easy to understand when you first hear them.

Arabic is very handy in Northern Africa and Swahili will help you get by in much of East Africa.

Learning a few phrases in a local language will do much to endear you to the local population and help you get around. If you’re spending more than a few weeks in a country it is definitely worth buying a phrasebook.

What African Language is Spoken Where?

Below you’ll find a list of the major languages spoken in the more common African travel destinations. As a general rule, the more rural a place is, the less likely you are to get by with just English, Portuguese or French.

Angola
Official Language: Portuguese
Other languages spoken in Angola are mostly Bantu languages which include Umbundu, Nyemba and Chokwe.

Benin
Official Language: French
Other languages spoken in Benin include English (in tourist areas), Fon and Yoruba (south), Beriba and Dendi (north).

Botswana
Official Language: English
The principal language spoken in Botswana is Setswana (or Tswana) which is spoken by 90 of the population.

Cameroon
Official Languages: English and French
French is more widely spoken than English but a combination of the two is becoming more widespread — frananglais. Over 200 hundred languages are spoken in Cameroon from the Bantu and Sudanic groups.

Egypt
Official Language: Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic is widely understood in Egypt and is used by the media and Government. But most Egyptians on the streets of Cairo and Luxor speak a colloquial Arabic that is unique to Egypt. English is spoken by many people in the major tourist areas and some French as well.

Ethiopia
Official Language: Amharic
Other important languages in Ethiopia include Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya. English is taught in schools and many people will know a few words.

Gabon
Official Language: French
Other important languages in Gabon include Fang, Mbere, Punu and Sira.

The Gambia
Official Language: English
Other important lanugages in The Gambia include Wolof, Mandinka and Pulaar.

Ghana
Official Language: English
Other important languages (out of 79) spoken in Ghana include Twi, Ga, Ewe, Dagari and Dagbani.

Kenya
Official Languages: English and (Ki)Swahili
Other important languages include Luo, Kikuyu, Luyia and Kamba. Young urbanites often speak Sheng which is a based on Swahili but uses words from many other languages.

Libya
Official Language: Arabic
If you’re traveling to Libya you should pack an Arabic phrase book since little else is spoken, especially outside the main cities.

Madagascar
Official Language: Malagasy and French
Malagasy is spoken by everyone in Madagascar and many people also speak French especially in the business and government sectors.

Malawi
Official Language: English
Chichewa is probably spoken more widely by most of the population than English in Malawi, but you can get by without it for the most part. Yao and Tumbuka are commonly spoken around the lakeshore.

Mali
Official Language: French
Bambara is the most commonly spoken language in Mali, other languages include Tamashek, Songhai and Fulfulde.

Morocco
Official Language: Arabic
As in Egypt, Modern Standard Arabic is widely understood but Moroccans on the streets of Casablanca and Marrakech speak a colloquial Arabic called Darija that is unique to Morocco and influenced by the Berber languages also commonly spoken throughout the country. French is useful as many educated people will speak it and it may help you get from place to place. English is not commonly spoken or understood in Morocco.

Mozambique
Official Language: Portuguese
Other important languages (out of the 43 mostly Bantu languages) include Lomwe, Makhuwa, Ndau and Tsonga.

Namibia
Official Language: English
While the official language is English, Afrikaans is actually much more widely spoken by Namibians as a second language, even in rural areas. Other important languages in Namibia include Herero, Ovambo, German, Portuguese (in the north) and Nama.

Nigeria
Official Language: English
Other important languages in Nigeria include Hausa (widely spoken throughout northern Nigeria), Yoruba, Ibo, Edo, Idoma, Fulfulde and Efik. Many people, particularly in the south and urban areas, speak a creole or pidgin English similar to Krio in Sierra Leone and Pidgin in Cameroon.

Rwanda
Official Languages: French, English and Kinyarwanda
Rwandans nearly all speak Kinyarwanda as their mother tongue, but Englih and French is also widely understood throughout the country.

Senegal
Official Language: French
The most widely spoken language in Senegal is Wolof. Other important languages include Fula, Soninke, Mandinka, and Bambara.

