African languages key to the transformation of Africa

In commemoration of Africa Day 2021, observed on the 25th of May every year, Associate Professor Dion Nkomo, interim leader of the DSI-NRF SARChI in Intellectualisation of African Languages Multilingualism and Education at Rhodes University tells us how their research is facilitating the creation of conducive conditions for Africa’s development.

In 1985, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union (AU), prepared the Language Action Plan for Africa, which was premised on four main principles:

• To guarantee the cultural independence and development of African States through the use of African languages;
• To promote African unity by developing regional languages as vehicles of communication and helping to break language barriers;
• To contribute to strengthening endogenous efforts by involving the people and explaining to them the meaning and problems of development, in their own languages;
• To maintain links between Africa and the rest of the world through the main foreign languages of communication and the definition of their importance in relation to African languages.

The research programme of the DSI-NRF Chair in Intellectualisation of African Languages, Multilingualism and Education advances the rationale of the Language Action Plan for Africa. The focus on the intellectualisation of African languages interrogates the challenges that continue to marginalise African languages from the powerful domains of social, political and economic activities and initiatives on the continent. The research relates to social cohesion and identity, and to social identity and social transformation with a particular emphasis on the role of African languages. In so doing, the research promotes multilingualism, a defining feature of the diversity of Africa as a continent.

Contrary to how colonialism and colonial scholarship construed multilingualism and diversity, leading to the imposition of a monolingual culture based on the hegemony of foreign languages, multilingualism is seen as a right that should be enjoyed by all Africans and as a resource that should be harnessed for socio-economic development of Africa.

The research of the Chair has pre-occupied itself with advancing such ideas through the publications of Prof. Kaschula, who occupied the Chair from its inception in 2013 until his departure from Rhodes University in 2020, as well as the research of collaborating colleagues at Rhodes and other universities nationally and globally.

“Literary research in African languages, especially the early writings in isiXhosa, has demonstrated that Africa is endowed with rich knowledge that the academy and the continent broadly needs to tap from in order to become a global player in knowledge production”

Language policies and problems have been examined, not only in South Africa and but also other African countries, particularly through the work of postgraduate students from countries such as Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Multilingual solutions have been developed and proposed through research in educational contexts, showing, for example, that African languages can effectively be used in teaching school subjects such as Maths and Science as demonstrated in the Cofimvaba Project in the Eastern Cape. Doctoral theses have been written in African languages such as isiXhosa and ChiShona of Zimbabwe. Research in other contexts, such as law, have also shown that English monolingualism remains an impediment in the realisation of justice and that social justice for the majority of Africans remains a pipedream without the use of African languages in the powerful domains of society.

The DSI-NRF Chair has affirmed that African languages are key to the real transformation that Africa strives to achieve. For example, literary research in African languages, especially the early writings in isiXhosa, has demonstrated that Africa is endowed with rich knowledge that the academy and the continent broadly needs to tap into in order to become a global player in knowledge production.

This work is set to continue during and beyond the transition from Prof. Kaschula’s leadership. For example, collaborations have been strengthened with the Eastern Cape Department of Education and other collaborators across and beyond the continent in order to enrich and deepen the work of the Chair. An interesting project on the translation of classic works written by great African intellectuals such as Steve Biko, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi into various African languages will be launched in June. In this way, the DSI-NRF Chair in Intellectualisation of African Languages, Multilingualism and Education seeks to continue promoting African languages as key levers for Africa’s developmental agenda.