How Africans Are Changing French - One Joke, Rap and Book at a Time - The New York Times - 0 views
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“If French becomes more mixed, then visions of the world it carries will change,” said Josué Guébo, an Ivorian poet and philosopher. “And if Africa influences French from a linguistic point of view, it will likely influence it from an ideological one.”
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Across French-speaking West and Central African countries, French is seldom used at home and is rarely the first language, instead restricted to school, work, business or administration.
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According to a survey released last year by the French Organization of the Francophonie, the primary organization for promoting French language and culture, 77 percent of respondents in Africa described French as the “language of the colonizer.” About 57 percent said it was an imposed language.
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Sometimes the methods of imposing it were brutal, scholars say. At school in many French colonies, children speaking in their mother tongue were beaten or forced to wear an object around their necks known as a “symbol” — often a smelly object or an animal bone.
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Still, many African countries adopted French as their official language when they gained independence, in part to cement their national identities. Some even kept the “symbol” in place at school.
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At the festival, Le Magnific and other standup comedians threw jibes in French and ridiculed one another’s accents, drawing laughter from the audience. It mattered little if a few words were lost in translation.
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“What makes our humor Pan-African is the French language,” said the festival’s organizer, Mohamed Mustapha, known across West Africa by his stage name, Mamane. A standup comedian from Niger, Mamane has a daily comedy program listened to by millions around the world on Radio France Internationale.
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“It’s about survival, if we want to resist against Nollywood,” he said, referring to Nigeria’s film industry, “and English-produced content.”
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Today, more a third of Ivorians speak French, according to the International Organization of the Francophonie. In Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of Congo — the world’s largest French-speaking country — it is more than half.
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Still, Ms. Quéméner said French had long escaped France’s control.“French is an African language and belongs to Africans,” she said. “The decentralization of the French language is a reality.”
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At the Hip Hop Académie, a youth program founded by the rapper Grödash in a Paris suburb, teens and children scribbled lyrics on notepads, following instructions to mix French and foreign languages.
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Hip-hop, now dominating the French music industry, is injecting new words, phrases and concepts from Africa into France’s suburbs and cities.
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“Countless artists have democratized French music with African slang,” said Elvis Adidiema, a Congolese music executive with Sony Music Entertainment. “The French public, from all backgrounds, has become accustomed to those sounds.”
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“French is about to make a big leap, and she’s wondering how it’s going to go,” Mr. Laferrière said of the French language. “But she’s excited about where she’s headed.”
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“They, not she. They are now multiple versions of French that speak for themselves. And that is the greatest proof of its vitality.”