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LINGUA FRANCAS AND CITIZENSHIP IN WEST AFRICA Ericka A. Albaugh, Bowdoin College, June 2016

Prepared for the World Congress of the International Political Science Association Poznan, Poland – 23-28 July, 2016

Panel: Language Regimes and Citizenship Regimes: Bridging the Gap DRAFT: Comments welcome; please do not cite without contacting author: ealbaugh@bowdoin.edu Introduction

One of the most robust distinctions in French versus British colonization in Africa concerned language: the British used African languages in their administration, while the French did not (see Albaugh 2014, Ch. 2). After independence, most African states continued these divergent policies. In the past few decades, however, there has been a shift, with many former British territories reducing their use of African languages and many former French increasing it, resulting in some hybridity and moderate use of African languages in early years and focus on European languages in later grades across the continent. This paper will probe whether the colonial and early independence language legacies left their mark in citizenship sentiments and democratic practice.

It will argue that, at least as evidenced by citizenship sentiments revealed in surveys, distinctions seem to be relatively muted. More consequential than government policies toward language are the individual-level choices and responses to external events; one of the most influential of such events is war. This evokes a political science literature on language and state-building. Fears about neoliberal policies and the destructive or leveling influence of large European languages through the education system seem less relevant to Africa at the moment than the fluidity of repertoires demonstrated by the average citizen.

This paper will spend most of its time focusing on the shift in language capacity prompted by war in Sierra Leone, leading to changed citizenship sentiments and political participation. It will then more briefly compare three other West African states: Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso. It finds that war has the ability both to spread language and to shift its value, and that individuals exhibit clear preferences over which language identities they wish to emphasize. Literature

Languages are not static. Their reach over speakers expands and contracts; they absorb neighboring languages and in turn are absorbed. Conquest, colonization, and migration generate linguistic pluralism (Brubaker 2015, 91). Popular historian Ostler’s Empires of the Word (2005) explains that languages can expand organically, simply by the growth of their populations. More commonly, however, they move through migration, diffusion, or infiltration. The main catalysts he identifies, though always with exceptions, are military conquest and settlement, control of trade, or association with religious prestige. Writing and other technologies often propel language expansion, and underlying conditions such as favorable geography provide advantages as well. One might classify forces influencing the reach of languages as top-down or bottom-up.1 The top-down mechanisms typically preoccupy political scientists. These top-down efforts are usually associated with governments’ attempts to achieve orderly administration, e.g. through taxation, conscription, and mass education.

A common language is a crucial ingredient of “rationalization” in Weber’s (1968, 809) terms. Associated explicitly with state-building, it facilitates record-keeping, court decisions, and taxation, reducing a ruler’s transaction costs. Charles Tilly (1990, Ch. 2) reminds us that before the era of the

1 Philippe Van Parijs uses this terminology in his brief discussion of language extinction (2011: 142-143), but I expand the categories here.

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French Revolution, all states used some sort of indirect rule. The transition to direct rule gave rulers direct access to citizens and the resources they controlled through household taxation, mass conscription, censuses, and police systems. And it typically included mass education. Of course, such a broad, national education requires a shared, printed language. Benedict Anderson in his account of the role of print capitalism in binding citizens in common identity, argues provocatively that the modern nation was “conceived in language, not in blood” (1991, 145).

Africa’s colonization occurred during the apex of state-building efforts in Europe. In England, the period between the 1870 Forster’s Education Act and the 1902 Balfour’s Education Act saw the central government consolidating its control over education, expenditures growing from about 2 percent in 1870 to around 8 percent by 1905.2 In France, after the 1880 Jules Ferry Laws introduced free and compulsory education, central government expenditure on education grew from less than 2 percent of GNP to more than 6 percent by 1905.3 Colonial policy in Africa was much weaker in its scope, but the expectation that education was one of the responsibilities of the colonial state was axiomatic.

Even more after independence, leaders expounded their rhetoric about a common education for national integration. Scholars at the time (e.g. Deutsch 1953/1966, Lerner 1958, Coleman 1963) anticipated the socializing and integrative functions of education, with its language naturally a single, unifying one.

Because of the strong influence of the European experience on our understanding of state formation, there is an expectation that state-builders will indeed want to rationalize their populations. But in fact, leaders in Africa have been remarkably lax in this regard. Official languages have not spread far. Furnivall (1938) observed that the existence of many languages was part of a plural society that prevented collective mobilization against imperial rule. A cynical observer could suggest this continues in the present (Albaugh 2014, Ch. 5). As many states have not expanded their taxable realm, direct interaction with citizens has not been necessary, and therefore deliberately spreading an official language has not been a high priority. Regardless of the methods used (e.g. mother tongue en route to European-language acquisition or exclusive European language education), deliberate efforts at achieving a linguistically homogeneous population have borne little fruit; official language spread has been minimal. Overall, no European language has penetrated widely across the African continent. A majority of states boast less than 20 percent of their population speaking the official language (Albaugh 2014, 221).

This comes as no surprise to many scholars, who bemoan the poor quality and contrived atmosphere of African school systems: “The very artificial technique of transmitting a language through the school system rather than through daily interactions with native or fluent speakers contributed to spreading the European colonial languages as elite lingua francas rather than as vernaculars” (Vigouroux and Mufwene 2008, 5).

Despite the ineffectiveness of most education systems at spreading an official language throughout the entire population, other languages have spread. While it is true that African states are fractionalized in terms of mother tongue speakers, they show much more cohesiveness when considering the capacity of individuals to speak a lingua franca. In fact, most people exhibit tremendous multilingualism, and most can communicate with the majority of their fellow citizens through a lingua franca (See Albaugh 2014, 223). Virtually all states have a lingua franca spoken by 50 percent or more of the population. In more than half of states, a lingua franca is spoken by 70 percent or more; and in nearly a third, it is spoken by 90 percent or more. Languages indeed are

2 Calculated from Mitchell 1988. See Green 1990, 8. 3 Calculated from Peters 1981 and Mitchell 2007.

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spreading. If many of these languages are spreading without the top-down efforts of government, we should look more closely at what the alternative means are.

Nathan Nunn (2012) observes geographic impacts on language: mountainous regions with rough terrain seem to have preserved more language groups (protected from slave raiding) than flat geography. Calvet’s (1981) work on vehicular languages identifies several factors that make languages more likely to expand as lingua francas: its use in pre-colonial trade, association with religion, and proximity to colonial-built communications links. McLaughlin (2008) shows the importance of migration to a capital city dominated by a particular group in spreading a language.

