This book sets out to chart the role that language plays, and has played, both positively and also negatively, in the attempted construction, maintenance, and strengthening of national cohesion and identity in a broad range of states in modern Africa.
Language as a communicative system varying among different populations is commonly acknowledged to function as an important symbol of group identity, often stimulating a natural sense of solidarity among communities sharing a single variety of speech, and is sometimes deliberately manipulated to create feelings of belonging to populations larger than the local or the regional, and the significant establishment of fully extensive national identities in independent states. In the African context, with the highly complex set of ethno-linguistic configurations presented by many of the continent's states, the need for careful, conscious attention to the process of 'national integration' (Alexandre 1968, Bamgbose 1991) and nation-building has been recognized as having a particularly special importance.
