A sociolinguistic profile of the Senegalese speech community
Fallou Ngom1999
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Abstract
The linguistic impact of colonialism in Senegal The country came into contact with France in the early 17 th century, when French commercial companies started trading at the mouth of the river Senegal, first entered by Europeans in 1445 (Crowder 1962:7). By the end of the 18 th century, Saint-Louis, with a population of 7,000, had a European colony numbering 600, the largest on the whole coast of West Africa (Crowder 1962:8). It also had an important assimilated mulatto community, whose descendants are known today as Saint-Louisians. Most French men there took African mistresses, known as signares, and ensured the education of any children they had by them (Crowder 1962:8). The French, like most Europeans who came to Africa in colonial times, denied the humanity and culture of the dominated people and used both religious and political means to achieve the economic-based mission savatrice ('salvation mission' to civilize the uncivilized). The so-called 'salvation mission' was primarily motivated by the socioeconomic problems that resulted from the religiouswars affecting the European nations. These problems ultimately led to the coloni-BJ zation of Africa and the settlement of the American continent. The French used colonization to implement a direct assimilation rule in their colonies. This policy was based on the belief that in order to change 'the uncivilized people', they had to 'enter into their minds'. Consequently, they started building schools and churches to achieve their assimilation objectives , i.e., to annihilate the culture, beliefs, and languages of the local people, to make them accept willingly an inferiority complex visa -vis French colonialists. The assimilation process was mainly implemented through the introduction of French as the sole language of education. Falou Ngom: The Senegalese speech community i 3 3 Ultimately, the process was designed to make local people use only French as their major means of communication and at the same time feel grateful to have the 'favor' of speaking the 'super-language' of the 'civilized masters.'
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