Robert Dambala Jillo, Simon Njuguna and James Kabata.
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, P.O. BOX
62157 – 00200, Nairobi – Kenya
Email: jillodambala@gmail.com
Abstract
The contact between Africa and the Western world has had monumental influences in Africa’s self-definition and assertion. The linguistic problem in Africa manifests itself as an inherent incapacity of Africans to propose and promulgate linguistic policies that allow the use and development of African languages in the continent and beyond. The incompetent policies that have long been a factor of marginalising African languages are highly influenced by Eurocentric ideologies and politics through which without a conscious leap from such ideologies Africa shall always be subject to hegemonic aids and ideologies. This purpose of this paper is to expose the Eurocentric influences behind Africa’s supposed multilingual knots. We shall explain in detail what euro-centrism is and demonstrate, thereby, how Euro-centrism perpetuates the negativity ascribed to African languages. This paper shall make an exposition on the relationship between euro centrism and the language problem in Africa. We shall discuss how euro centrism guises itself in the African language problematic, and shall also develop arguments on how globalization is playing a key role in marginalizing African languages.
Keywords: Eurocentrism, African Languages, Self-definition, Globalization
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Suggested Citation
Dambala,R.J., Kabata, J. and Njunguna,S. (2020). The Impact of Eurocentrism towards the Language Problem in Africa. African Research Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 7(1), 2020. Available online at http://arjess.org/social-sciences-research/the-impact-of-eurocentrism-towards-the-language-problem-in-africa.pdf
