Nigerian banks getting local language ATM

x-posted from Sociolingo’s Africa

Source: Africa News

Posted on Friday 9 May 2008 - 09:45

Ayo Ajayi, AfricaNews reporter in Lagos, Nigeria

Nigerian banks will soon have Automated Teller Machines ATM designed to communicate in all the Nigerian languages. Khombined Technology Ltd’s Managing Director Patrick Omolayole has disclosed that National Incorporation of China would also be involved.

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Sierra Leone: Between the Bo Sign Language Training Workshop, Human Rights And Development

Source: AllAfrica.com

Probably, no other issue has been as perplexing and persistent in the deaf community in Sierra Leone as the question of how to integrate the rights of deaf people into human rights and development works at the national and community levels, which is why the Bo sign language workshop organized by El Shammah Mission Sierra Leone between the 13th and 15th March 2008 highlighting the position of sign language used by the deaf people in the country from a standpoint of basic need and basic right must be considered unique.

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Mali linguistics: Perceptions of languages in the Mandingo Region of Mali

Posted by sociolingo on May 6, 2008

Canut C, (2002). Perceptions of languages in the Mandingo Region of Mali: Where Does One Language Begin and the Other End? in Long, Daniel and Dennis Preston, ed. (2002) Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology, Volume 2, John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN:9027221855

Read the chapter on Google Scholar

Available from Amazon UK

Review of book:

LINGUIST List 14.1383: Dialectology: Long and Preston (2002)

(2002) Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology, Volume 2, John Benjamins … The first volume of the Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology (Preston 1999) …

linguistlist.org

Mali: “Bambara” vs “Bamana” in English nomenclature

Please respond directly to Don (dzo(at)bisharat(dot)net

Cross-posted from H-West-Africa list

From: “Don Osborn”
Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 11:10:39 -0400

——————

A recent proposal on the Wikipedia article for “Bambara language” propts me to turn to this list for some feedback. It relates to the issue of where we are in the fashion of using “endonyms” for peoples and languages that was discussed on H-Africa & H-West-Africa in Dec. 2007 (”Names for African peoples & language”). The author of the request below makes a reasonable suggestion to consider changing the article name to “Bamana,” but makes the use of “Bambara” sound like an unqualified insult. My response follows. Any comments on the background, claims, or appropriate course of action would be appreciated.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bambara_language#language_name :

The name of this article needs to be changed, please. The term ‘Bambara’ floating around in other articles as an alternative name can still link to the new correctly titled article. The name of the ethnic group is the BAMANA and the language is BAMANA (English, German) or BAMANANKAN (lit. ‘Bamana sound’) in the native language. The term BAMBARA is pejorative on several levels. It’s a mispronunciation by the Colonial French (and therefore smacks of colonialism) and has stuck in much of French literature as well as art circles. However, this article is English wiki, and Americans and British anthropologists, sociologists and LINGUISTS call the language BAMANA. The term BAMBARA meant ‘riverworking / hardworking *slave*’ during the slave trade in Senegal, used by the whites and the Wolof to refer to the Bamana, Boso, Kagoro, etc. And, BAMBARA literally means in Fula (and has connotations in other West African languages) ‘pagan, infidel’ as the Fula converted many other ethnic groups to Islam. Many Fula still consider the Bamana as ‘bad muslims.’ The term BAMBARA is tinted with racsim, colonialism, ethnic hatred/distrust and religious tension. Professionals call the language and its speakers the same term that those speakers do. The article’s name needs to be changes. Using BAMBARA in Wiki is like titling a page Beaner or Yank or Lapp or Polack or Limey. Change it. 71.210.91.4 (talk) 02:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I’ll post this issue to the MANSA-L list (of the Mande Studies Association), because I think the issue may not be as clear cut as you imply. I think the case for endonyms - as you put it “Professionals call the language and its speakers the same term that those speakers do” - is sometimes overstretched and many now recognize that it is not always appropriate and sometimes even awkward. Where a pejorative association is clear, I think we’d all agree that the change should have no question - we say “Soninke” and have long before Wikipedia dropped “Saracolle” for this reason. I’m not arguing against the change so much as asking for more clarity before it be considered. My understanding is that “Bambara” came into the European languages via Fula <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_language>  pronunciation (Bammbaraajo/Bambaraa?e), but that it does not “literally mean in Fula (and has connotations in other West African languages) ‘pagan, infidel’” (although it sounds a bit like a derivative of the root for carrying on the back - wammb-). The history of the term is no doubt complex and I’d suggest more discussion before any attempt to move the articles.–A12n (talk) 14:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

South Africa: All languages equal but English (and Afrikaans?) more equal?

Source:http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=530

All languages equal but English (and Afrikaans?) more equal?
Posted on Language Policy list April 30th, 2008 by Pierre De Vos

Is it not strange - as a writer asks in an interesting piece in The
Herald newspaper - that 14 years after the advent of democracy in
South Africa, “the language spoken in our courtrooms still resembles
the apartheid era and in no way does it reflect the demographics of
this country”? While witnesses and accused persons can testify in one
of the eleven official languages and can rely on the services of a
translator when doing so (as Jacob Zuma did to great effect in his
rape trial) lawyers, magistrates and judges may speak only English and
Afrikaans (with less and less Afrikaans being spoken). This happens
even when all the parties before the court speaks a first language
other than English or Afrikaans.

