A review of status of living languages of African origin

Abstract

The colonial powers subjected the African states to adopting the imported languages, for examples, Arabic, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish; as the only official languages in different African countries. This created a language barrier and led to the official language problem in the continent. The Organisation of the African Unity (OAU) proposed the replacement of imported languages to Africa by living languages of African origin, since 1986. This was not practicable and there was no way the OAU's proposal could resolve the language barrier and the official language problem in the continent because the imported languages were already part of the language situation in the continent. There was a decisive shift in the 1997 Harare Intergovernmental Conference on Language Policies in Africa when the language specialists recommended that the imported languages should be accepted as part of the language situation in Africa. The African Union succeeded the OAU in 2002; and it established an Academy of African Languages and its statutes were adopted in January 2006.Today, the statutes have completed eight years, but only few African countries have considered the official status of living languages of African origin, and the language barrier still haunts the continent. This paper focuses on the review of the living languages of African origin and their official status in Africa. The review shows that the colonial hard and global soft powers surpassed the African Union power. Therefore, the African Union should strengthen its power to address the language barrier in the continent.