The African Baguette

The African Baguette explores France's influence in Francophone Africa. From politics to education, AfBag specifically seeks to uncover the relationship between the French language and two local languages of French Africa: 1) the Wolof language in Sengal and 2) the Berber languages in Morocco. France's footprint in both North Africa and the 14 West African countries of the Franc Zone is most evident through the use and plurality of languages. While the footprints are relatively easy to uncover, the stigma of the footprints' are more ambiguously in place. Let's reveal and reflect upon the raison d'etre in l'Afrique Francophone.

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Contemporary Anti-Wolofization

Written by kateaaby on

The increasing prestige of Pulaar, the language spoken in much of the North of Senegal—predominantly in the city of St. Louis--, is partially responsible for the resistance against Urban Wolof within Senegal. According to Fallou Ngom, “The primary goal of this movement is to resist the Wolof expansion and assimilation, and to assert a Pulaar identity, language and culture in the country.”

Pulaar-speakers are known to have introduced Islam to Senegal, and today they fuel a Pulaar revitalization in response to Wolofization. According to a paper about language in contemporary Senegal, the revitalization movement started in 1958 when a Senegalese Pulaar-speaker published a book about his “homeland.” The Association for the Re-Birth of Pulaar was created, and since then, many Pulaar musicians have helped keep the language and ethnicity alive and popular. I wonder if the anti-Wolof Pulaar-speakers are also anti-French?

While there is definite Wolof-resistance within the Pulaar-speaking community, I don’t get the sense that ALL non-Wolof speakers in Senegal resist this questionable movement of Urban Wolof. I got a tiny glimpse into the language dichotomies in Senegal in 2005 when I lived in a Serere-speaking part of the country. Serere-speakers are among the minority in Senegal, and they tend to live in the fishing communities near the Gambia border. I didn’t witness anti-Wolof sentiments, only anti-French ones from some women who were frustrated with the French language, since they never learned it in school. Most of the men are fisherman and travel throughout Senegal and sometimes into Europe, and, while I couldn’t understand everything they said, it seemed like the mélange of Sere, Wolof, and French that they communicated in with each other could very well be considered a branch of this Urban Wolof.

Taking all of these “stances” towards different languages into consideration, I think we need to remember that the information out there is subjective. When speculating about Urban Wolof and the sentiments towards Wolof and French in Senegal, I don’t find enough consistency among the sources to fully declare what’s really up!

For example, after all this research about how Wolof is driving an Urban Wolof movement in which different cultures within Senegal blend their language knowledge into a common, spoken tongue, I just found a Wolof website that says “The Wolof people are a very dark skinned, tall, proud, regal-looking people. They tend to be lazy about learning other languages, and have a domineering attitude toward their neighbors.” Whoah! Where did this come from? Well, it came from the website’s creators, the International Mission Board’s Southern Baptist Convention, so I leave it to you to pick which sources you want drive your knowledge of contemporary language in Senegal—Since humans tend to hear what they want to hear, I’m choosing to listen to the Urban Wolof theory for now.

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