South Africa
Official Languages: Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Venda, Swati, Sesotho, Sepedi, Tsonga and Tswana.
Yes, South Africa actually has 11 official languages. Most people speak their tribal mother tongue as well as some English and Afrikaans. Unofficial languages include San and Nama (Bushmen languages) and Northern Ndebele. Several creole or pidgin languages are also common including Fanagalo (used in the mines) and Tsotsi taal or Isicamtho (used in the townships).

Tanzania
Official Languages: (Ki)Swahili and English
Swahili is more widely spoken outside of the urban areas than English, so it’s useful to pick up a few phrases when traveling in Tanzania. Other major languages spoken in Tanzania include Sukuma, Gogo, Haya, Kwere, Makonde, Mambwe, and Nyamwezi.

Togo
Official Language: French
Other important languages (out of 39) in Togo include Kabye, and Mina. Some English is spoken in the tourist areas.

Tunisia
Official Language: Arabic
French is widely spoken and understood especially in the tourist areas. The Arabic spoken in the streets of Tunisia is similar to that spoken in Morocco, commonly known as Darija.

Uganda
Official Language: English
Most Ugandans speak English as well as an indigenous language, the most common ones are Luganda and (Ki)Swahili. Soga, Chiga and Runyankore are also important languages in Uganda, each have over a million native speakers.

Zambia
Official Language: English
English is widely spoken throughout Zambia, other important languages include Tonga, Bemba, Nyanja (similar to Chichewa) and Lozi.

Zimbabwe
Official Language: English
English is widely spoken throughout Zimbabwe but most Zimbabweans’ first language is either Shona or Ndebele.

Sources
Ethnologue.com
Wikipedia
Lonely Planet Guide Books

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French and German Get Axed — Are Any Languages Thriving?

April 9, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Finding Dulcinea.com on 9 April 2009
By Haley A. Lovett

As Winona State University looks to get rid of its French and German language programs, and as French is used less and less in international politics, some languages flourish.

Winona State Cuts French and German, More Students Nationwide Study Arabic, Chinese

As Universities and colleges across the nation look for ways to trim down budgets, Winona State University has found one way to eliminate expenses—by cutting its French and German programs.

The university, which currently has only 24 students majoring in the two areas of study combined, will still offer beginning level courses in those languages. Winona State decided to make cuts to the program to conform to a shrinking budget, and because of the decline in the popularity of French and German, according Peter Henderson, the dean of liberal arts at Winona State. Henderson told the Rochester Post-Bulletin, “The future, as I’ve said for the last 20 years, has not been in European languages other than Spanish.”

In the most recent MLA survey on foreign language study in higher education, Arabic and Chinese were the languages with the greatest increases in study. The survey showed that the study of Arabic had increased more than 125 percent, and the study of Chinese had increased more than 50 percent from 2002 to 2006. Enrollments in the less commonly taught languages, and the number of uncommon languages taught increased during this period as well. Although the raw number of students studying foreign languages has increased, the percentage of college students studying foreign languages is only about half of what it was in the 1960s. Spanish maintains its status as the most popular language, accounting for about 50 percent of language study.

Background: English pushes out French in many arenas, France tries to intervene

Winona State University’s dropping of the French major is not the first blow to the French language in recent history.

In New York, the United Nations has seen an increase in the choice of English or Spanish as the working language of diplomats, rather than French. Most of the European countries, former Soviet republics and Arab countries chose to use English as the language they are addressed with at the UN. According to The New York Times, “Factoring in China and India, with over a third of the world’s people, leads to the conclusion that 97 percent of the global population (or rather the elite of those countries) choose English as their international link language.”

The European Union has also seen a move toward English dominance. In 2004, English muscled out French as the common language among diplomats in the EU. English is used to write all financial and economic documents in the EU, reports the Telegraph, and more than 50 percent of all of the EU documents are written in English rather than in French or German (the other two main languages of the Union).

In Africa, English may take over French as the secondary language of many of the people. With much of Africa having been colonized by the French in the late 1800s, the move represents a shift in the language of the global economy, anger in parts of Africa with the history of France colonization, and in some war-torn areas a need to be able to speak with members of the UN (who mostly speak English) in order to stay safe.

France has developed organizations within its borders and beyond to try and preserve the language. The French government has a Commission de Terminologie that regulates the language and protects it from foreign word intrusion, and the Académie française, an elite group of academics in France that publishes the official dictionary of French, acts as the authority of the language.

