International Journal of Linguistics & Communication

Death and Survival of African Languges in The 21st Century
Prof. Kithaka wa Mberia

Abstract
Africa, like many other parts of the world, is faced with language endangerment. According to United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO), “language is in danger when its speakers cease to use it, or use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, either adults or children”. A number of languages in Africa are faced with a situation similar to the one described above. Hence, they can be said to be endangered. Indeed, some of them are already dead. Languages such as Bongomek, originally spoken in present-day Western Kenya are no longer spoken. Other languages such as El Molo, Okiek, Watwa, Hansa are spoken by very few people. They are, therefore, endangered. Yet, there is a third category of languages which previous have been endangered but whose fortunes have been reversed through certain actions some of which were not geared towards language revitalization. In this paper, I discuss language survival and language death in Africa within the broader theme of language endangerment. I base my discussion on information on African languages. I describe factors that have led to the death of the already extinct languages as well as those that are responsible for the endangerment of the languages facing an uncertain future. Finally, I discuss measures that have resulted in the reversal of the fortunes of some of the endangered languages.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijlc.v2n3a6