This book developed out of a survey course on African languages that Uriel Weinreich invited the author to teach at Columbia University. The focus of the course changed considerably in the years that the author taught the course (1964-1968), in large part to accommodate the interests of many students without a background in linguistics but registered for the course. The one thing African languages have in common, setting them off from all the other languages in the world, is the fact that they are spoken in Africa.

This volume explores the central role of language across all aspects of public and private life in Africa.

Africa’s diversity is best illustrated linguistically. Thousands of endogenous and exogenous languages are linked to and central to the identity and reality of Africans. Language is a vital lens for analyzing these multifaceted challenges in Africa, where a deeper understanding of the entire linguistic landscape is germane to understanding sociopolitical and cultural systems. Concentrating on instrumental and emblematic functions of language in Africa, Language, Society, and Empowerment in Africa and Its Diaspora argues for the critical value of African languages beyond functionality into philosophical consideration of their importance for African unity and advancement. Akinloyè Òjó calls for the development and empowerment of African languages to serve in various domains, including the support of basic literacy and daily survival of their users. Òjó propagates ways to empower African languages for African sociocultural and economic development in the twenty-first century. The author productively engages works by linguists and language pedagogues to provide an ardent case for the empowerment of African languages in the renewed era of globalization, the internet, and an emergent Global Africa. Òjó posits and accentuates some of the notable modalities for empowering African languages in specialized domains for national and continental development.

This book focuses on language, culture, and identity in nineteen countries in Africa. Leading specialists, mainly from Africa, describe national linguistic and political histories, assess the status of majority and minority languages, and consider the role of language in ethnic conflict.

A wide-ranging guide to language and society in South Africa. The book surveys the most important language groupings in the region in terms of wider socio-historical processes; contact between the different language varieties; language and public policy issues associated with post-apartheid society and its eleven official languages.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

The aim of this book is to inform both scholars and the public about the nature and extent of the problem of language decline and death in Africa. It resourcefully traces the main causes and circumstances of language endangerment, the processes and extent of language shift and death, and the consequences of language loss to the continent's rich linguistic and cultural heritage. The book outlines some of the challenges that have emerged out of the situation.

"This book argues for the need to empower African indigenous languages for greater functions in national life. It makes an important and useful contribution to the understanding of the sociolinguistic and sociopolitical dimensions of language attitudes in the sub-Saharan African language context." "Overall, the book will interest all sociolinguists, language in education researchers and scholars, language policy makers in multilingual situations, and even politicians. Also, anyone interested in the complex African language context will find the book very informative, even stirring, while those involved with language issues in multilingual situations all over the world will find Language Attitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa interesting, stimulating, and valuable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The preamble to the post-apartheid South African constitution states that ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity’ and promises to ‘lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law’ and to ‘improve the quality of life of all citizens’. This would seem to commit the South African government to, amongst other things, the implementation of policies aimed at fostering a common sense of South African national identity, at societal dev- opment and at reducing of levels of social inequality. However, in the period of more than a decade that has now elapsed since the end of apartheid, there has been widespread discontent with regard to the degree of progress made in connection with the realisation of these constitutional aspirations. The ‘limits to liberation’ in the post-apartheid era has been a theme of much recent research in the ?elds of sociology and political theory (e. g. Luckham, 1998; Robins, 2005a). Linguists have also paid considerable attention to the South African situation with the realisation that many of the factors that have prevented, and are continuing to prevent, effective progress towards the achievement of these constitutional goals are linguistic in their origin.

Language in South Africa (LiSA) debates the role of language and language planning in the reconstruction, development and transformation of post-apartheid democratic South Africa. The 1996 constitution of South Africa is founded on the political philosophy of pluralism and is directed at promoting democratic values, equity and non-discrimination, human rights, national unity and the development of all the country’s communities. The question asked in LiSA is how language planning can contribute towards the attainment of these national ideals. Set against the language political realities of the country — the a-symmetric power relations between the languages; the striking differences in the structural; functional and symbolic adaptation of the official languages; and the many language-related problems in the country — it debates the role of language in state administration, national integration, educational development and economic development. The volume concludes with a discussion of language development and language management.