President’s decision to shift official language from English to local language comes months after its decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth

Seth Dixon‘s insight:

The Gambia has been showing signs that they want to remove neo-colonial influences.  Last year the President withdrew the Gambia from the Commonwealth (a collection of 54 countries, mainly former British colonies), tired of being ‘lectured’ about human rights.  Now they have rejected English as the official language.  Mandingo (38%), Fula (21%) and Wolof (18%) are the three most widely spoken languages but it is currently unclear if one of these will become the new official language or if several will receive that status. 

Questions to Ponder: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the old colonial language as the official language in multilingual African countries?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a local language/languages as the official language?    

Tags: language, governance, Africa, colonialism.

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