... of accomplishing tasks such as public education and mass communication. When dozens of languages are spoken widely in a single country it is impossible to produce newspapers, radio air waves, and textbooks in all of the languages. The peoples of Africa speak around one thousand African languages, and there are more than fifty African nations, each with its own history and unique mixture of cultures and ... languages. There are a variety and a number of African languages, they possess a number of distinct phonetic and grammatical characteristics, in addition to relations within ... ...

• Word Count: 1463
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... ? Is it literature written by Africans, literature that depicts the African experience? Does African literature have to be written in African languages? These questions were raised and gave rise to debate, a debate that started as far back as the 60's. At the African writers conference held at Makerere in 1962, which sought to debate if not to answer these questions. The legacy of colonialism has ... left the African writer with a dilemma with regard to the language choice in writing ... suppressed and devalued as part of the process of control of what Ngugi calls the "mental universe" ...

• Word Count: 2193
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to a new culture and language of the Europeans. This contact in the plantation environment resulted in the almost complete destruction of their native African languages, with the exception of a few words used ritualistically. Only the 'liberated' African immigrants managed in the late 19th century to communicate in their native tongues. According to Bronkhurst, "The Black Creoles never can ... relish the language of their ancestors, though they hear it spoken in their presence9." This seems to suggest that the African languages were devalued due to its decreasing use and the inabili...

• Word Count: 2280
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... generally understood across the country. It is one of the eleven common spoken languages but it only ranks 5th out of the eleven spoken languages. During the 15th and the 19th century major changes had happened to the African and North American continents. Europeans ventured to Africa where they began a trans ... they could think about was their freedom after the war. Well they were tricked; after the war was over they rounded up any surviving African American and sent them to slavery in the Caribbean. The ones who were left behind were captured and were brought by a slave owner. After ...

• Word Count: 1350
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... . This is due to the imperialist nature of France's foreign policy from the 19th to 20th century. Many of these African countries were French colonies and as a result, adopted French as their lingua franca. French is also one of the official languages of the United Nations and a large number of international organisations. In countries such as Nigeria, French is a compulsory part of ... the curriculum for students from grade one to nine (1-9). Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obansanjo (1999-2007) was denied the role of Chairman of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) be...

• Word Count: 919
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... mind. For the only language he or she thinks their parents and them know is English, but this is far from true. In fact, most African Americans are bilingual and speak probably one of the hardest languages known to man. It can be heard in almost any American urban community, and changes with time like any other language. It is Ebonics also ... have existed where Africans retained their language behavior in connection with English" (Asante, 20). Likewise, even though the English language was forced upon the African slaves, they still maintained parts of their native languages by using th...

• Word Count: 752
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... into more settled territory. The language spoken by the migrating grain gatherers were ancestors of the large family of afro-Asiatic languages. Sometime later agricultural technology began to change society especially in Egypt. Egyptian religion can be understood by referring to African religion. Twelve thousand years ago the Sahara was habitable, but dry, people hunted across the territory that was later ... who originally came from Northeastern Nigeria carried iron and agriculture from the fringes of the Sahara to most of Africa. They spoke a language similar to the present day Bantu ...

• Word Count: 1996
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... issues will be discussed in their relation to the classroom. A Comparison of Native American and African American Cultures Native American and African American cultures each have had their own long rich histories from before the white majority arrived in America. Each group has had their own unique languages, familial relationships, social relations, music and dance traditions, they have shared many common experiences ... over the past 400 years (Grim, 1995).This paper will compare the cultures and histories of African American and Native American people and their long and often bloody i...

• Word Count: 2111
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... folktales have origins rooted in West African literary and cultural forms of expression. When Africans were taken from their homeland and brought to America as slaves, they also brought with them their individual cultures, languages and customs. However, their white slaveholders suppressed this part of their heritage in them. Thus they had to find other ways of expression , mainly storytelling and ... songs. This is another way they brought in proverbs. It is incredible to see how African slaves could ever smile and laugh under cruel circumstances, which ... , proverbs and everything el...

• Word Count: 2075
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... standards as the ideal and focus on bringing African culture back to the forefront. Hence, we see Soyinka and Clark as well as many other African poets bringing their cultural superstitions to their literary works, even though most of them are written in European languages. In Soyinka's Abiku poem, almost every line ... is made up of cultural beliefs and practices as they relate to the Abiku child. He even dips into non-African oral traditions in the line that says, "remember/ this, and ... brings to light the idea that the spiritual i.e. traditional and the human i.e. rational can exist...

• Word Count: 1278
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B Dubois, Gwendolyn Brook, Zoral Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Baldwin and many more writers have paved the way for the work's of African American literature. The term "African American Literature" is understood by most as Sub-Saharan (East and West) Africa. The primary source of language for this literature is European not Africa, which is also ... known as radical anomaly. African participants in colonial administrations in Africa began producing written works of literature in European languages. The social involvement of African writers...

• Word Count: 1283
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... respects archaic? Concerning its continued practice of excision, to which 85 percent of Guinean women are still subjected according to P. Hanry. To quote the following statistics from P. Hanry's Erotisme african: "85 percent of the girls are excised, with only 8 percent stating that they are not. Only a very small percentage of women protest against their fate: 12 percent deplore their ... etc). Women, as a whole, must refute those claims that preservation of those customs today is a way of resisting the neocolonialism or imperialism and holding on to the traditional values. African women...

• Word Count: 2433
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... brought the first cargo of twenty Blacks to Virginia in 1619. Millions of other Blacks were torn from their African homes and carried to the New World before the slave trade was ended. The Africans brought here against their will ... trade triangle to another merchant. In Africa their cultures were rich and varied, as different from one another as were the African peoples themselves. Their colors, their languages, their food, their clothing differed in a range as great as the difference in size between the pygmies and the giant Watusi ... Aphra Gehn captures the market of literate wome...

