Metaglossia: The Translation World

L'accession du Parti Socialiste aux commandes de l'Etat incite deux personnalités contrastées du Pays Catalan à solliciter une promotion de l'enseignement public en langue catalane. Le maire de Perpignan, Jean-Marc Pujol, écrit au ministre de l'Education nationale, Vincent Peillon, pour favoriser une "double culture", tandis que la chanteuse vétérane Teresa Rebull saisit François Hollande de l'intérêt d'un "libre enseignement'".
A quelques jours d'intervalle, deux personnalités des Pyrénées-Orientales se mobilisent pour la langue catalane, en s'adressant aux plus hautes sphères de l'Etat. Dans un courrier du 13 juillet, le maire UMP de Perpignan, Jean-Marc Pujol, demande au ministre de l'Education Nationale, Vincent Peillon, une prise en compte de la situation géostratégique du Pays Catalan de France. Le premier magistrat ose décrire, en marge de la légalité mais en accord avec un avenir possible, un territoire dont "Barcelone est incontestablement la capitale pour des raisons évidentes de proximité géographique". M. Pujol défend ce qu'il estime être l'intérêt d'une "double culture naturelle", apte à tenir un "rôle incontestable de développement". Cet argumentaire sert d'appui à une demande, exprimée au ministre, de "possibilité d'augmenter le nombre de postes d'enseignants sur les filières bilingues de l'enseignement public".

At the flag off ceremony of the 2012 edition of ‘Read Africa’ project, an initiative stemming from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), UBA Foundation, held at the bank’s headquarters in Lagos, the renowned Kenyan writer, Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who was the guest speaker at the event lamented the total neglect of African languages in affairs of Africans and African states. He frowned at the preference among Africans for European languages and culture. Flaying what he referred to as the enslavement of Africa by Africans, the literary icon expressed the view that Africa will not be free through the mechanical development of material forces, but it is the hand of African and his brain that will set into motion and implement the dialectics of liberation of the continent from self-imposed mental slavery.
Ngugi, who flew into Nigeria from California, United States of America, spoke with CHIJIOKE IREMEKA on the need to give a face-lift to the dwindling reading culture in Nigeria and Africa. He also called on Africa to take its place and secure its base through the promotion of its languages, literatures and culture. The author of Weep Not Child was pained by what he termed ‘criminality,’ raising Africans that speak European languages but do not speak African languages, adding that it amounts to empowerment for an African child, when he speaks African languages as well as foreign languages.
Ngugi called for linguistic power sharing in African, just as he extolled Nigerian literary giants — Prof. Chinua Achebe, Prof. Wole Soyinka and JP Clark, among others, describing them as the sources of imaginations for all African writers.

Prioritizing African Languages: Challenges to macro-level planning for resourcing and capacity building
CASL Author(s):
Tristan M. Purvis
Christopher R. Green
Gregory K. Iverson
Type: Peer-reviewed Article
Research Area: Less Commonly Taught Languages
Publication: Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages
Year: 2012
Volume: 11
Pages: 1-30

Link: Prioritizing African Languages: Challenges to macro-level planning for resourcing and capacity building