There are also organizations designed to promote the use of French around the world, such as the Alliance Français and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie; more than 110 million people speak French worldwide.

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African literature – Oral traditions – The nature of storytelling

April 9, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Beibee’s blog on 9 April 2009
ByBeibee

African literature

Main

the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with works written by Africans in European languages. Traditional written literature, which is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature, is most characteristic of those sub-Saharan cultures that have participated in the cultures of the Mediterranean. In particular, there are written literatures in both Hausa and Arabic, created by the scholars of what is now northern Nigeria, and the Somali people have produced a traditional written literature. There are also works written in Geʿez (Ethiopic) and Amharic, two of the languages of Ethiopia, which is the one part of Africa where Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered traditional. Works written in European languages date primarily from the 20th century onward. The literature of South Africa in English and Afrikaans is also covered in a separate article, South African literature. See also African theatre.

The relationship between oral and written traditions and in particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of great complexity and not a matter of simple evolution. Modern African literatures were born in the educational systems imposed by colonialism, with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African traditions. But the African oral traditions exerted their own influence on these literatures.

Oral traditions » The nature of storytelling

The storyteller speaks, time collapses, and the members of the audience are in the presence of history. It is a time of masks. Reality, the present, is here, but with explosive emotional images giving it a context. This is the storyteller’s art: to mask the past, making it mysterious, seemingly inaccessible. But it is inaccessible only to one’s present intellect; it is always available to one’s heart and soul, one’s emotions. The storyteller combines the audience’s present waking state and its past condition of semiconsciousness, and so the audience walks again in history, joining its forebears. And history, always more than an academic subject, becomes for the audience a collapsing of time. History becomes the audience’s memory and a means of reliving of an indeterminate and deeply obscure past.

Storytelling is a sensory union of image and idea, a process of re-creating the past in terms of the present; the storyteller uses realistic images to describe the present and fantasy images to evoke and embody the substance of a culture’s experience of the past. These ancient fantasy images are the culture’s heritage and the storyteller’s bounty: they contain the emotional history of the culture, its most deeply felt yearnings and fears, and they therefore have the capacity to elicit strong emotional responses from members of audiences. During a performance, these envelop contemporary images—the most unstable parts of the oral tradition, because they are by their nature always in a state of flux—and thereby visit the past on the present.

It is the task of the storyteller to forge the fantasy images of the past into masks of the realistic images of the present, enabling the performer to pitch the present to the past, to visualize the present within a context of—and therefore in terms of—the past. Flowing through this potent emotional grid is a variety of ideas that have the look of antiquity and ancestral sanction. Story occurs under the mesmerizing influence of performance—the body of the performer, the music of her voice, the complex relationship between her and her audience. It is a world unto itself, whole, with its own set of laws. Images that are unlike are juxtaposed, and then the storyteller reveals—to the delight and instruction of the members of the audience—the linkages between them that render them homologous. In this way the past and the present are blended; ideas are thereby generated, forming a conception of the present. Performance gives the images their context and ensures the audience a ritual experience that bridges past and present and shapes contemporary life.

Storytelling is alive, ever in transition, never hardened in time. Stories are not meant to be temporally frozen; they are always responding to contemporary realities, but in a timeless fashion. Storytelling is therefore not a memorized art. The necessity for this continual transformation of the story has to do with the regular fusing of fantasy and images of the real, contemporary world. Performers take images from the present and wed them to the past, and in that way the past regularly shapes an audience’s experience of the present. Storytellers reveal connections between humans—within the world, within a society, within a family—emphasizing an interdependence and the disaster that occurs when obligations to one’s fellows are forsaken. The artist makes the linkages, the storyteller forges the bonds, tying past and present, joining humans to their gods, to their leaders, to their families, to those they love, to their deepest fears and hopes, and to the essential core of their societies and beliefs.

The language of storytelling includes, on the one hand, image, the patterning of image, and the manipulation of the body and voice of the storyteller and, on the other, the memory and present state of the audience. A storytelling performance involves memory: the recollection of each member of the audience of his experiences with respect to the story being performed, the memory of his real-life experiences, and the similar memories of the storyteller. It is the rhythm of storytelling that welds these disparate experiences, yearnings, and thoughts into the images of the story. And the images are known, familiar to the audience. That familiarity is a crucial part of storytelling. The storyteller does not craft a story out of whole cloth: she re-creates the ancient story within the context of the real, contemporary, known world. It is the metaphorical relationship between these memories of the past and the known images of the world of the present that constitutes the essence of storytelling. The story is never history; it is built of the shards of history. Images are removed from historical contexts, then reconstituted within the demanding and authoritative frame of the story. And it is always a sensory experience, an experience of the emotions. Storytellers know that the way to the mind is by way of the heart. The interpretative effects of the storytelling experience give the members of the audience a refreshed sense of reality, a context for their experiences that has no existence in reality. It is only when images of contemporary life are woven into the ancient familiar images that metaphor is born and experience becomes meaningful.

Stories deal with change: mythic transformations of the cosmos, heroic transformations of the culture, transformations of the lives of everyman. The storytelling experience is always ritual, always a rite of passage; one relives the past and, by so doing, comes to insight about present life. Myth is both a story and a fundamental structural device used by storytellers. As a story, it reveals change at the beginning of time, with gods as the central characters. As a storytelling tool for the creation of metaphor, it is both material and method. The heroic epic unfolds within the context of myth, as does the tale. At the heart of each of these genres is metaphor, and at the core of metaphor is riddle with its associate, proverb. Each of these oral forms is characterized by a metaphorical process, the result of patterned imagery. These universal art forms are rooted in the specificities of the African experience.

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News: Translation boom helps India and West exchange new literature

April 5, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on The Gaea News on 5 April 2009
By Madhusree Chatterjee

NEW DELHI – Millions of vernacular and English language readers across India are cashing in on the boom in translations to access foreign literature.

The spotlight this year is on all genres of European literature, especially from France and Britain. The French embassy and the British Council have taken the lead in bringing literary works from the West to India and promote translations of Indian works abroad in collaboration with the exploding tribe of indigenous publishers.

Translation, a literary phenomenon that took off in India during the 1970s, rose in the nineties post- globalisation when the doors opened to free trade. The opening up of trade barriers facilitated exchange of ideas and intellect.

Leading French poet Franck Andre Jamme’s poetry will soon be made available in bookshops across Hindi-speaking north Indian cities and in West Bengal.

‘One of my anthologies, ‘The Recitation of Forgetting’, is being translated into Hindi and Bengali,’ Jamme, who has 15 volumes of published poetry to his credit, told IANS. He was here for a poetry-reading session.

While Bhopal-based poet Udayan Vajpeyi is translating Jamme’s anthology into Hindi, Kolkata-based poet and translator Ujjal Singha is doing so into Bengali.

‘I exchange a lot with my translators because they revert to me with frequent queries,’ Jamme said, who writes extensively on Dhrupad music and Indian ethnic art for the French newspaper Le Monde.

Another of Jamme’s anthologies, ‘Moon-Wood’, was translated, edited and published in India. Translation, says Jamme, is a general necessity.

‘With so many borders and restrictions on our planet, people must speak to each other and translation is an effective way of doing it. It is another way of avoiding new wars,’ Jamme said.

The French government has initiated a mega bilateral literary project, ‘Tagore Publication Support Programme’, in India to promote French culture and literature in the country jointly with the French embassy and local publishers.

‘Translations are a vital component of the programme. We will host the first-ever translation workshop in India in August,’ said Marielle Morin of the embassy.

The embassy is working with Indian publishers like Rajkamal Prakashan, Purple Peacock, Bingsha Shatabdi, DC Books and Continental Prakashan to translate French books into Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam.

At least 20 translations of contemporary French literary works are in various stages of completion at the moment, Morin said.

‘The key to good translation is to retain the flavour and spirit of the language in which the book has been originally written and capture the colour and culture of the country. India has very few translators. Most of them are old and we want new young faces in this genre because of its growing demand and popularity,’ Morin said.

According to Morin, the two most significant projects include the ongoing translations of Afghanistan-born French author Atiq Rahimi’s novel ‘Singue Sabour’ into Hindi by Sharat Chandra and Le Clezio’s ‘Desert’. The books will be published by Rajkamal Prakashan and Bingsho Shatabdi respectively.

Rahimi is the winner of the French Goncourt Prize in 2008.

One of the thrust areas at the London Book Fair this April 20-22, where India is the country in focus in 2009, is translation. A special literary session, ‘Found in Translation’, will be held at the Nehru Centre in London.

Author Vikram Seth, whose writing has been influenced by the power of translation, said he had an enormous regard for translations.

‘Had I not read the translated works of (Russian poet and novelist) Alexander Pushkin and Charles Johnston, I would not have been inspired to write ‘The Golden Gate’ in verse,’ the author said.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

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Book: The Languages of Africa and the Diaspora: Educating for Language Awareness (New Perspectives on Language and Education) by Jo Anne Kleifgen, George C. Bond

April 3, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Amazon.com on 3 April 2009

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Multilingual Matters (February 15, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 184769134X
ISBN-13: 978-1847691347

Review
This is a rich collection of generally convergent, stimulating takes on the A”Creole ExceptionalismA” thesis. Extending it to African languages and African American English, most of the authors show the disastrous consequences of underrating and marginalizing these vernaculars in school. Other contributors apply the thesis to the profiling of African Americans, making it obvious that attitudes to these varieties reflect social prejudice toward their speakers. Still others show how a better understanding of structural and stylistic peculiarities of these vernaculars can be used profitably in education and the promotion of their speakers. Sadly, both contemporary Black Africa and its Diaspora still suffer from the European colonization’s legacy of devaluating the languages and manners of the subjugated populations, thereby disenfranchising them!Salikoko S. Mufwene, The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, University of Chicago.

Product Description
This book takes a fresh look at subordinated vernacular languages in the context of African, Caribbean, and US educational landscapes, highlighting the social cost of linguistic exceptionalism for speakers of these languages. Chapters describe contravening movements toward various forms of linguistic diversity and offer a comprehensive approach to language awareness in educative settings.

About the Author
Jo Anne Kleifgen is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education and co-directs the Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her interests include discourse in multilingual classrooms, the use of new technologies to support Haitian and Latino bilingualism/biliteracy and communicative practices in high-tech, multilingual workplace settings.
George Clement Bond is the Director of the Center for African Education and William F. Russell Professor for Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His interests include education and elite formation in the United States and Africa, African studies, African religions and politics, agrarian transformations and cultural dimensions of urban and minority populations.

From the publisher’s website:

Summary:
This book examines the social cost of linguistic exceptionalism for the education of speakers of nondominant/subordinated languages in Africa and the African diaspora. The contributors take the languages of Africa, the Caribbean, and the US as cases in point to illustrate the effects of exceptionalist beliefs that these languages are inadequate for instructional purposes. They describe contravening movements toward various forms of linguistic diversity both inside and outside of school settings across these regions. Different theoretical lenses and a range of empirical data are brought to bear on investigating the role of these languages in educational policies and practices. Collectively, the chapters in this volume make the case for a comprehensive language awareness to remedy the myths of linguistic exceptionalism and to advance the affirmative dimensions of linguistic diversity.

Review:
This is a remarkable collection of articles that make a unique and important contribution to scholarship on language, learning, and linguistic diversity in Africa and the diaspora. Key researchers in the field address an exciting range of topics, from language policy and community libraries, to African American English and Creole as a regional language. It will be of great interest to applied linguists, language educators, and language planners.
Bonny Norton, Professor and Distinguished University Scholar, University of British Columbia.

This deeply informed and solidly grounded inquiry provides an illuminating perspective into the nature, variety, and social and cultural setting of languages of Africa and the diaspora, and implications for instruction and language policy. A very valuable contribution.
Noam Chomsky

This is a rich collection of generally convergent, stimulating takes on the “Creole Exceptionalism” thesis.
Salikoko S. Mufwene, The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, University of Chicago.

Author Biography:
Jo Anne Kleifgen is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education and co-directs the Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her interests include discourse in multilingual classrooms, the use of new technologies to support Haitian and Latino bilingualism/biliteracy and communicative practices in high-tech, multilingual workplace settings.

George Clement Bond is the Director of the Center for African Education and William F. Russell Professor for Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His interests include education and elite formation in the United States and Africa, African studies, African religions and politics, agrarian transformations and cultural dimensions of urban and minority populations.

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Bubblespeak: The Orwellian language of Wall Street finds its way to the Treasury Department

April 1, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Slate.com on 1 April 2009
By Daniel Gross, 28 March 2009


The Orwellian language of Wall Street finds its way to the Treasury Department.

