As I walked through the streets of Dakar in Sénégal, I heard the whispers of Wolof all around me: Na nga def, mangi fi rekk, toubab. The words all blended together to my untrained ears. As a foreigner, I’d wrongfully expected to hear French, since Sénégal is a former colony of France. I later appreciated that the local language of the Wolof people was thriving here, unerased by the forces of colonization.
Sign Languages:
Non-Oral Languages of Africa
Many linguists describe communication in most African regions as being heavily oral. Historically, many stories have been passed down through word of mouth. But what happens when you do not speak with words, or listen with your ears? Different types of communication within African cultures are rarely discussed. What is not widely known is that African regions have a long …
Yoruba Is the Gift My Grandmother Gave Me
Yoruba is a language that exists entirely in the realm of my grandmother’s house, and here, in this church, where it is mine and ours, where I finally feel like a part of something.
Xhosa on the international stage
Behind every click, tonal pattern and phoneme, we hear a language so familiar to southern Africa and the continent. It is the language that was taken to the international stage, and amplified Makeba’s exoticness through her music, by having her sing her “click” songs—a diminutive term that white South Africans and Americans used to mimic the Xhosa language. A ‘click song’ to the colonial ear, ‘Qongqothwane’ to the Xhosa ear, but in its essence a song of good fortune.
If you speak Arabic, you must be ___
For most of my life, I have straddled this reckless line of never being African enough and also never being Arab enough. As a Libyan, I have been told I break the mold of who should be an Arab and cannot be placed in one of the countries in the Levant, Machrek and Maghreb regions. The cultural rule of thumb is: if you speak Arabic and you don’t belong to one of those countries then you are not a “true” Arab speaker.
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