Linguistic Policy Challenges in Madagascar

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by VID:Open Christina Thornell and Karsten Legère (eds). 2011. North-South contributions to African languages. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. Linguistic policy challenges in Madagascar Øyvind Dahl School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger Abstract According to the country’s constitution, Madagascar has one national language, Malagasy. Modern schools and the present-day written language were introduced by British missionaries at the beginning of the 19th century. French as a language of instruction and as a subject were introduced by the French colonists, holding the power from 1896 to 1960. After independence in 1960, French continued to be the language of instruction until 1972. From then until 1991, Malagasy was introduced as the medium of instruction at all levels in primary and secondary education. From about 1992, the pendulum swung back, French was reintroduced as the language of instruction during the first five years of schooling. In 2008 the government introduced a new educational reform. Malagasy is now used as the language of instruction during the first seven years and is gradually substituted by French. The shifting policies and its consequences are the subject of study in this article. “If you want to become perfect in knowledge then learn all languages without ever forgetting your own”1 1. Introduction Madagascar is situated in the south-western part of the Indian Ocean and is the fourth largest island in the world with a population of about 20 million. The birth rate is high, around 2.5 percent per year. This means the arrival of about 500,000 new citizens every year. About 42 percent of the population is below the age of 15. This fact represents an enormous challenge for the education system and the government makes great efforts to give adequate education to the growing population. The linguistic policy to be chosen to meet this challenge is the topic of this paper. Unlike most African countries, the island of Madagascar has an enormous advantage: a sole national language, i.e. Malagasy.2 The former coloniser’s language, French, is usu- 1 Quoted from the Norwegian mediaeval royal publication Konungs skuggsjá about AD 1200, The King’s Mirror (Brøgger 2000). 2 Malagasy is part of the family of Austronesian languages (earlier often called Malayo- Polynesian). It has borrowings from Sanskrit, Bantu languages such as Swahili, English and 52 Øyvind Dahl ally not used as a common vehicle of communication for people originating from different regions. The different varieties of the Malagasy language are understood across the island even when special words, suffixes, and syntax may vary. The written Malagasy language is called Malagasy ofisialy and is, for historical reasons, based on the spoken language in the environs of the capital in the middle of the highlands – Antananarivo. In recent times, the Malagasy ofisialy has also picked up some words from other varieties.3 Usually people don’t even ask a question about interregional understanding, and the Malagasy ofisialy is often listened to on the radio.4 Having said this, one should not underestimate the importance of regional differences. Some recent research has revealed evidence that some groups have difficulties in understanding the official Malagasy, which is almost the only written language, and the one that appears in the textbooks at school (2004:9; Bouwer 2005).5 The advantage of having a national language is obviously an asset for the country com- pared to the multitude of languages in most other African countries (Lewis 2009).6 However, Madagascar has not taken advantage of this unique linguistic situation. The country was a French colony from 1896 to 1960, a period when the language of instruction was mainly French, thus alienating the population from its own cultural roots. After independence in 1960 the ruling elite of the capital and other urban centres has continu- ously used French as the language of administration and some, albeit a minority, have even adopted French as their everyday family language. The Haut Conseil de la Fran- cophonie estimated in 2003 that 0.57 percent of the Malagasy use French exclusively, 15.82 percent use French sometimes, while 83.61 percent use only Malagasy (Randria- masitiana 2004:175). French has been the dominating academic language and the language of power. The political elite in the cities have constantly sent their children to French-speaking schools to ensure future jobs. French language has been the first factor of social mobility, and in the cities poor families also aspiring for a better future for their young ones work hard to enrol their children at ecoles d’expression française where they have to pay school fees. This practice is in stark contrast to the possibilities of the rural and coastal population, which represents about 80 percent of the inhabitants. The everyday language is a variety of Malagasy and there is no natural opportunity for hearing or practising anything else. Some areas are sparsely populated, schools are scattered, and there are few opportun- ities for social mobility. Children participate in securing the economic outcome of the family taking part in rural activities. The linguistic situation in Madagascar, with emphasis on French as the language of power, thus functions as a stabilising factor for the elite in power and excludes the French. The languages that are most similar to Malagasy are found in the Barito basin, Borneo, Indonesia (Dahl 1951, 1977a). 