Alternative Contexts of Language Policy and Planning in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Abstract

My main contention in this article is that the nation‐state paradigm for policies targeted at effecting development in sub‐Saharan Africa is undermined by arbitrary colonial boundaries and porous borders and the challenges of transnationalism as part of the globalization phenomenon in late modernity. The nation‐state paradigm is also the framework for guaranteed dominance of English and French, the two main excolonial official languages of sub‐Saharan Africa, because the indigenous languages, at least theoretically, operate within ethnic boundaries. I cite evidence of internal migration and displacement across national boundaries to argue that policies which are coterminous with these boundaries motivate people to move. I suggest that the treatment of boundaries as zones of continuity rather than discontinuity will allow for the development of stronger interstate agencies within which framework projects may be better managed. I present evidence of the difficulty in pushing macro—language policy and planning and make a case for micro—language policy and planning not only as a more viable alternative in the region but also one for which success is easier to measure.