VAD e.V.

Joint Panel: VAD & Afrikanistentag

From Slang to National Language?

Convenors: Rose Marie Beck Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist gegen Spambots geschützt! Sie müssen JavaScript aktivieren, damit Sie sie sehen können. Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist gegen Spam Bots geschützt, Sie müssen JavaScript aktivieren, damit Sie es sehen können (Frankfurt), Maarten Mous Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist gegen Spambots geschützt! Sie müssen JavaScript aktivieren, damit Sie sie sehen können. Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist gegen Spam Bots geschützt, Sie müssen JavaScript aktivieren, damit Sie es sehen können (Leiden)

In the last fifty years of African independence urbanisation and globalisation have led to the emergence of new urban linguistic varieties. They are based on ideals of multilingual speech and characterised by highly volatile lexica. Many of these varieties are transformed from a criminal slang to a youth language. Despite persistent devaluation through educationalists, traditionalists, language planners and the elites, slangs and argots have in some places expanded and transformed into urban varieties which feature prominently in popular culture and the media. This is the case for Nouchi (Abidjan), Tsotsitaal/Isicamtho (Johannesburg), Sheng (Nairobi), and others. These varieties have started to spread to various urban centres of a country: Sheng is spoken in Eldoret as well as in Kisumu, but only marginally in Mombasa; Camfranglais can be found in Douala and Yaounde, but not in the north of Cameroon. Some researchers have suggested that such erstwhile urban varieties have the potential to become de facto national languages. For example, the Dholuo of Kenya, who have always resisted speaking Swahili on the grounds of it being a colonial language, apparently have no reservations against speaking Sheng.

These observations lead to interesting questions: What makes a slang become an urban language in some contexts, but not in others? Why do some urban varieties expand throughout a country, but not necessarily to all of its regions? Which characteristics allow for an urban variety to be accepted nationwide? If we assume that these slang/urban varieties are locally interpreted as modern, egalitarian and subversive, projecting conflicting ideas of inclusion and exclusion, of ethnicity and urbanity, resistance and visibility: What does this mean for our understanding of the modern nation state?

With this panel we intend to initiate a critical discussion beyond the normative discourses of language planning and policing, educationalists and elites. Rather we invite a reflection which crosses the lines between sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, political science and anthropology.