VK, I was not twisting your words, in fact I agreed with you that its a shame that groups of African people from the same country could not converse without a European language.

My reply included general commentary on the whole thread, not just what you wrote.


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So what do you propose instead? Like I said, bring forth a solution or another alternative language if there is one and lets all have a look at it. Because I find it a damn shame that school children in many a Country resort to English or French, many magazines and Newspapers in African Countries are in English or French, the TV announcements of important Political issues are in English or French and the Official Languages are either English or French in most cases and people within the SAME COUNTRY have to resort to speaking English of French just to communicate among Folks from different tribes. And we are happy to be labled as Anglophones, Francophones and gladly look forward to attending the Annual Anglophone and Francophone Conferences organized by Massa each year. And just clock this, even the so called English speaking Countries in Africa are joining the Francophone league and are now members attending each year to the chagrin and disgust of the So called French Speaking African Countries. Just check the reaction of the President of Gabon who threw a temper tantrum upon learning that West African English Speaking Countries and other English speaking Countries in the East and South were invited to attend the French Francophone conference.

We don't have to sell anything Aryek, but the African Union with the endorsement of West African leaders are the ones selling Swahili. I am all for the use of one unifying language be it Hausa, Wolof, Twi, swahili or Zulu. To me that makes it easier for me to communicate with other Africans.

As for the Indians not all speaking Hindi, that might be a possibility but that is the official language there and many people there speak it. Same arguement can be said of Africans in Ghana for instance. Since the official Language is English I assume, I can equally say that not all Ghanaians understand it or can speak it fluently. If one goes to Uganda for instance, one can find Ugandans in Uganda who do not understand a single word of Swahili despite them living in Uganda. Just check the karamoja areas and other remote parts to clock that.

English may be the "official" language of Ghana, but twi is the lingua franca of Ghana. The Ghanian goverment for reasons that only they know of, decided to promote English as our official language when the country got it's independence. I guess they figured that the whole world would be speaking English so we might as well. But despite their efforts, most Ghanians, not just the Akan, speak twi. Most of our songs, television programs and whatnot are in twi. And in school, we learn to write both twi and English. Twi is also the language we use to communicate between tribes in Ghana. An official language is not always the lingua franca, hence why I brought up Hindi.

You're saying that Africans need a langauge that we can communicate with each other with and you're suggesting that Swahili should be it. Since many East and Central Africans speak the language and are not resistent to adopting it as a universal language, they're not really the people that you or the AU has to convince but West Africans, no? What I'm saying is that if you look at this from a practical standpoint, it's not going to be feasible without contact between West Africans and other Africans. Most languages spread because of conquest, hence why Arabic is being used all over the Middle East, and in few a instances, trade. East and Central Africans essentially adopted Swahili because of trade. So in trying to promote Swahili among West Africans, who don't even have Swahili speaking neighbours, simply telling them that we need a secret language to communicate among ourselves because whitey might be listening, isn't going to be a good enough reason. Most Africans usually only come into contact with other African cultures when they move out of Africa. And without direct contact between West Africans and other Africans while they are on the continent, you can't really establish Swahili as the lingua franca (which I think should be what the AU should be aiming for) of Africa.

I'm not against Africans adopting Swahili, I had an ex from Kenya and I tried to learn it just so we could a language other than English to communicate with. Believe me, I understand your frustration with Africans not having a common language. But in order to pave the way for Swahili or any other language to be adopted by all Africans, we first need to establish some real contact with each other, not just between our governments and not just when we move to the West. And this is why I said that throwing around the usual West African stereotypes, not that you were doing that, those people know who they are, isn't going to help.

In my opinion, this was perhaps the most important post of this thread, which is why I am always advocating Pan-African agendas in terms of economics, business, and trade. You are absolutely correct that we need more contact with each other to legitimize the need for a unifying language. I feel that promoting trade and business development in the Diaspora with different African nations will intrinsically manifest the need to use Swahili or some other language as the official trade language between the Continent and Diaspora, and Intra-Continental trade between African nations.

I think mixing two languages would be fine if West Africans could decide on which language to use. But that's not really what I'm advocating here. I mean most Africans speak more than one language anyway and since our languages essentially derive from three major languages it's not really that hard to pick up some things from other langauges. For instance, some Ivorian dialects have words that are really close to twi and eventhough, I don't really know these languages, I'm sure that I could easily pick them up if I spent enough time with Ivorians.

The same thing can be aruged with Swahili, there are West Africans who speak Arabic and the Bantu-language family has roots in West Africa so given enough contact between West Africans and Swahili speakers most people could easily develop the language even without formal education. And yes, if we're going to be teaching French in African schools then we should certainly be teaching Swahili and other African languages. It kind of saddens me that some of our languages are disappearing.

bantu and its various dialects!!!