Mufwene (2001) describes language as a parasitic species, rather than an organism, which survives when its host survives. Languages die when speakers choose not to speak them. Generally, individuals learn languages with higher value, in economic terms and prestige. The linguist Edwards (1985) highlighted the desire for social mobility inducing people to learn certain languages, while sociologist de Swaan (2001, 21) categorized languages by their “q-value,” which is how widely the language is spoken as a mother tongue or second language, and therefore determines the utility to be gained by learning it [in rational choice vein]. Philosopher and political economist Van Parijs (2011) identifies a “maxi-min” dynamic, wherein people in groups tend to use the language known minimally by the maximum number of others. This serves to expand a language. Bourdieu (1982) talked in terms of a linguistic market, where capabilities in different languages hold higher value and prestige. While certainly material advancement is crucial, the power and status associated with a language plays a central role. Such status is determined by what is socially valued, and it can be greatly influenced by the stigmatization of some languages as lesser than others.

Different from deliberate, top-down government efforts, as well as from individual choices is the exposure to language that comes through contact with its speakers in the course of a civil war. The contact is not voluntary, as, say, a choice made by individuals migrating an urban setting, nor is it centrally planned by the state. It may arise from the provocation or rebellion of a few, but it affects many more in its wake. It is an individual choice to participate for survival, and it has linguistic consequences.

A famous quip defines a language as a dialect with an army.4 When we think of war’s impact on language in Africa, we might think of the Sokoto Caliphate or the Ashanti Empire, whose expansion through subjugation and incorporation brought people in surrounding areas into their orbit, thereby expanding the reach of the dominant group’s language. Historically, this was a rather uncalculated, even if violent, by-product of expansion. The European model included top-down efforts, as described by Tilly (1990) – the move from indirect to direct rule, with the associated homogenizing policies in language, weights and measures, and administration (see also Scott 1998, Ch. 2). All of these were byproducts of engagement in war. Herbst (2000) contrasts Africa’s limited experience with interstate war to Europe’s constant warfare, arguing that this inhibited the “productive” nation-building byproducts. Drawing from Tilly, his narrative includes the resulting bureaucratic apparatus as well as the growing nationalism built around a common language and identity. While it may be true that the lack of external war atrophied or prevented the emergence of capable bureaucracies in Africa, it is not clear why the process of internal war could not have appreciable effects on citizens’ national identities. In particular, it might induce similar language shifts. Though inter-state war has happened rarely since independence, the continent has seen much civil conflict, particularly in the last two decades, and it appears that this civil conflict has had a discernible effect on language spread. In areas most touched by war, common languages have progressed faster than what would be expected through “natural” processes.

4 Attributed to French army general Louis-Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934), cited in Safran (2010: 55), referring Jean Laponce.

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Evidence for such effects could take several forms. Some political scientists might use quantitative tools – probing the impact of war by placing it alongside many other factors – urbanization, gender, age, education, location, etc. – in a regression equation to attempt to isolate the relative influence of each. Others use more qualitative approaches, perhaps conducting interviews among survivors of war to find out whether their knowledge of certain languages was gleaned through participating in or being exposed to fighting. My method is in between these, as I use quantitative evidence more descriptively, looking for “observable implications” of my theory. If it is true that war alters language capabilities, what would I expect to find? I would expect that individuals more directly exposed to fighters speaking a language would be more likely to adopt it themselves. But I would want to account for other factors that might also have produced this knowledge. Using this approach, one imagines the “causal mechanisms” that are likely at work.

I have chosen Sierra Leone as a site to test this proposition. I first need to establish a pre-war baseline of language capability. This is tricky, since the three available censuses have different levels of specificity about language. Using what is available, I will show that before the war, proficiency in Sierra Leone’s lingua franca of Krio only involved about 30 percent of the population, whereas after the war, it was around 90 percent. Next, I need to show that it was the war – rather than another factor – that was doing the ‘work’ of language spread I attribute to it. For this, I will observe regions similar in all other relevant ways except for exposure to war, expecting that the one with greater exposure would have citizens with greater Krio proficiency. And I will look at citizens themselves and assess their actual exposure to fighting groups, expecting that those exposed to groups with greater Krio usage would themselves exhibit greater Krio capacity. While the sample size for these observations is small, I do find such a tendency.

Together, these pieces of evidence provide some support for the contention that war spreads a common language if it rages across the territory and is spoken by the major fighting forces. Case Study: Sierra Leone

A small coastal country in West Africa, Sierra Leone experienced a brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002. I suggest that this war stunted the already restricted spread of English, the official administrative and educational language, but it hastened the spread of Krio. I will first explore the limited spread of English and then outline the actors and evolution of Sierra Leone’s war. I will suggest that this process led to the expansion of the Krio language across the majority of the population, drawing evidence from the 1963 Census, 2004 Census, and a 2003 survey conducted by Weinstein and Humphreys.

Sierra Leone’s 1963 Census reported just over 5 percent of its total population was literate in English. Four decades later, the country’s 2004 Census revealed that an even smaller proportion (less than 4 percent) of respondents claimed they could speak English. Part of this is the disruption caused by the war. But even before this, English was not making strong headway. In 1960, 14 percent of the school-aged population attended school. Enrollment rates grew for the next 15 years at an average yearly rate of over 6 percent. From 1985 to 1990, however, growth in enrollment fell to only 2 percent a year, and the war made schooling thereafter even more challenging. The 2004 Census indicated that 37 percent of respondents had been to some school, and 27 percent had completed four years or more. But again, only 3.8 percent of respondents claimed to speak English. Clearly, the official school system had not spread English widely.

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FIGURE 1– English in Sierra Leone (1963 and 2004 Census)5

Though Sierra Leone is an extreme, it reveals a stagnation of a European language and its

surprising lack of effective spread through the education system. These figures and statistics point to a weak government commitment to spreading an official language – a motivation we take from the European experience as axiomatic. Nonetheless, a non-European language has spread in Krio. While some of the explanation is growing urbanization – particularly the growth of Freetown – I submit that the strongest factor is the civil war.

Sierra Leone has several language groups, the largest in terms of mother tongue speakers being Mende (28 percent), and Temne (23 percent), according to Ethnologue figures.6 Though small in terms of first-language speakers (12.5 percent), the most widely spoken language is Krio, a language originating in the coastal capital of Freetown and now spoken by the overwhelming majority of the population. The question is why it has become so widely spoken.

5 Reported by chiefdom in both years: percentage of the population identified as literate in English in 1963 and percentage claiming ability to speak English in 2004. 6 Calculated from the 2009 edition of Ethnologue, which lists mother tongue speakers for each language. Census dates are often older, so figures have been modified to account for population growth. The percentage is calculated from the sums of all mother tongue speakers in the country.

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FIGURE 2: Languages in Sierra Leone We typically think of the school setting playing

a central role in language spread, but as we saw above, the school system in Sierra Leone has been very weak. And it cannot be implicated in the spread of Krio, since the language of instruction has been English.7 Nonetheless, Krio has grown from being a language spoken by a small minority in the capital city to one that covers nearly the entirety of the country today.

The language Krio [dark shade on map] was formerly associated with the Creoles of Freetown, who made up about half of the city’s population of 30,000 in 1831 (Banton 1965, 135). These were freed slaves from Europe and the Americas who had been settled by the British on this coastal enclave. After 1918, however, the population balance had changed with the influx of people from the interior: of 44,000 inhabitants in the city, less than 16,000 were Creoles (Banton 1965, 137). And after 1957, the population shift was accompanied by a transfer in political power against the dominant Creole and toward ‘tribal’ groups

– with formerly privileged Creoles largely marginalized from the political process (Cole 2013, 128). Newly elevated were Temne, Mende and Limba migrants, who kept in close touch with their districts of origin (Banton 1965, 137).

Observing Sierra Leone around 1970, Tabouret-Keller claimed that the language most spoken in the capital was Temne [medium shade in Fig. 2] (1971, 193). The Mende-speaking group [light shade in map] covering the southern part of country was about the same size. “Together Temne and Mende represent about 60% of the total population of the country, and about 60% also of the population of the capital” (Tabouret-Keller 1971, 194). Though she acknowledged that the high-status Creoles in the capital spoke Krio, “in this case…the capital’s former first language has not spread out over the rest of the country; rather, the most widely spoken African languages have invaded the capital” (Tabouret-Keller 1971, 194). This observer saw the interior languages coming into the capital, rather than Krio moving outward. This is the baseline condition to which we compare the subsequent change.

The 1963 Population Census identified 41,783 Creoles in Sierra Leone.8 This represented less than 2 percent of the total population, and 90 percent were concentrated in the Western Province, primarily Freetown. There were no figures in this census for actual speakers of the language. Eldred Jones suggested at that time that most of the residents of the Western Province had a working knowledge of Krio, and said that the language was dispersed in urban and semi-urban towns outside the Western Area. He claimed that a reasonable estimate would be 500,000 speakers of Krio (Jones 1971, 67), which was 23 percent of a total population in Sierra Leone of 2.2 million. Fifteen years later, Johnson (1986, 118) reported that 50,119 people spoke Krio as a mother tongue (still about 2 percent) and estimated that 30 percent of Sierra Leoneans had a knowledge of the language. The 2004 Census indicates that 9.6 percent speak Krio as a mother tongue and 50.9 percent use it as a second language, but this does not count those who might use it as a third or

7 The language of instruction has officially been English, though in the 1980s, experimental classes introduced Mende, Temne, Limba and later Krio in a few schools in early grades. According to Fyle (1994), these experiments stagnated. 8 Table 3, p. 13.

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fourth language. In 2008, it was estimated that 95 percent of Sierra Leoneans could speak Krio (Oyètádé and Luke, 2008, 122). The change from the mid-80s to the mid-2000s seems dramatic. Spatially, Figure 3 shows how the language has moved from the capital and urban areas in 1963 to virtually all chiefdoms by 2004.

FIGURE 39

Urbanization is a prime motor of language spread. With high levels of in-migration, the

language of a capital city will naturally gain speakers. But urbanization is not the central factor spreading Krio in Sierra Leone. In 1963, the urban population was 18.9 percent, growing rapidly to 32.2 percent by 1985, and to 36.7 percent in 2004 (Sesay et al, 2006, 43). Currently Freetown holds 15.5 of the entire population (ibid, 12). This is actually a relatively low percentage, compared to other capital cities in Africa, such as Dakar, Senegal, which holds nearly half of its population. In Sierra Leone, two-thirds of the population continues to live in rural areas. And significantly, even this population speaks Krio. The 2004 census shows that of adult rural respondents, a full 53 percent spoke Krio as a second language, while among the urban population, 66 percent claimed it as a second language, and likely more as a third or fourth.

I suggest that the major mechanism that dramatically spread Krio in Sierra Leone was civil war. To test whether this is actually the case, we would want to look at a rural area that was linguistically homogeneous, whose population would presumably not need to learn a different lingua franca for communication. This is precisely what we see in the eastern districts of Sierra Leone, which bore the brunt of early fighting. In Malema Chiefdom, for example, 88 percent of the population speaks Mende as a mother tongue. This chiefdom is completely rural, with no major cities, and yet nearly 60 percent of its population over 14 years old speaks Krio as a second language, and likely many more as a third or fourth.

Civil war spreads language not only through the mechanism of raising armies from civilian populations, as is the typical mechanism in historical state-building accounts. It follows the path of

9 Urban areas, calculated from the 1963 census, which gives the population for each chiefdom and size of all towns with more than 1000 people. I designated as urban and semi-urban areas those chiefdoms which achieved a certain threshold (40%) of their population living in towns of more than 1000 people. Obviously, this is not a precise measurement, but it is illustrative of the limited spread of Krio in 1963.

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rebels who interact with civilians as they move through the country. Sierra Leone’s conflict was intimately connected to the conflict in Liberia and its major protagonist, Charles Taylor, head of the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia). The central rebel group in Sierra Leone’s war – the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) – contained many NPFL fighters. Most of its initial members were Sierra Leonean residents in Liberia. This initial group numbered only a few hundred and included a few Burkinabes and Libyan mercenaries as well. They were led by Foday Sankoh, who had trained with Charles Taylor in Libya. Sankoh was from a central province of Sierra Leone and, according to observers, spoke with a thick Temne accent (Richards 1996, 5, 18). Though he certainly would have the ability to speak English, given his early training in Nigeria and in the UK for the Sierra Leonean army, he had worked in urban areas of the South East and had spent time in prison for allegedly plotting a coup. Certainly, he was proficient in Krio, which allowed him to communicate with the diversity of his recruits.

The bulk of the fighters had Krio in common. These were the “lumpen” youth – disaffected, unemployed young men (and some women) in the capital city and in urban areas of the interior. Those in Freetown were at the “cutting edge of the development of the Krio language” (Abdulla and Muana 1998, 174). Alluvial diamond mining “and rich pickings of a parallel smugglers’ economy” had attracted lumpen youth to the border districts as well. Here was a “reserve army of fighting men” for the RUF (Abdullah and Muana 1998, 179).

FIGURE 4 – Administrative Districts in Sierra Leone

As shown in the shaded regions in Figure 4, the

RUF entered Bomaru (Kailahun) from Liberia in March 1991. A second flank entered over the bridge into Pujehon. Only a few months after entering, by July 1991, the RUF held large portions of the East and the South. But Sierra Leone government forces on one side and ULIMO (Liberian) forces on the other pushed them out of those areas to the center and north of the country. In this way, a civil war can have effects similar to an interstate war: if it rages across the entire country.

The mechanisms for such changes are multiple. A horrifically comprehensive report prepared for the truth and reconciliation process in Sierra Leone details the atrocities that occurred during the decade of conflict.10 I argue that civil war impacted language through micro-processes of population movement, recruitment, sexual slavery, and governance

relationships. First, rural civilians fleeing fighters moved into other areas, mixing with neighboring populations in urban centers and needing to communicate through a common language (e.g. NPWJ, 166). Second, many civilians were recruited to carry property for the rebels as they moved across territory and looted villages. For example, the report notes that 400 civilians were abducted by the RUF in Firawa town of the Diang Chiefdom to carry goods to Kono district further south (NPWJ, 182). Fighting forces also used women as “wives,” to cook, wash, and perform other duties. As the

10 “No Peace Without Justice” Conflict Mapping report: http://www.npwj.org/ICC/Sierra-Leone-Conflict-Mapping.html

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fighting progressed, forces from all sides of the conflict established relationships with civilians in the areas they were taking by force. They were to provide certain amounts of livestock, oil, salt, groundnuts and other food items to support the fighters; men were to provide firewood and women to deliver water and cook (NPWJ, 175). Toward the end of the war, the “capture of all the major towns in Diang, Neini and Neya Chiefdoms [Koinadugu district] refocused RUF/AFRC strategy away from bush fighting and raiding, towards occupation and consolidation of control” (NPWJ, 182). As they administered, various rebels had to communicate with populations in a common language.

FIGURE 5

TABLE 1 Chiefdom Pop

Density 1985*

% Rural**

% Ethnic Group (Kuranko)**

% Illiterate**

% Muslim**

% Female**

Exposure to Violence***

Percent Speaking Krio**

Neya 34/mi2 100% 95% 93% 97% 61% 21% 38% Mongo 33/mi2 100% 91% 88% 94% 58% 33% 52% Sengbe 32/ mi2 69% 72% 77% 95% 59% 53% 68%

Sources: *1985 Census; **2004 Census; ***Bellows & Miguel 2009 dataset While Sengbe’s higher Krio proficiency can be explained with its more urban, more diverse

and more literate populations, as well as its exposure to violence, Mongo is similar in all those ways to Neya, but differs only the percentage of its population exposed to violence, thereby supporting the role of this factor in contributing to higher Krio proficiency.

Knorr (2010) explains the recent spread of Krio as deriving from a change in perceptions

about local languages associated with traditional authorities in Sierra Leone. The reputation of powerful traditional authorities and institutions suffered in the eyes of the younger generation because they were unable to protect people from rebel violence. Krio-speaking elite, on the other

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hand, claimed not to have been involved in war as perpetrators: “Krio’s alleged lack of indigeneity and ethnic authenticity have disavowed their legitimacy to play a political role on the national level. Now that tradition – represented in the form of ethnic and indigenous institutions, values, hierarchies, and identities – has lost in esteem and social acceptance, what had formerly been perceived as Krio deficiencies can now be gerrymandered into a Krio advantage” (Knorr 2010, 745). Many people in Sierra Leone praise the Krio for at least having provided Sierra Leone with a lingua franca – Krio – and the group is gaining status for having a reconciling effect on society at large (Knorr 2010, 746).

I would argue, however, that the prestige came after the violence spread the language. This is a case in which civil war, just as powerfully as inter-state war, can serve to homogenize a population linguistically.

Sierra Leone’s 2004 Census is better than most, in that it asks second-language proficiency. But it does not ask all of the languages spoken by the population. There is, however, a survey conducted by Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy Weinstein in 2003, just after the war had ended. This survey interviewed more than 1000 ex-combatants and nearly 200 non-combatants in every region of the country, and it shows beyond any doubt that Krio had spread to every corner of the country. Overall, 90 percent of ex-combatants claimed to speak Krio and 94 percent of non-combatants. The survey of ex-combatants over-sampled Mende-speakers,11 which may explain the slightly lower proficiency, as members of this largest group may have had less need to learn a lingua franca than members of smaller groups. But the results are striking. It confirms the mechanisms that are believed to spread a lingua franca via war.

First is the basic role of conscription and participation in the fighting. In Sierra Leone’s conflict, the major government factions were the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) from 1997 onward. This army, according to Abdullah and Muana, came from “the same social group as the RUF combatants” (1998, 182). The major rebel group was the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), along with the Civil Defense Forces (CDF) an umbrella name for a wide array of local militias. Importantly, while the civil war was characterized as an “ethnic war,” all of these factions were multi-ethnic. The survey among ex-combatants showed that most participants did not actively participate until 1997 or 1998, and that while Mende made up the majority of the RUF for duration of the conflict, the SLA and AFRC had very diverse membership, and even the RUF grew more diverse in later years. Remember that this survey over-sampled Mende participants, and so they look even more dominant than they likely were. The following panels show the composition of fighting factions in 1992 and 2000, as represented by these respondents:

FIGURE 6 – Composition of Fighting Factions (“What the Fighters Say”)

11 The survey sample recorded 53% who claimed Mende as their “tribe,” 20% who claimed Temne, 10% Kono, and 4% each Limba and Kuranko. This can be compared with both Ethnologue estimates and the 2004 Population census. The Ethnologue estimates 28 percent of the population speaks Mende as a mother tongue, compared to 23 percent Temne. The 2004 Census reveals that larger and virtually equal percentages of the population claim Mende and Temne ethnicity: 32.2% vs. 31.7%, respectively. Limba is claimed by 8.2%, with Kono claimed by 4.4% and Koranko by 4.1%. Mother tongue figures are almost identical. These indicate that Ethnologue figures may underestimate the larger language group percentages, but that Mende-speakers are still heavily oversampled in the “What the Fighters Say” survey.

