‘Words’

When they set out to colonize Africa, Europeans were faced with the pressing issue of mastering the African multilingual landscape. This chapter explores the role of languages and language policies in francophone sub-Saharan Africa (AOF and Belgian Congo) and pays attention to the biopolitical arsenal deployed by imperial administrations to manage linguistic issues. By focussing on the works of some Third Republic figures like Louis Faidherbe, Onésime Reclus, and Maurice Delafosse, it is shown that strict evolutionist taxonomies were used to foster the predominance of French and assign a vehicular role to African languages such as Swahili, Fula and Wolof. The cultural assimilation engendered by colonialism bore witness to the emergence of Francophonized African scholars such as Cheikh Anta Diop and Amadou Hampâté Bâ who, after WW2, promoted African languages to fulfil their anti-colonial and pan-Africanist agenda. This project of linguistic decolonization is explored via a close examination of Nations nègres et culture by C.A. Diop. His promotion of Wolof, a programme set in motion against Senghorian francophonie, is still ongoing now as demonstrated by the Céytu translation project initiated by Boubacar Boris Diop in 2016.