French in African Contact Settings

Abstract

In this chapter, I provide a historical and linguistic account of the ways in which French was introduced and spread to some parts of the African continent and then diversified along a basilect-to-acrolect continuum. I show the different communicative functions it plays in the new ecologies where it evolved. In environments where major African languages are used as vehicular languages, French enjoys limited communicative functions, mainly restricted to formal interactions such as in school, public administration, and government. Conversely, in ecologies where no indigenous lingua franca had emerged, it is used in daily interactions to communicate across ethnolinguistic groups. I then address the questions of why schooling hasn’t contributed to the spread of French in the post-colonial era despite the significant increase of the school population and why it has not speciated into different regional varieties drastically different from those of the former metropoles (viz., France and Belgium). Finally, I present contrastive examples of Camfranglais/Francanglais (Cameroun) and Nouchi (Côte d’Ivoire) and argue that the latter may be the only variety that has speciated into a new one very different from that of France.

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