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The RUF, while containing many Mende speakers, was actually led by Temne-speaker Foday

Sankoh. As mentioned above, as an army-veteran and prisoner, with experience working in urban areas of the East, he certainly would have used Krio to speak with diverse recruits.

The CDF also fluctuated in membership quite widely over time, but it differed from the other factions. According to a careful study by Danny Hoffman (2007), the CDF were originally ethnically-based militias known by their localized names (e.g. the Kuranko tamaboro, Temne goethis and Kono donsos, with the largest being the Mende kamajoisia, or Kamajors – Hoffman 642). The other CDF groups eventually began adopting the more general Kamajor title, but they continued to see themselves as community defense mobilizations. “Unlike, for example, the RUF, combatants with the CDF did not necessarily see themselves as outsiders to their social landscape (Hoffman 647). They did not have a centralized military structure, and operated through networks of patronage and clientship. This is important, as it meant that these local defense forces likely maintained more homogeneous local membership.

The 2003 survey asked ex-combatants which factions they fought with in different periods. Of those who were Mende, a maximum of 40 percent said they fought with the RUF in any given period, while up to 48 percent said they fought with the CDF militias. Among Temne, the affiliations were slightly less but similar. Many more of the Kono and Kuranko had been members of the CDF than the RUF. And the Limba reported much higher membership in government factions than other groups. A snapshot of the 1999 period shows wide diversity in faction participation.

FIGURE 7 – Participation in Fighting Factions, Sierra Leone

All of the factions were diverse. Krio was certainly used in the SLA and AFRC. While the

RUF had a majority of Mende-speakers, it also used Krio because of its diverse membership. The CDF was unique in that it was only loosely networked, and its local militias maintained close contact with the communities that produced them. This meant that these groups were much more likely to use local languages than Krio with the civilians among whom they interacted.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

SLA RUF CDF

Sierra Leone - 1992

Mende Temne Kono Kuranko Limba

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

SLA AFRC RUF CDF

Sierra Leone - 2000

Mende Temne Kono Kuranko Limba

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Mende (548) Temne (208) Kono (101) Kuranko (45) Limba (45)

"What the Fighters Say" - 1999

SLA AFRC RUF CDF NONE

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Among the combatants, only 10 percent claimed not to speak Krio. These non-Krio speakers showed higher affiliation with the CDF than with the RUF (Fig. 8), which is consistent with their lower Krio proficiency. Other associated factors were a higher percentage with no schooling and higher Muslim affiliation.

FIGURE 8 – Combatants’ Affiliation with Fighting Factions, Sierra Leone

The second mechanism is not conscription or fighting, but exposure to war. Fortunately, the

Humphreys and Weinstein project also surveyed non-combatants, to whom one can compare ex-combatants. This survey of non-combatants was much smaller: only 183 people, but still from all regions of the country. The sample was less overrepresented by Mende12, and there was more of a gender balance: 65 percent male to 34 percent female.13 Even more in this group than among the combatants claimed to speak Krio; it was 94 percent.

Only 6 percent of the non-combatants said they could not speak Krio; this was only 11 people out of 183. They were similar14 to the non-combatants who did speak Krio in all but one respect. The only distinguishing feature among these 11 people was the contact they had with the various factions. The Krio-speakers claimed greatest contact with the RUF (42%), followed by the CDF (30%) and the SLA or AFRC (25%). In contrast, the 11 non-Krio speakers had most contact with the CDF (64%), followed by the RUF (36%). None of these non-Krio speakers claimed exposure to the SLA or AFRC. While a small sample, this supports the mechanism that contact with speakers of Krio likely spread the language. The government forces and the RUF were most likely to use Krio. The CDF were usually local to their areas and would be least likely to use Krio, more likely using common local languages to interact with civilians.

Sierra Leone was a vastly different place after 2003. Its nearly five million citizens had endured dramatic displacement and interaction with violent rebels. While the war had shattered the lives of most of them, it had also left a population that could communicate in its rebuilding. Even in areas at the rural periphery, a common language has spread through conscription of its citizens into fighting forces and the exposure of non-combatants to various factions during the war.

Mneesha Gellman (this panel) argues that while Krio may give Sierra Leoneans a newfound shared identity and enables participation at the national level, it may hinder their political participation at the local level. It may be true that a younger generation may have more difficulty communicating with the older, but local-level involvement seems quite strong. In a careful quantitative study using multiple individual-level surveys in Sierra Leone between 2005 and 2007,

12 39% Mende, 34% Temne, 9% Kono, 3% Limba, and 2% Kuranko. 13 Among combatants, 89% were male; 11% female. 14 Half rural, half urban; half men, half women; similar in age; similar ethnic distribution.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Krio-Speakers (936) Non-Krio Speakers (107)

"What the Fighters Say"

SLA AFRC RUF CDF None

13

Bellows and Miguel (2009) find that exposure to conflict actually correlates quite strongly with individual political participation at the local level. Those more deeply exposed or victimized report higher attendance at community meetings, higher membership in social groups, and even more trust toward other groups. That study did not consider language, but I wonder how much the shared language of Krio enabled such participation. Comparisons: Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso

To continue probing at language and national cohesion, I turn to three countries close to Sierra Leone geographically. In earlier work, I found that education seemed to impact citizens differently depending on the type of education system, with immersion systems pushing them toward a national identity and mother tongue settings pushing them toward a ‘mixed’ identity (Albaugh 2016). Evidence for those findings was derived from the 2008 round of the surveys; since then, national sentiments have increased across the board throughout Africa. I look here more carefully at two representatives of former French territories (Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso) and another former British (Ghana), giving them French and English, respectively, as official languages. Two of them – Ghana and Burkina Faso - have a single dominant language group (Akan and Moore, respectively), and two of them – Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso – share a lingua franca in Dyula, a trade language spoken by few as a mother tongue but shared by many as a second language.