• Word Count: 928
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... sorrows, happy should I ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own Fallen victims to the violence of the African trader." In this quote talks about what he has observed to be the slave traders intentions. In saying that "we encounter misery for you" Equiano tries to let the reader ... the sickening stench of the Guinea ship that makes my heart tear for how brutal Equiano and the entire cargo of slaves were treated. The observations and feelings about the African slave trade are finally brought forward through Equiano's ...

• Word Count: 2057
• Approx Pages: 8

... sorrows, happy should I ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own Fallen victims to the violence of the African trader." In this quote talks about what he has observed to be the slave traders intentions. In saying that "we encounter misery for you" Equiano tries to let the reader ... the sickening stench of the Guinea ship that makes my heart tear for how brutal Equiano and the entire cargo of slaves were treated. The observations and feelings about the African slave trade are finally brought forward through Equiano's ...

• Word Count: 1998
• Approx Pages: 8

... , religion, politics and other spheres of human endeavors with the plurality of its language. The African perception of life, religious believes, political ideologies, literary insights and thought patterns were best represented in these African languages as initiated by the African ancestors. This fact makes the use of language imperatively pragmatic for language user's better understanding. ... 's second most spoken language. The implication of relegation of African languages by these foreign languages on the African continent is an unfortunate loss of one of the paramount ingredients ...

• Word Count: 796
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... are so diverse that they are different from any other culture of the world. African cultures contain many different languages. African languages range from common French to languages unheard of to most people such as Swahili. African arts are much different than American arts. Their art involves much more creative pottery, masks, and paintings. Africa has a very interesting culture. Reasons being the people ... English. It also concluded that 10% refer to English as their "mother-tongue". The most common languages in South Africa are Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu, and Swahili (African Languages)....

• Word Count: 1186
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... traced to the formation of the Pidgin language and the Creole language during slave trade in the South. Afronet columnist Alicia Banks is quoted saying, "Black English is a combination of African languages and Standard English. It should be awarded linguistic medal of honor for creation against impossible odd." Her column can be accessed at "www.afronet.com." (Dillard) A widely accepted theory ... Linguistics at Stonehill College. When asked about Ebonics, he said, "I think it can be defined as a hybrid language. It has elements of Euro-American languages and West African languages like...

• Word Count: 2663
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... ). Williams created the word from "ebony" and "phonics," which means black sounds. Williams and his colleagues are consultants to the Oakland School Board and trace the origins of Ebonics to African languages such as Yoburo, Ewe, Mandingo, and Fula (Fillmore npg). No matter the name, it is not new. Ebonics has a cultural and historical base that goes back to slavery. Historical ... Currie Ballard, a historian at Langston University, the dialect has historically been known as Gullah and is a mixture of several African languages and English. Gullah developed during slave times when African...

• Word Count: 2709
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... used for other purposes as in agriculture. Radio program produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries continue with a fourteen hour total time per week in the seven mail languages plus English. These are: - Radio Farm Forum – a thirty minute discussion program broadcast once a week. - Zambian Land and the People – a fifteen minute program in English of a documentary ... at political rallies. Mytton (1983) observes that the 1969 census suggested that only 15% of the population spoke a mother tongue which was not closely related to one of the seven African broadcast lan...

• Word Count: 8649
• Approx Pages: 35
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Niger-Congo and the Afro-Asiatic languages. Afrikaans, is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, or Cape Dutch, is principally derived from the Zuid-Holland dialect of mid- 17th century Dutch settlers in South Africa. It gained loanwords from English, French, and German and from African languages and underwent grammatical simplification. In The Languages of Africa (1963) the ... linguists traced the historical origin and development of African languages, and classified them into four major groups: Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan. The largest language ... ...

• Word Count: 1183
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... In the last question, I stress Achebe's statement to keep writing about the political injustice that has been done to the African society. Chinua Achebe, an African novelist, poet, critic and political activist with a strong opinion about the influence of English throughout Africa and linguistic imperialism. He ... that the influence of English language has been rather positive. But we should remember at all times, that we have a lot of native languages in Africa and English has never been one of them. Our English is different. We use English words, use English sentences, but our ... d...

• Word Count: 972
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... collected slaves and brought them to the United States. These slaves were not from one nation, but many, and they spoke many different languages. Some of these tribes spoke Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa. They were separated when captured and made travel with people they could not understand. ... developed but all have valid truths and have been extensively researched. First of which is Ebonics developed out of contact between African languages and English. The African's exposure to English was very limited and was most likely from the few encounters with indentured farmers on the plantations on...

• Word Count: 375
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... was the most famous African missionary. Livingstone first planned to become a medical missionary in China, but the Opium Wars made China a bad place for a westerner with good intentions. Livingston turned instead to Africa and, after a four-month journey, landed in Cape Town, in modern South Africa, in 1841. Livingstone treated the Africans with respect. He learned their languages and customs and explored ... percent of the population. South Africa's black majority had resisted apartheid for many years. They began rioting in 1976, when the South African government tried to force black c...

• Word Count: 2251
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... . The brutal murder of a language causes colonization, urbanization, and globalization, which in turn are responsible for the death of the culture. Colonization is largely responsible for the speed at which languages are endangered. Linguists claim that the colonization of the world was initiated by Europe during the 15th Century; moreover, it has been taking place uniformly around the world. The European ... of European colonialism was to expand the economic and power base of European nations and to assert their superiority by imposing their customs, mainly their language. Immigrants su...

• Word Count: 1038
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate