Power of Babel Chapter 3: Linguistic Eurocentrism & African Counter-Penetration

Strategy for success The Third World may need to use the strategy of counter-penetration, on the political, economic, and cultural planes, to counteract the growing Eurocentralization of the world and turn Africa from a mere pawn to a significant player in global affairs. One way to do this is through promotion of African languages in the US

Examples of linguistic Eurocentrism 1)European belief in a 1-to-1 relationship between language & race 2)Assumption that the languages of the “lower” races are somehow more primitive than the languages of the “higher” races -- Semitic languages (including Arabic) were long assumed to be from Middle East, but now it seems more likely that they are African

Examples of linguistic Eurocentrism, cont’d. 3) The naming of languages and language families has been done by Europeans 4) Semantic association of African languages with negative terms: primitive, tribe, use of black/white metaphors

Examples of linguistic Eurocentrism, cont’d. 5) Europeans created orthographies for African languages, which enforced an orthographic Latinization even on languages related to Arabic, and forced conversion from Arabic to Latin script (Hausa & Kiswahili) 6) Demographic global domination of European languages led to feelings of inferiority about indigenous languages, linguistic fatalism, which causes people to give up on sustaining their languages

Africa’s triple linguistic heritage Indigenous tradition + Islamic legacy + Western impact Will it be neutralized by English? Major African languages are also squeezing out minor languages and the plight of minor languages may be worse under post-colonial conditions

The diaspora and Africa’s linguistic counter-penetration Diaspora of enslavement in West & Arab world & Asia -- these people lost their African linguistic heritage Africans who assimilated to Arabic became Arabs, whereas in English-speaking world race remained a barrier

The diaspora and Africa’s linguistic counter-penetration, cont’d. Civil rights movement & Cold War raised consciousness and channeled funds toward foreign languages, leading to linguistic counter- penetration African-Americans generally do not know what country/language/culture they come from Because Africans know European languages they can travel to non-African countries and bring indigenous languages with them