The Orwellian language of Wall Street finds its way to the Treasury Department.

In his timeless 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell condemned political rhetoric as a tool used “to make lies sound truthful” and “to give an appear­ance of solidity to pure wind.” Were he alive today, Orwell might well be moved to pen a com­panion piece on the use of financial lingo. Remember those toxic assets? The poorly performing mortgages and collateralized debt obligations festering on the books of banks that made truly exe­crable lending decisions? In the latest federal bank rescue plan, they’ve been transformed into “legacy loans” and “lega­cy securities”—safe for professional in­vestors to purchase, provided, of course, they get lots of cheap government credit.

It’s as if some thoughtful person had amassed, through decades of careful hus­bandry, a valuable collection that’s now being left as a blessing for posterity. Using the word legacy to describe phenomena that are causing financial car­nage is “crazy,” according to George Lakoff, a Berkeley professor of cognitive science and linguistics, because “legacy typically suggests something positive.” More insidiously, the word is frequently deployed to deflect blame. Legacy finan­cial issues are, by definition, holdovers from prior regimes. Word sleuths advise me that legacy derives from an ancient In­do-Aryan root meaning, “It wasn’t my fault, and I should still get a bonus this year even though we lost billions of dollars.”

The (not so) Big Three auto companies routinely refer to the now-unaffordable pension and health care commitments en­tered into by prior management as “legacy costs.” (And why not? They’ve convinced us to regard used cars as “pre-owned.”) Citi CEO Vikram Pandit last month told employees that “we are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are hav­ing our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007.” Huh? Citi, currently connected to a taxpayer-funded multibillion-dollar feeding tube, is “prof­itable” only if you ignore the losses it con­tinues to incur on lending decisions made in the previous years—legacy loans made by legacy bankers.

In this new paradigm, a legacy, usually a gift, is a burden. A potential loss is spun as a potential gain. War is peace. See what I mean by Orwellian?

The legacy gambit is necessary, in part, because the prior nomenclature used to describe the stuff in question was so cor­rosive. “Toxic is one of those words that is so negative that it’s just hyperbole,” said Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase toxic assets, used widely in 2008, was ei­ther a sign of admirable reality or an at­tempt to scare people into action. A mid­dle ground of sorts was reached last fall when then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson rolled out the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Of course, calling some of those mortgage assets “troubled” was a little like calling Charles Manson a troubled person.

In trying to rebrand dodgy financial in­struments, treasury secretaries like Paul­son and Timothy Geithner are continuing a recent tradition. So much of the finance sector’s innovation in the past 30 years, it turns out, wasn’t developing new stuff, but rather developing new ways of talking about pre-existing stuff. In the 1980s, la­beling risky debt offerings as junk bonds was an intentionally ironic feint (pros knew that the instruments pos­sessed real value). But as junk bonds went mainstream in the 1990s, they evolved into “high-yield debt”—their liability be­came an asset. Frank Partnoy, a reformed derivatives trader who teaches law at the University of San Diego, recalls that at Morgan Stanley in the 1990s, “we were constantly coming up with new acronyms” to describe similar financial in­struments. The goal: to present products, some of which had been discredited, in a more favorable light.

At the height of the housing frenzy, I visited a large subprime lender in Irvine, Calif. These folks would have made a $425,000, no-money-down, negative-amortization loan to a 12-year-old presenting nothing more than Pokémon cards as collateral. Were they engaged in subprime lending? Absolutely not. This outfit, they informed me proudly, made “nonprime” loans.

The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moyni­han lamented declining societal standards in an essay titled “Defining Deviancy Down.” The language employed in the late credit bubble—let’s rebrand it the Dumb Money Era—helped define solvency down. And words, even if they’re thrown mostly by sophisticated professionals at other sophisticated professionals, can be just as damaging as sticks and stones.

The people on Wall Street believed so fervently in their own rhetoric that they bet their financial houses on it. They chugged the Kool-Aid through funnels. “If you call a mortgage-backed security AAA for long enough, you forget that its value could get cut in half,” says Frank Partnoy.

The problem isn’t that words intended to change the conversation aren’t accu­rate. Rather, the accepted terms turned out not to mean what people think they mean. Instead of helping to reduce risk, securitization—chopping up debt and distributing it—spread risk. Nonprime mortgages frequently turned out to be subprime. A lot of high-yield debt turned out to be junk. This confusion over the meaning of financial terms, and the skep­ticism it engenders, may be the real legacy of the Dumb Money Era.