Below, I have plotted answers to a question asking respondents to choose among several options regarding their identities. They could choose to identify 1) only with their ethnic group, 2) mostly with their ethnic group, 3) equally with their ethnic group and the nation, 4) mostly with the nation, or 5) only with the nation. I divided the sample in each country by education level – grouping those with no or informal education, those who had attended some or all of primary school, and those who had attended secondary school or higher. Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana have much more educated citizens (51% and 61%, respectively, having attended secondary school or higher) than Burkina Faso (25%). We should therefore expect their overall numbers claiming national sentiment to be higher, as education is believed to shift citizenship sentiments away from parochial loyalties. And yet, the distinctions in neither colonial background (which proxy education type) or education level seem to make a difference in individual sentiments across the three cases:

14

FIGURE 9 – A, B, C

Not only are these three countries relatively similar to each other in terms of proportions of

their populations holding these various sentiments, but the differences among population groups by level of education is surprisingly modest. So, Burkina Faso and Ghana – differing in colonial history, education type, and level of education – are only 5 percentage points different in proportion of their populations saying they feel a more ethnic identity and only 3 percentage points different in the proportion saying they hold a more national identity. And within Burkina Faso, where the largest gap is evident in those who hold equal attachments (8 percentage points), this is not a linear phenomenon; those with no education claim more equal attachments than those who have attended primary school, but then attachments revert to more equal for those who have attended secondary school. It seems clear that there are no strong patterns and that schooling does not impact national sentiment as much as we would imagine.

Slightly more revealing are shifts in national sentiment over time. Ghana has four rounds of the survey asking the same question (2005, 2008, 2012, 2015), while Burkina Faso only has two rounds (2008, 2012). Cote d’Ivoire has a single data point (2012), so changes over time cannot be compared. It is clear that in both Ghana and Burkina Faso, sentiments are shifting more toward national. This may be partly because of increased education levels (Ghana went from 58% to 70% completing primary school over the decade of observations, while Burkina Faso went from 26% to 30% in the four years between observations), but as seen above, respondents’ education levels did not seem to influence their sentiments appreciably.

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%

Ethnic Only/More Equal NationalOnly/More

Education and National Sentiment Cote d'Ivoire 2012

none/informal (21%) primary (27%)

secondary+(51%)

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%

Ethnic Only/More Equal NationalOnly/More

Education and National Sentiment Burkina Faso 2012

none/informal (60%) primary (15%)

secondary+ (25%)

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%

Ethnic Only/More Equal NationalOnly/More

Education and National Sentiment Ghana 2015

no/informal (19%) primary (20%)

secondary+ (61%)

15

FIGURE 10 – National Sentiment over Time

Both of these countries have a very dominant language group, but their sentiments do not diverge appreciably from those of smaller groups. The surveys do not reveal why this shift toward a stronger national identity is occurring. But one might ask whether language choice reflects shifts in sentiments.

In Ghana, for all rounds of the surveys, 50 to 53 percent of respondents spoke Akan at home, 13 to 15 percent spoke Ewe, 6 to 8 percent Dagbani, less than 2 percent Hausa and less than 1 percent English. The 2008 round of surveys asked something that others did not; it asked what languages individuals spoke well. While individuals might overestimate their language capacities, such information is perhaps more useful than information about “home languages” or mother tongues. This question revealed that 81 percent of the population claimed they could speak Akan well, 49 percent claimed to speak English well, 17 percent Ewe, 9 percent Hausa, and 7 percent Dagbani. It is unlikely that these figures changed dramatically in the five years before or after this survey. And yet, individual choice to use these languages in the surveys did change, particularly between Akan and English. Whereas the choice to use English increased between 2002 and 2008, it decreased afterward, with respondents choosing to take the survey in Akan or another African language.15 This choice may reflect public debates over a language-in education policy that was in flux. For most of its independence, Ghana maintained thee mother tongue policy it inherited from the colonizers, but in 2002 it abruptly shifted policy to English-only. After much public debate over the issue, a modified mother tongue policy was reintroduced after 2007. While pupils experiencing the policies would not show up in the surveys so quickly, the public emphasis on English after 2002 and renewed attention to Ghanaian languages after 2007 may very well have influenced the choices of survey language by respondents.

15 The percent of “home” Akan-speakers is actually slightly lower in 2015 than in 2008, so clearly other language groups are choosing to use it over English.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Shifts in Ethnic/National Sentiment over Time - Ghana and Burkina Faso (Afrobarometer)

Ghana Burkina Faso

16

FIGURE 11 – A, B

It seems that while education levels and English proficiency are increasing, individuals in

Ghana are choosing to demonstrate their affinity with Ghanaian languages over English. And, as shown in the previous discussion, their national identity is increasing at the same time.

In Burkina Faso, there are fewer rounds of surveys and therefore less evidence to compare

over time, but trends are slightly different. As in Ghana, more people in the later survey chose to use the largest language of Moore, but they did not do so to the detriment of the European language, French, which also increased. Instead, it was the vehicular language of Dyula (Dioula) that lost favor.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

2002 2005 2008 2012 2015

Survey Languages in Ghana

English Akan Smaller

0%

20%

40%

60%

2002 2005 2008 2012 2015

Survey Languages in Ghana Among Non-Akan Speakers

English Akan Smaller

17

FIGURE 12 – A, B

The number of Moore-speakers (Mossi) in the sample was virtually identical in both survey

years, while the number of “home” French-speakers increased from 1 to 5 percent. This might explain some of the increase in the choice of French as the survey language. But Dioula/Dyula was most changed. In 2008, while only three percent in the sample claimed Dyula as a home language, 40 percent said they could speak it well, and 23 percent chose to take the survey in this language. Four years later, there were more home Dioula speakers in the sample (6 percent), but fewer chose to take the survey in this language: only 17 percent.

Cote d’Ivoire may hold part of the answer to Burkina Faso’s trends. Unlike Ghana and Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire does not have an extremely dominant language. None of its larger languages comprises more than 15 percent of the population. Its capital of Abidjan had no dominant language group, and so French took an early hold. This was demonstrated with the remarkable French proficiency evoked by a 1955 census of Abidjan. Of the domiciled population, 59 percent of men and 19 percent of women, or 44 percent overall, reported being able to speak, read or write French.16 In 1960, a remarkable 23 percent of the school-aged population was enrolled in school, a much higher percentage than any other country in West Africa. French was therefore poised to spread through the country. But it had a competitor – not in the form of a large group, but in an existing lingua franca. Abidjan did not have an obvious dominant language group. Partly, this was because only 62 percent of the city’s population was actually from Cote d’Ivoire: 13 percent came from Upper Volta [Burkina Faso], 16 percent from other Francophone African countries, and 8 percent from Anglophone African countries. This meant that 37 percent of the capital city 16 Recensement d'Abidjan 1955: Population (over age 14) living in Abidjan who speak French (Table AR 5, p. 69)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2008 2012

Survey Languages - Burkina Faso

French Moore Dioula

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

2008 2012

Survey Languages among Non-Mossi

French Moore Dioula

18

originated elsewhere. No group held majority status. The largest grouping in the city’s 1955 census was “Eburneo-Beniniens,” but this was a motley continuum of groups with different languages: Attie, Abidji, Ebriee, Abouri, Akan, Baoule, Adja, Yoruba.17 “Voltaics” and West Atlantic groups made up 20 percent each, and 15 percent were from Soudan (Mali). It is noteworthy that as early as 1955, census documents were classifying “stranger” vs. “national” populations. This became dangerously significant when resources and election outcomes were at stake.

