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Language and Culture
Languages, Languages, Everywhere Languages
Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
Language Diversity
T here are about 1900 languages, and several thousand dialects of them, in Africa south of the Sahara. My extensive research in 1997 indicated that Kenya had 125 ethnolinguistic groups, speaking 85 distinct languages, comprising over 100 dialects. Nigeria has about 450 distinct languages, Sudan about 250. Language diversity is, in fact, the norm for most of the world.
Nation-states do not normally represent any coherent ethnolinguistic groupings, and virtually every border in the world cuts through one or more ethnolinguistic groups, leaving a section of a discrete people group in two or more countries.
Multi-Lingual Nations
Tens of millions of Africans are multilingual. Many Kenyans regularly use three or more languages in various contexts as a normal course of life, though, to be sure, there are still individuals in Kenyan territory that speak only one language. Many of these multilingual folks are illiterate. Literacy has no direct relation to multilingual skill.
Europe is no different. France, for instance, often thought to be coterminous with the French language, is home to 8 major languages, with numerous dialect forms native the their areas for centuries. French is a second language for millions of French citizens. French is also the native language of many Europeans in other countries.
Mono-Lingual Limitations
The rapid settlement of the American continents in recent history has led to an unusual situation of primarily monolingual cultures. This is most prominent in English-speaking North America. The English-speaking native is really at a disadvantage in dealing with the rest of the world. The dominance of English may provide a bridge for the English speaker, but language isolation is a limitation in life.
See also How to Learn a Language and a Culture
OBJ
A version of this aritcle originally published in Focus on Communication Effectiveness, No. 25, September 1997
Posted 23 May 2001
Page last updated 29 May 2006
Orville Boyd Jenkins,
Ed.D., Ph.D.
Email: researchguy@iname.com
Copyright © Orville Boyd Jenkins 2001, 2004
Permission given for free download and use for personal
and educational purposes. All other rights reserved.
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