The Vernacularization of African Languages after Independence

Abstract

To vernacularize a language is to reduce it to a vernacular. In 1953, UNESCO defined a vernacular as the language of a group that is politically or socially dominated by a group that speaks another language. This paper argues that this domination need not be colonial or racial, and that in fact many postindependence African rulerships are more comfortable in situations that are contrived to ensure that the indigenous languages of their own countries continue to be vernacularized. The same foreign language that was used in the past by a racist colonial minority is now used by an indigenous elitist minority to keep the majority disempowered by making grassroots participation in national issues and debates difficult or impossible.

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