Just after independence, Cote d’Ivoire’s and Upper Volta’s “Manpower bureaus” made an agreement with “aim of continuing the flow of Voltaic workers formerly organized by the colonial authorities” (Cutolo 2010, 543). Abidjan’s large foreign contingent, then, was not accidental, and migrants would contribute to the ‘Ivoirian miracle’. This had two effects: 1) the spread of Dyula as a lingua franca; and 2) the assimilation of all northerners into the ethnic category of Dyula. “As a social category, the Dyula encompassed all Ivorians coming from the northern regions, in spite of their ethnic diversity (Senufo, Malinke, Lobi, etc), as well as immigrants from countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea” (Cutolo 2010, 543). The Dyula language was used among them.

Tabouret-Keller wrote that Dyula meant merchant as well as member of Dyula tribe (citing Delafosse 1901, Tabouret-Keller, 197). The ‘tribe’ has no precise geographical location. At the beginning of century and certainly still today [1971], “Dyula is the principal language of the market-place and hence the most important lingua franca of the country” (Tabouret-Keller 1971, 197). It spread not only in the northern part of the country but all along the trade routes and in all the southern markets… “basic Dyula is the most spoken language in various non-formal situations of social life, particularly those with a traditional aspect e.g. in the markets” (Ibid, 197).

Among laborers, Dyula dominated, and among the elite, it was French. While surveys in Abidjan in 1974 and 1985 showed that Dyula was spoken by 74 percent and 85 percent, respectively, of the respondents as a first or second language (Djité 1988, 219), Tabouret-Keller focused on the pervasiveness of French in the capital: “In a shop in Abidjan, or even on the street, one is possibly more likely to be answered in French than in any of the indigenous languages. There is certainly a marked trend towards the use of French in dealing with the administration” (Tabouret-Keller, 197). But outside Abidjan, particularly in the north, she agreed that Dyula was dominant. “Dyula is otherwise the lingua franca of the whole of the Ivory Coast” (Tabouret-Keller, 195). With Cote d’Ivoire’s diversity and the lack of dominant group, Dyula might have taken over. It did not, however, stopped by the “first-mover” status of French in the capital. And then came war. War actually might have diffused Dyula even more deeply within the capital city and through the South. Hellweg (2004) explains that as the state’s security apparatus deteriorated with economic decline, northerners took security into their own hands. Dyula and Senufo hunters (dozos) became urban security agents across Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s. They used “Benkadi procedures” of agreement, dispute resolution and patrols. As state security forces struggled to contain violence, Benkadi methods spread further. These traditional hunter groups began dealing with armed robberies on a busy stretch of highway. “When dozos succeeded at discouraging bandits along this artery, they gained public approval, national notoriety, and enthusiastic support from local administrators. Soon the movement moved southward to the rest of the country” (Hellweg 2004, 6-7).

But the national climate changed after the death of President Houphouet-Boigny, when successor Bedie’s government began to portray dozos along with all northerners as enemies of the state. Dyula quartiers in Abidjan were referred to as quartiers criminogenes, nids de malfrats (robbers’ dens). They were associated with increase in street crime and insecurity in Abidjan (Cutolo 2010, 545). “In public discourse the Dyula language… historically the lingua franca of the markets in this

17 Recensement d'Abidjan 1955, Table AR 1, 63-66.

19

part of West Africa, was depicted as the language of the street, of illiterate strangers who could not speak French, of shantytowns” (Cutolo 2010, 545). The government characterized dozo hunters as them as an illegal ‘parallel police force’ (Hellweg 2004, 9) and called on them to put down their arms and end their patrols. In 1998, the Interior Minister declared an end to dozo patrols below the northern half of the country, thus restoring “the primacy of state police in the south while leaving open the possibility that dozos continue their security patrols in the north” (Hellweg 2004, 9). Cote d’Ivoire experienced open conflict from 2002-2004, followed by an uneasy stalemate that broke the country in two until flawed elections in 2010 and renewed fighting, which ended only in 2012. The French military had been intimately involved with Cote d’Ivoire’s security since independence, and its peacekeepers patrolled a line of demarcation that bisected the country.

The war might have deepened Dyula’s hold, even in the capital, but because the war ended in a stalemate, with Dyula-speakers expelled from the south and contained to the north, its reach slowed. Today, we see few people choosing to speak what was once progressing as a lingua franca.

The following maps show the language used in the interview for Cote d’Ivoire’s 2013 Afrobarometer survey. Even though 18 percent of respondents identified Dyula as their “tribe,” only four percent of the population chose to take the survey in the Dyula language.

FIGURE 13 – Language of Interview in Cote d’Ivoire (Afrobarometer 2013)

Of the 1200 respondents in the survey, 250 had no education or informal education only.

These people should not be able to speak French. But 87 percent of them took the survey in French. Many of these may have learned French through migration to urban areas. But more than half of these respondents were rural, and 60 percent were women. I believe many of these individuals were exposed to French during the civil war, as they faced government soldiers, and during the stalemate as they faced French-speaking foreign forces. Figure 14 selects from the respondents only those in rural areas who had no education exposure. It overlays the “Zone of

20

Confidence” that divided the country during the civil war. There seems some unusually high proficiency in French along the line of demarcation, near military bases (e.g. Korhogo in the north), and where fighting was heavy (near the capital of Abidjan and San Pedro in the southwest). Figure 14 – Rural Respondents with No Education: Percent Surveyed in French

Surely part of the decrease in Dyula proficiency resulted from the expulsion of many people back to Burkina Faso and Mali during and after the violence. But it also seems clear that many Ivoirians chose not to use Dyula, even if they were capable. And clearly, many people used French who had not had any education. More information is needed on the population’s participation in the Ivoirian military and the Forces Nouvelles, as well as exposure to French soldiers and other peacekeeping forces.