A version of this article appears in this week’s Newsweek.

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New short vowel discovered

April 1, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Language Log on 1 April 2009
By Roger Shuy

Geoff Pullum gave us a really neat lesson on Finnish short vowels a few months ago, pointing out things that nobody but native speakers have ever known — that Finns produce a subtle duration of short /Ih/ vowels that the rest of us don’t even hear. But hey, The Finnish vowel duration distinction doesn’t come close to what’s going on in a remote part of Tanzania.

A really, really short /Ih/ has been discovered by phonetic scientists who study vowel duration. Phoneticians in East Africa recently have stumbled upon the shortest vowel ever known to humankind. They discovered that the duration of the /Ih/ vowel, already known for its very short length in languages like English (to say nothing about it’s tremendous importance in Finnish), is produced in .11 hundredths of a second by a small band of speakers of Kwatnaksa, who live on an otherwise unoccupied island in the Indian Ocean. Well, at least linguists thought the name of that language was Kwatnaksa, but never before had they noticed the very short /Ih/ squeezed between the /t/ and the /n/, and also obtruding effortlessly but noiselessly into other hitherto believed consonant clusters. They were shocked, therefore, when a 98 year-old native, speech slowed by age, clearly produced the vowel /Ih/, with an extremely short duration in all such contexts.

When extensively interviewed, the old man answered with an abundance of very brief /Ih/ sounds in the middle of what the research team had hitherto believed to be consonant clusters. Intensive research quickly followed, revealing that the name of that language is actually Kiwatinakisa, sending National Geographic cartographers into a frenzy. “Once we started listening for that very short /Ih/, we began to hear it everywhere,” said Dr. Brno Von Hurringville III, one of the lead researchers on the team. “In fact, there appear to be no consonant clusters at all in this God-forsaken language.”

Puzzled about what to do about their discovery, the research team promptly requested help from the Tanzanian Overseeing Council on Vowels and Consonants (TOCOVAC), at its headquarters in Arusha. Sadly, the researchers report, they have not yet received a response.

In an apparently misguided effort to preserve the until-now perceived original spelling of Kwatnaksa, a UN disaster relief agency has offered immediate aid, promising to send in a supply of speech therapists and to provide dozens of much needed consonant clusters to this bleak Tanzanian island. It remains unclear to most observers whether TOCOVAC will accept this kind humanitarian offer, but some feel that there are strong indications that it is not likely to be received kindly. One clue is that the UN’s offer was addressed to:
TCVC
Lngg Rsrch Tm
Rsh, Tnzn.

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News: K’litsha volunteers fight xenophobia through language lessons

April 1, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on WestCapeNews.com on 1 April 2009
By Brenda Nkuna

A group of South Africans and African immigrants are out to stop xenophobia and unite Africa. And their tool of choice is language lessons, which they are offering to Khayelitsha residents at the cut-price rate of R3.50 per hour.

Falling under the Get-up Stand-up Campaign, a Khayelitsha NGO, the lessons offer Khayelitsha residents the opportunity to learn Swahili, Portuguese, Shona, English and French.

Project coordinator Nkwame Cedile said by teaching languages to locals in Khayelitsha’s Site B and C they hoped that people would find “no need to argue and call each other names”.

“We want to build bridges in our communities,” he said.
Cedile said Khayelitsha residents were eager to learn English and other languages from the seven volunteer language teachers, who offer classes daily between 6pm and 7.30pm at the Holy Sirna Church in Site C.

Zimbabwean volunteer teacher Willard Kambeva said he was happy to know that he was making a “huge” impact.

Kambeva said when he first began classes three weeks ago, there were only five people, but now there were about 50.
He said it was important to keep the lesson prices low so that people could afford them.

Site B resident Thandokazi Cengani, a Grade 11 learner at Cathkin High School in Athlone, said the lessons would assist her in communicating with others and help her if she wanted to pursue a career overseas.

Cengani said so far she had learnt basic Shona words.
She said she always took notes in the classes and most of her friends and family were also interested in learning.

“I am making a sacrifice to come and study at these lessons, but they are worthwhile. I want to be multilingual,” she said. — West Cape News

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