Does this not make a mockery of the provisions of the Constitution
that recognises that the official languages of the Republic are
Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans,
English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu? And what does it say about
the much bandied about need for transformation of the legal system in
South Africa? The problem is that our Constitution is as clear as mud
on the issue of language rights. Trying to strike a compromise between
what is practical and what is ethically demanded, it contains a rather
muddled provision that in effect allows for English to be treated as
more equal than the other ten official languages (as George Orwell
might have said). Section 6 of the Constitution recognises “the
historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of
our people”, and places a duty on the state to “take practical and
positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these
languages”.

This is a rather broad injunction and it is not so clear exactly what
practical steps should be taken by the state to give effect to it.
Section 6 does seem to give some clues on what would be required when
it states that both the national and provincial governments “may use
any particular official languages for the purposes of government,
taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional
circumstances and the balance of the needs and preferences of the
population as a whole or in the province concerned” - which normally
means that because of the expense involved in using other languages
English wins out.

At the heart of the language provision in the Constitution is an
understanding (as stated in section 6(4) of the Constitution) that
“all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be
treated equitably”. This does not mean that all languages must be
treated equally or even that all the dominant languages in a region
must be treated equally. It only means that they must be treated
fairly “taking into account usage, practicality, expense, regional
circumstances”. But because English is such a dominant language and
because it is also the aspirational language of most people in our
country, even second language speakers of English often do not insist
on fair treatment for their indigenous language. English is seen as
the language of money and status and often amongst lawyers and
magistrates and judges (as well as most others in the professional
classes) this means that it is taken for granted that everyone will
speak English and if they cannot or will not speak it well, that they
are stupid.

The water is further muddied by the fact that the only South Africans
who actively promote and fight for their indigenous language are white
and Afrikaans and often do so in ways that seem to have more to do
with a disappointment about the loss of power and status and with
racism than with a genuine concern for the indigenous languages of
South Africa. Maybe it is time for people who do not speak English (or
Afrikaans) to put pressure on the government to deal more pro-actively
with the language issue and to develop a language policy for our
courts. Perhaps this policy could allow for regional differences as
suggested by the Constitution. This would mean, for example, that in
the Western Cape lawyers and magistrate and judges would be allowed to
speak not only English and Afrikaans but also Xhosa in court and to
draft documents in any of these languages.

Lawyers trained in the Western Cape could then be required to take a
non-English language course of at least one of the other two regional
languages to qualify as lawyers. This would not be very popular with
white lawyers I would imagine, but if we want to start somewhere to
respect the language diversity of South Africa, we will have to be
forced to do it. As someone who has twice started taking Xhosa lesson
only to abandon them, I know I will probably not learn the other
language of my region unless I am forced to. So what we need is a bit
of government intervention to force us to do the right thing -
otherwise everyone will just revert to English.

http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=530

African Dictionary:CHICHEWA/CHINYANJA-ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Source: African Book Centre

CHICHEWA/CHINYANJA-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
Paas, Steven (Ed.)

Chichewa is probably the most widely spoken African language across the regions of Southern and South-Central Africa, used extensively in the private and public spheres: in the family, schools, government, NGOs and media communications. This is the first authoritative, and most comprehensive dictionary of its kind, a notable scholarly endeavour, and with major practical applications. The dictionary grew from an ad hoc missionary publication of Chichewa/English translations from the 1970s, but far exceeds the scope of any previous efforts transcribe the Chichewa language, provide accurate English equivalents, and reach a popular audience. 400pp, MALAWI. KACHERE SERIES.

2004 9990816662 Paperback
Price: £30.95

Available from: African Book Centre

And African Book Collective

ALSO
English - Chichewa/Chinyanja Dictionary 3rd Ed.

Third Edition. Revised and Enlarged

Edited by Steven Paas

There are more than fifteen million native speakers of Chichewa, or Chinyanja, in Malawi, and in parts of Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa; thus Chichewa is probably the most widely spoken African language across the regions of Southern and South-Central Africa, used extensively in the private and public spheres: in the family, schools, government, NGOs and media communications. This is the first authoritative, and most comprehensive dictionary of its kind, a notable scholarly endeavour, and with major practical applications. The dictionary grew from an ad-hoc missionary publication of Chichewa/English translations from the 1970s, but far exceeds the scope of any previous efforts to transcribe the Chichewa language, provide accurate English equivalents, and reach a popular audience. It is a ‘live text’, taking in native speakers’ collections of Chichewa vocabulary, contemporary usage, as well as contributions from scholars in African languages; and it pays heed to the close interaction between Chichewa and English and how the languages influence one another when both are widely spoken. In Africa it aims to be the first popular Chichewa/English dictionary for all levels of language use; outside Africa, it is aimed at foreign visitors and workers dealing with the Chichewa languages in professional and tourist capacities, in government and NGO communities, the media, academia and in specialist fields such as medicine, information technology and the law.

ISBN 9789990876307 | 456 pages | 216 x 140 mm | 2005 | Kachere Series, Malawi | Paperback

£29.95

Available from: Africa Book Collective

See also:

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/Chichewa/