Multilingual Margins 2014, 1(1): 74—100 55 Multilingualism and Local Literacy Practices in Ethiopia: Language contact in regulated and unregulated spaces1 Elizabeth Lanza University of Oslo, Norway Hirut Woldemariam University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia [email protected] Abstract The study of the linguistic landscape has provided a new dimension to theories and issues related to multilingualism, including language policy. In this growing field of inquiry, however, not enough attention has been given to the linguistic landscape in sites in the Global South. Since one of the aims of literacy studies is to reveal the variety and social patternings of practices, there is a need to compare linguistic landscape data with other various textual materials. In this article, we present linguistic landscape data from two federal regional capitals in Ethiopia that demonstrate multilingual language use. We also compare the linguistic contact patterns with those found in schoolbooks used in the same region. Such a comparison involves language use in unregulated as well as in regulated spaces (see Sebba 2009). Regional ethnically based languages are now being used in new arenas, including the linguistic landscape and education because of a new language policy promoting the use and development of regional languages. The two regional capitals provide privileged sites for examining the products of local literacy practices, involving values, attitudes, ideologies, and social relationships. We discuss the results in light of various ideologies and argue for the speaker-writer’s active mobilisation of multilingual resources in new language arenas. Keywords: linguistic landscape, literacy, language contact, language ideology, regional languages, Amharic, multilingualism © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 56 LANZA AND WOLDEMARIAM INTRODUCTION contact between African languages is dramatically underresearched’, as most he study of written language has studies of language contact situations in- Tcome to the fore in current ap- volving African languages entail contact proaches to multilingualism. As a result, between a local and a former colonial a ‘new approach to multilingualism’, the language. While work on language con- study of the linguistic landscape (Gorter tact often deals exclusively with structural 2006) or the written language in the pub- properties of language, a more function- lic sphere has emerged. First proposed by alist perspective, as noted in Matras Landry and Bourhis (1997) as a barom- (2009: 4), rests on a view of language eter for measuring ethnolinguistic vitality as social activity for which ‘bilingual (or in Canada, this study is today a thriving multilingual) speakers have a complex field of inquiry documenting various so- repertoire of linguistic structures at their cio-cultural aspects of languages in mul- disposal’. tilingual societies (Shohamy and Gorter Literacy is conceived of as ‘situated 2008). In more recent work on linguistic social practices embedded within rela- landscape, the focus has been on signage tions of culture and power in specific con- in world cities and its role in the construc- texts’ (Prinsloo and Baynham 2008:2). As tion of social and cultural meaning in Barton and Hamilton (2000: 7) point out: multilingual urban spaces (Ben-Rafael, ‘The notion of literacy practices offers a Shohamy and Barni 2010). However, not powerful way of conceptualising the link much attention has been given as yet to between the activities of reading and the study of the linguistic landscape in writing and the social structures in which urban sites in the Global South (but see they are embedded, and which they help Kasanga 2010; Reh 2004, Stroud and shape.’ Literacy practices involve values, Mpendukana 2009). Dagenais, Moore, attitudes, ideologies, and social relation- Sabatier, Lamarre and Armand (2008) ships – in sum, how people in a particular make particular mention of the paucity of culture construct literacy, how they talk studies on the linguistic landscape in the about literacy and make sense of it. The educational domain. Showing its value, social approach to literacy as articulated Cenoz and Gorter (2008) discuss how in Barton and Hamilton (2000), Barton the linguistic landscape can be seen as (2001), and Prinsloo and Baynham an additional source of input in second (2008) emphasises the historical dimen- language acquisition, contributing to a sion to literacy. Literacy practices change type of literacy that is multimodal and and new ones are often acquired through multilingual. processes of informal learning as well as In this article, we attempt to place the through formal education and learning. study of the linguistic landscape within a The two regional capitals of Ethiopia larger framework of literacy practices. We in question provide privileged sites for do so by specifically examining multilin- examining the products of multilingual- gual language use, particularly language ism and local literacy practices. Because contact as documented in the linguistic of a new language policy promoting the landscape of two regional capitals in use and development of ethnically based Ethiopia, and by further comparing it regional languages, these languages are with language contact phenomena in oth- now being used in new public arenas, in- er texts, namely children’s schoolbooks. cluding the linguistic landscape and edu- Lüpke (2010:2) points out that ‘language cation. Ethiopia does not have a colonial © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 Multilingualism and local literacy practices in Ethiopia 57 past yet English is an official second lan- languages spoken, divided among four guage and thus has a prominent place in different language families: the Semitic, the linguistic profile of the country. Hence Cushitic and Omotic families of the Afro- a focus on regions in Ethiopia provides an asiatic Phylum, and those belonging to opportunity to investigate language con- the Nilo-Saharan Phylum (for an over- tact between African languages as well as view of languages in Ethiopia, see Crass contact with English, a language usually and Meyer 2008). The Semitic languages, associated with globalisation, which has such as Amharic and Tigrinya, are spoken been recontextualised as a local language in northern, central and eastern Ethiopia. in Africa (Higgins 2009). In this article, The Cushitic languages are mostly spo- we explore the issue of language contact ken in central, southern and eastern in local literacy practices in Ethiopia, Ethiopia. The language of the largest a country considered marginal from a ethnic group in the country, Oromo, is global perspective. Focusing on regional considered by Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) capitals, we also take further steps to the as a ‘macrolanguage’, that is, ‘multiple, margins within the country. Yet the urban closely related individual languages that areas in focus in each region are indeed are deemed in some usage contexts to be centres within the margin. Such a vantage a single language’. point allows us to trace multilingual lit- Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups in- eracy practices across trajectories of cen- clude the Oromo, who speak the Cushitic tre and periphery, or margin, within one language of the Cushitic people who country and within a global perspective. make up about 40% of Ethiopia’s total In the following section, we first pre- population. The Semitic Amhara and sent an overview of the linguistic situation Tigrayans comprise only 32% of the in Ethiopia and the new language policy population; however, historically they that became operative in the early 1990s; have dominated the country politically. this overview is contextualised within an Despite the common Semitic background historical framework. Next, we present of the Amhara and the Tigrayans, their the methodology we employed in collect- languages are mutually unintelligible. ing the various data in the two regions. Amharic diverges significantly from the Subsequently, we provide an analysis of other Semitic languages of Ethiopia as a the language use and particularly the result of its extensive contact with Cushitic language contact we found in the two and Omotic languages (Yimam 2004). types of data – the linguistic landscape Amharic is used as a lingua franca and the educational texts – in light of by all Ethiopians. This practice is encour- local ideologies. In conclusion, we offer aged by a range of opportunities, includ- alternative interpretations of the patterns ing its function as a working language of we found and discuss their implications the federal government, trade, urbanisa- for multiling-ualism on the margin. tion, labour migration, displacement and other forms of migration, education and literacy, and perhaps most significantly, MULTILINGUAL ETHIOPIA by the high proportion of intermarriages thiopia, located in the Horn of Africa, between members of different ethnic or Ehas a population of about 80 million linguistic groups. Amharic continues to and is multilingual, multiethnic and cul- spread, both as a first language and as turally pluralistic. According to Ethnologue a second language, in spite of the intro- (Lewis 2009), there are eighty-five living duction of regional languages for wider © Lanza, Woldemariam and CMDR. 2014 58 LANZA AND WOLDEMARIAM purposes (Cohen 2006: 171). Amharic regime. In order to conform to the ideals continues to be the most widely used lan- of socialism and to demonstrate political guage in Ethiopia and has a long literary change, the military government of the tradition.