While Cote d’Ivoire displays generally similar ethnic versus national sentiments as Ghana and Burkina Faso, it dos show variation when comparing respondents based on the language in which they were surveyed. Among the very few who did not take the survey in French – presumably because they could not and were therefore obliged to use Dyula – their choice of affinity was overwhelmingly toward the nation more than an ethnic group. A full 66 percent chose national identity, which is 20

percentage points higher than the French speakers in Cote d’Ivoire and higher than any other subset of respondents in any of the surveys. This clearly demonstrates a desire to assert citizenship and belonging in an environment that had stigmatized Dyula-speakers as outsiders.

War then shifted language in Cote d’Ivoire as in Sierra Leone. Participation in fighting and exposure to factions influenced individuals’ language capacities. Also important, however, is the prestige or stigma attached to certain languages, and the languages individuals choose to employ will obviously be more restricted than those they are capable of using.

Conclusions: Cohesion and Participation

21

Table 1 Sierra Leone Ghana Burkina Faso Cote d’IvoireLargest Group (mother tongue for)

Mende (28%)

Akan (50%) Moore (50%) Baolé (15%)

Large Languages and Lingua Francas (spoken by)

Krio (90%) [several estimates]

Akan (81%)[claimed in Afrob08]

Moore (71%)Dyula (40%) [claimed in Afrob08]

Dyula (50%)[several estimates]

European Language (spoken by)

English (4%) [census 2004]

English (49%)[claimed in Afrob08]

French (37%)[claimed in Afrob08]

French (96%)[survey lang Afrob13]

% with no/informal education [Afrob]

47% 19% 60% 21%

%Feel closer to the nation [Afrob] %Feel closer to ethnic group [Afrob]

No data

52% 11%

46% 16%

49% 9%

Why does it matter that languages are so fluid in Africa? It is critical as we think about

valued outcomes such as democracy and social cohesion. Democracy-promotion has replaced nation-building as the mantra for African states. But democratic experiments in Africa continue to hit against authoritarian barriers. The wave of democracy in Africa crested around 2005, and since then, democratic quality has receded (Diamond 2008, Gyimah-Boadi 2015). It is a renewed concern with civic cohesion and social integration that prompts a careful look at language and its relationship with democracy. This concern hearkens back to an earlier body of work subsumed under the much-maligned “modernization paradigm,” a conception of societies as moving along a similar trajectory, in which urbanization, industrialization, and education naturally leads to greater political participation and national cohesion. Plaguing democratic quality in Africa as elsewhere is lack of participation, exclusion, and inequality. No matter how elections are structured, rulers tend to manipulate them. We need to focus on society and its capacity to demand good governance.

A common language is central to providing the communicative resources that allow citizens to participate and to hold their rulers accountable. Hobsbawm notes that a national language only became important when ordinary citizens became a significant component of the state: “The original case for a standard language was entirely democratic, not cultural. How could citizens understand, let alone take part in, the government of their country if it was conducted in an incomprehensible language?” (1996, 1067). Kymlicka has said “democratic politics is politics in the vernacular. The average citizen only feels comfortable debating political issues in their own tongue” (2001, 213). For many, this implies that different language groups should be separated territorially, though even advocates acknowledge that this makes “democratic cooperation between the members of distinct nation groups more difficult” (Kymlicka 2001, 313).

Van Parijs argues that democracy does not require a common ethnos with a homogeneous culture, but it does require a demos “with a shared forum, a common space for deliberation and mobilization” (Van Parijs 2011, 30). If deliberation is an important part of the democratic process, language becomes critical (Archibugi 2005, 546). Aside from deliberating with each other, it seems crucially important that citizens be able to to criticize government. As Ngugi (1986) argued, learning the colonizers language facilitated elites’ participation, as it allowed them to join national or international conversations. The “masses,” however, were still excluded. Alternative visions are not available to the audience that matters. Whereas Ngugi proposes the use of mother tongues to mobilize the masses, it seems that access to a lingua franca might also open this possibility. Since the school system has not played the integrative function that was hoped, another way of advancing such monitoring is to allow the spread of lingua francas, where citizens might speak among themselves about the failings of government.

22

Jaimie Bleck (2015) shows that individuals who acquire French in school are much more likely to engage in “difficult” political participation beyond voting – contacting political leaders, engaging in protest, negotiating through bureaucracies. Comparing Ghana and Burkina Faso, for which we have data on both language capabilities and political activities, it does seem that education exposure and French proficiency increased individuals’ likelihood of discussing politics, as one political activity. This may be partly a residue of the very small educated class, as in Mali. In Ghana, however, where education is more widespread, access to languages of wider communication makes a difference, regardless of education level. Facility in English is actually less consequential for political discussion than ability to speak Akan or even Ewe, while lack of facility in one of these depresses political discussion considerably,

“Assimilation” has acquired a bad name, since it is associated with forced homogeneity or wholesale incorporation of immigrants into a host society. Brubaker (2001, 534) gives some nuance, as he argues that when considered in a more general sense – the sense of becoming more similar – the act of previously marginalized groups achieving more similar educational and occupational status to majority groups can be seen in a more positive light. Language repertoires are central to the determination of one’s life chances (Brubaker 2015: 32). As the spreading of a useful language broadens ones networks and life chances, it contributes to equalizing opportunities for work as well as political participation. “Opportunities – not just for education and employment but also, even more fundamentally, for the formation of broad and strong social ties and for full participation in a broad spectrum of collective activities – are systematically limited for those who lack proficiency in the prevailing language” (Brubaker 2015: 33).

The slow movement from indirect to direct rule took hundreds of years and violent bargaining; the fact that governments needed to reach ever more deeply into their populations for taxes and conscripts induced governments to take an interest in homogenizing populations linguistically. This, in turn, facilitated the communication necessary for the forging of democracy, which came much later. In the case of Sierra Leone, the government clearly has not been induced to homogenize its population, and neither conscription nor the school system has spread English widely. Despite government indifference, a language has spread. The brutality of war may have left an asset that is available to citizens. While by no means guaranteed, there is at least a possibility that they can deliberate, and perhaps ultimately agree to hold government accountable.

Frederik Barth (1969) argued that contact between ethnic groups re-affirms and sustains divisions, as cultural features that the actors regard as significant are expressed and validated with interaction. And yet, we have seen that languages in contact do not stay static. It is likely that in the modern world of intense, frequent, and diverse exchange with multiple language groups, languages merge more quickly than do identities. If a lingua franca reduces the significance of language as a marker of difference, there may be more of a possibility for a broader national versus narrow ethnic identity to emerge. Social cohesion in post-conflict Africa by virtue of a shared language may be more likely than we would imagine if only considering mother tongue capabilities.

23

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