Sociolinguistics is a recently developed subject of interdisciplinary study in the social sciences. Joseph H. Greenberg has indicated the scope of this field and its relevance to African studies in general in his contribution to Robert A. Lystad's The African World: A Survey of Social Research (New York, Praeger, 1965; p. 427). He includes in sociolinguistics such topics as “the relation of language differences to social class; the differential social roles of different languages co-existing in the same society; the development and spread of lingua francas as auxiliary languages in multilingual situations; the factors involved in the differential prestige ratings of languages; the role of language as a sign of ethnic identification; language in relation to nationalism; and problems of language policy, e.g., in education.” Africa, with its emerging nations, is an ideal area for such research, since the development of new nations entails problems which sociolinguistic studies are particularly fit to solve. Much of the linguistic work done in the colonial era and even in more recent years is inadequate, because of lack of reference to the relevant social context. With regard to this situation, the Committee on Sociolinguistic Research in Africa of the ARC considered it advisable to include in the January conference some topics which are usually handled under the headings of ethnolinguistics and psycholinguistics, e.g., the changes induced in one language by contact with another in the context of the general culture-contact situation, including its nonlinguistic aspects, and the problems of attitudes and behavior toward language.

Independence broke the formal political connection between the new African states and their former European colonial administration. The change did not terminate the significance of the ex-colonial language within these African countries. The colonial power had, by both design and necessity, woven its language tightly into the educational and administrative structure of the countries. Even after independence the difficulties facing the adoption of some vernacular seemed insurmountable. Choice of any African language would not only have exacerbated already centrifugal tribal tendencies within the complex racial and linguistic divisions of the country but also have spelled virtual isolation from international affairs. It has generally been accepted in Africa that the use of a European language as the national one does not constitute a neocolonial threat but is essential to the national development.

One of the interesting aspects of the decision to retain a European tongue as a second language has been the beginning of new national literatures--African in theme and content yet utilizing the literary resources of the European language of the country, primarily English and French, to some extent Portuguese. In the case of the English language especially, this is not a new thing. Already there is evidence of a worldwide literature of similar nature from India, from the Philippines, and from the Caribbean. The geographic range and the quantity of such writing are far greater than the uninitiated might conceive.

The area of international programs, as part of a rapidly developing university, has become increasingly important to Michigan State University, in East Lansing, in the last two decades. Faculty research abroad has been a primary factor in the growth of private and federal agency-sponsored technical assistance programs in educational activities overseas. Projects in Turkey, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Okinawa, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, and Nigeria have been and are being conducted in the fields of business administration, public administration, agriculture, community development, education, and general university development. Continued outside financial assistance has enabled further enlargement of such programs on the campus as a whole.

The initiation of the African Studies Center at Michigan State University in 1960 owes much to an offer from the U.S. Office of Education to support the teaching of West African languages on campus. By coincidence, this occurred at the same time that the University was engaged in two closely related projects: the ICA (AID) contract of establishing and developing the University of Nigeria at Nsukka and the initiation of a Ford Foundation-supported research program for African studies.

New courses and additional teaching staff now allow for specialized courses in the departments of linguistics and Oriental and African languages, political science, history, anthropology, and geography. Much research is emerging from the Center's activity. In 1963-1964, for example, field research was under way in education, fisheries and wildlife, political science, economics, history, and geography, and there were four projects in the area of languages and linguistics.

The Africa collections at Stanford University are housed largely in the University Library, the library of the Food Research Institute, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. Although the major portion of the material is found in the Hoover Institution, the other two libraries constitute important resources. Special collections are located in the Branner Library (Geology), the Cubberley Library (Education), the Lane Medical Library, and the Law Library. The curator of the Hoover Africa Collection assists all university libraries by recommending titles of old and new items so that the various collections develop in all fields.

The University Library buys widely in the African field but accepts primary responsibility for all African material before 18 70 and in the areas of art, ethnography, geography, linguistics, literature, religion, sociology, statistics, and technical documents. The Government Documents Division receives general statistical annuals and bulletins from all African countries and statistical reports of foreign trade from most countries. An effort is made to acquire all census and development-planning material. Most departmental reports are also received. The Documents Division was long an official depository for British government documents and thus contains an outstanding collection of parliamentary debates, blue books, command papers, Foreign Office papers, and annual reports of the Colonial Office from the early nineteenth century. For France the debates of the Assemblée Nationale are held from 18 71 and the Journal Officiel from 1914; for Germany the Reichstag debates are complete from 1867. These together with the depository publications of the United Nations make a substantial collection of material relevant to Africa.

The appointment in March 1966 of Kwame Nkrumah as honorary president of Guinea was ostensibly made on the basis of an agreement signed by Nkrumah and Sékou Touré in 1958 which founded the Union of Independent African States (UIAS, Ghana-Guinea, 1958-1960). The UIAS, subsequently the Union of African States (UAS, Ghana-Guinea-Mali, 1960-1963), has not been of great importance in the development of Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah's recent appointment probably caused more publicity for the UIAS-UAS than any other event in its history, with the exception of its founding in 1958. Because of the quiet functioning of this organization, declared as no longer in existence by Touré in 1963, very little has been written about it. Thus a student of Africa is reduced to dependence upon short newspaper accounts of the various meetings of the leaders of the states involved, to brief references in more general works on African unity, and to conjecture.

Yet there are several bibliographic sources which are useful. Among these is Peter Duignan, “Pan-Africanism: A Bibliographic Essay,” African Forum, I, No. 1 (Summer 1965), 105-107, a brief survey of the most important works on Pan-Africanism. The subject is divided into three phases--the American reaction to racism, the drive for African independence, and the dream of continental unity. For materials concerning Ghana, the best reference is Albert F. Johnson, A Bibliography of Ghana, 1930-1961 (Evanston, Ill., Published for the Ghana Library Board by the Northwestern University Press, 1964). Of a more general nature are W. J. Hanna and J. L. Hanna, Politics in Black Africa (East Lansing, African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1964); the annual United States and Canadian Publications on Africa, for years from 1960 (Washington, Library of Congress, 1962; Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution, 1963-), an excellent source for references to periodical materials; and International Committee for Social Sciences Documentation, The International Bibliography of Political Science (Chicago, Aldine Publishing Co., 1952-).

The present review continues the series of annual surveys of South African reference literature and in general follows the pattern of the previous review.

An atlas not confined to South Africa but rather covering the whole of Africa has now been completed in ten parts. Africa: Maps and Statistics (Pretoria, Africa Institute; R9-50; overseas R12-50 including binder) presents a statistical survey of Pan-African territories in map form with an explanatory text. Subjects covered include population, vital and medical aspects, culture and education, and political development.

The reviewer's Guide to South African Reference Books (Cape Town, Balkema; R2-50) was published in an extensively revised fourth edition in 1965. This edition has an innovation in the inclusion of guides to reference material about four territories which are much in the news, namely, South-West Africa and the High Commission Territories of Basutoland, Bechuana-land, and Swaziland. An important bibliography concerning Bechuanaland also appeared in the year under review. This is C. Middleton's Bechuanaland: A Bibliography (Cape Town, University School of Librarianship). It has 155 entries covering administration, development, history, missions, native races, and other topics and complements an earlier bibliography by P. E. Stevens published by the same university in 1949. Further progress was made with the publication of South Africa's union list of serials. Letters J and K of Periodicals in South African Libraries (Pretoria, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) were published in 1965.