3 For example tale ‘director’, finday ‘cell phone’, etc. 4 The Antandroy people from southern Madagascar often migrate to other areas of Madagascar for work. They can settle and understand the different spoken varieties from Tolagnaro in the south to Antsiranana in the north. The integration of the different varieties of Malagasy is discussed in a paper by Rabenilaina (1993). 5 Leoni Bouwer argues that significant linguistic diversity exists in southern Madagascar and that southern Malagasy speakers are not adequately served by the official language due to language variation, ethnolinguistic vitality, insufficient intelligibility, poor proficiency in official Malagasy, and language attitudes (Bouwer 2004). See also Lewis (2009) where ten groups of Malagasy varieties are listed. Mahafaly-Tandroy has, according to Lewis, only 62 percent lexical similarity with the dialect of the Merina, the largest ethnical group of the island. 6 In Cameroon, in Western Africa, which has about the same population as Madagascar, it is claimed that there are about 250 different languages belonging to 24 major African language groups (Lewis 2009). Linguistic policy challenges in Madagascar 53 majority of the population. With the introduction of a new school reform in 2008 there is a chance for a more democratic participation in the development of the nation by the majority of the population. However, what are the chances for the reform to succeed? Which are the necessary steps to be taken in order to transform the country into a nation where all men and women can benefit from equal and democratic rights? These questions will be discussed in this paper using studies of documents and literature about linguistic policy in Madagascar and internationally. The risk of a new collapse of the education system due to a change of linguistics policy is great. The background for the current linguistic challenge, especially related to the educational reform, will be studied. We shall give a short history of shifting linguistic policy in section 2. After a summary of the results of international experiences and research in section 3, we shall focus on the consequences for Malagasy linguistic policy in section 4. Language mixing is discussed in section 5. Finally, we shall wrap up by discussing the challenges and drawing conclusions in section 6. 2. The shifting linguistic policy through history The Malagasy language is part of the Austronesian family of languages due to the mi- gration from Indonesia to Madagascar about 400–700 AD (Beaujard 2003; Dahl 1951, 1991; Dahl 1977b; Dahl 2008). Since the proto-Malagasy were sailors and arrived by boat they have had much contact with Bantu-people of the African continent and there are some loanwords from Bantu and maybe even a Bantu-substratum in the Malagasy language (Dahl 1988). There has been Arabic and Islamic influence from around the 12th century which to a great extent has been absorbed by the local religion (Dahl 1984). The first manuscripts written in Malagasy were magic formulas written by scholars on the East Coast who had learned the Arab alphabet (Dahl 1983). Some manuscripts still exist among the Antaimoro-group around Vohipeno, and some are in Paris and Oslo (Dez and Vire 1984; Munthe 1982). 2.1 The foundation of modern Malagasy The first texts of a certain length written in Malagasy using Latin characters go back to a catechism published in 1657 by Catholic missionaries in Tolagnaro, Fort Dauphin (Madagascar et le christianisme 1993:183). However, the British missionaries who arrived in Madagascar in 1818 introduced the modern writing of Malagasy with Latin characters under the rule of the Merina king Radama I. The king had engaged Antaimo- ro-scribes who used the Arab script for ritual and magic purposes at the court. He al- ready knew some French, and decided that in order to make the writing accessible to all subjects the Latin alphabet should be adopted. He decided that there should only be one letter for each sound and also that the French vowels and English consonants should be chosen (Dahl 1966). The goal of the missionaries was to translate the Bible and start ordinary schools for reading and writing (Raison-Jourde 1991).7 In the missionary schools, Malagasy was the natural language of instruction and textbooks were published using Malagasy (the Merina variety) and loan words from European languages, mainly English.

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