To Be or Not to Be: The Preservation of West African Languages

Abstract

Languages facilitate engagements within and between groups of people allowing for the exchange of ideas and information. They are important repositories of diverse cultural values, knowledge and skills, the loss of which threatens human survival. Yet, little thought is given to how languages evolve or how so many have become endangered. The death of languages is caused by factors that include the predominance of certain languages, the decline in use of some as well as the lack of orthographies that can enable language learning and preservation. These existential threats are evident in West Africa where an increasing number of indigenous languages are fast disappearing from the region’s linguistic landscape taking with them vital information and skills that are encapsulated in them. Taking into account available surveys conducted into the decline of languages, this study examines the slide towards extinction and highlights the urgency of arresting this development. Using Paolo Freire’s Theory of Learning and Consciousness as a framework, therapeutic measures that can reinvigorate indigenous speech communities such as rethinking national language policies, instituting changes in pedagogy and creating orthographies that can help revitalize language learning are discussed. The loss of languages diminishes the cultural diversity of the world hence the urgent need to support them before they disappear. The study, therefore, recommends the active use of indigenous languages so as to preserve the rich linguistic heritage of the region for future generations.