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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Few English-speaking scholars realise that a francophone network of scholars has powerfully developed the study of contact between French and African languages over the past decade, and that this is currently being synthesised in the form of an Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire. This corporate work, sponsored by the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (A.C.C.T.),1 is of considerable linguistic, educational, and sociopolitical significance, and deserves to be widely known in Africa. Indeed, it will be remembered that at the founding of the West African Linguistic Society in 1961 two surveys were mooted: West African languages and, later, English in West Africa, of which the former was accomplished with the help of the International African Institute and the Ford Foundation, while the latter was forgotten. With the ‘Inventory of French in Africa’, the francophone network of scholars has certainly stolen a march on English-speaking Africa.
page 353 note 1 The A.U.P.E.L.F. is the chief agency of la francophonie dealing with inter-university affairs, with offices in Paris, Montreal, and Dakar. The A.C.C.T. is an inter-governmental francophone body.Google Scholar
page 353 note 2 The term comes from Calvet, J.-L., Linguistique et colonialisme: petit traité de glottophagie (Paris, 1974), in which this process is excellently described.Google Scholar
page 354 note 1 The words ‘pour la défense et l'expansion’ were later omitted from the title.
page 354 note 2 Cf. Mumford, W. B., Africans Learn to be French (London, 1935, reprinted 1970)Google Scholar, and Moumouni, Abdou, Education in Africa (New York, 1968), translated from the French.Google Scholar
page 355 note 1 Bal, Willy, ‘Particularités actuelles du français en Afrique centrale’, in Bulletin d'information CELTA (Lubumbashi), 01 1964.Google Scholar
page 355 note 2 La Francophonie is a movement uniquely based on langusge affinity. Cf. Weinstein, Brian, ‘Francophonie–International Languages in Politics’, in Verdoodt, A. and Kjolseth, R. (eds.), Language in Sociology (Louvain, 1976), pp. 265–304.Google Scholar
page 355 note 3 The eponymous report and proceedings are published by C.I.L.F., Paris, 1978.
page 356 note 1 Cf. Duponchel, Laurent (ed.), La Création lexicale dans le françcais d'Afrique: compte-rendu de la Table Ronde des Instituts et Centres de linguistique appliquées des universités des universités d'Afrique noir francophone (Abidjan, 1974)Google Scholar, and Dictionnaire du français de Côte d'Ivoire (Abidjan, 1975);Google ScholarLafage, Suzanne, Dictionnaire des particularités du français au Togo et au Dahomey (Abidjan, 1975)Google Scholar, and Le Français en Afrique noire: éléments pour une bibliographie (Abidjan, 1977);Google Scholar and Faïk, Sully, Particulatités lexicales du français au Zaïre: choix de matériaux pour un inventaire, Vol. 1, A–B (Niamey, 1979).Google Scholar
page 356 note 2 Cf. Caprile, Jean-Pierre, Premier inventaire des particularités lexicales du français parlé au Tchad, Vol. 1, A–EGoogle Scholar, in Annales de l'Université du Tchad (N'Djaména), 03 1978, chiefly based on 600 oral records.Google Scholar
page 358 note 1 Racelle-Latin, Daniéele,Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire: A–B (Paris and Montreal, A.U.P.E.L.F. and A.C.C.T., 1980).Google Scholar
