Tag: Africa
Portuguese in Africa
While Nigerians of Brazilian heritage in Lagos are embracing Portuguese, speakers of the language in Guinea-Bissau say they are being discriminated against, as employers in the country are publishing job vacancies in French and...
A Voice for English Teachers in Africa
America-jin desuka? Nai, Africa-jin desu.
Back in 2009, as I sat at a train station in Kobe, Japan, waiting for...
Beyoncé in Kiswahili
Beyoncé has released a song featuring lyrics in Kiswahili, one of Africa’s more widely spoken languages.
The song, “Spirit,” is featured on the Lion King album produced by the star, which is the soundtrack...
South Africa’s Language Question Remains Unanswered
The governing African National Congress (ANC) held a rally in Sharpeville (suburban Johannesburg) on March 21 to celebrate Human Rights Day and to commemorate the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, widely regarded as the inaugural event in the...
Anglophones Seek Split in Cameroon
English and French still demarcate the lines of a violent conflict in Cameroon. This situation has worsened in the two years since 2016’s police clashes (see LM, December 2016).
According to the Washington Post, what...
Rwanda Revives French
Rwanda replaced French with English as its language of education a decade ago, but French is now experiencing a revival. French was the most-widely spoken European language in the once Belgian colony until it...
Ancient Script Found in Sudan
In northern Sudan, archaeologists have uncovered a trove of new artifacts at the necropolis of Sedeinga, an ancient Nubian city. Tablets, lintels, and steles...
Should Americans Learn African Languages?
According to the 2011 census, just .03% of Americans speaks an African language. However, the United States was ranked third for capital investment in African countries in 2014 begetting the argument that more Americans...
BBC launches Pidgin Portal
The BBC has launched a new online section that delivers news exclusively in Pidgin for West African audiences. Pidgin is a language spoken by over 75 million Nigerians. While the number of speakers is...
Chinese Developments
Partnership in Pakistan...
To promote Chinese language and culture in Pakistan, the Confucius Institute, the University of Karachi, and Islamabad’s Preston University signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to improve the teaching of Chinese in...