Preserving Africa’s Mother Tongues: Identity, Belonging, and Action

Language is not just a medium for verbal exchange; it carries emotion, shapes how we think, offers cultural clues, and forges communal bonds. That’s why Africans should speak their mother tongues and fight to preserve them. Colonialism largely drove the disappearance of these languages, but more than 50 years after independence, the onus is on us to decolonize our minds. We have often heard that “Africa is the last frontier”—not only in minerals or population, but in our cultural norms too, with language at the forefront. In the blockbuster movie, Black Panther, the use of Xhosa added authenticity that resonated with millions worldwide.

The Cost of Language Erosion

It saddens me to see many “elites” belittle our languages in favor of colonial ones, to the point where some won’t even engage with people who don’t speak colonial tongues. English may be the “language of the world,” but our mother tongues run deeper and richer. Not every word or phrase in a mother tongue translates directly into English, and that depth is something I’ve felt deeply in my journey as a language learner. Some Japanese phrases move my soul in the same way Runyakitara does, whereas the same phrases in English leave me emotionally flat. I’ve even met people who swear and curse easily in English or French but cannot in their mother tongue, not for lack of knowledge, but because of reverence for the mother tongue itself.

Language, Belonging, and Identity

Language gives us belonging and community. Its absence can fuel identity crises, especially among diasporians and multicultural children. Yet signs of this struggle are rising on the continent, where younger generations realize that mastery of colonial languages does not guarantee acceptance among the colonialists. The Shona proverb, “When the roots are deep, the tree doesn’t fear the wind,” reminds us that teaching our children their mother tongues equip them with identity and resilience as we face an uncertain world.

Maintaining Our Identity: Practical Pathways

• Home First: Charity starts at home. Children should be spoken to in their mother tongue, with colonial languages spoken at school.

• Multicultural Families: In cross-cultural homes, each parent should speak their language to the children to grow up bilingual or multilingual.

• Real-World Example: Last year I met a Rwanda-Japanese family with two teenage daughters, raised in America and now living in Japan. The teenagers speak Kinyarwanda and French thanks to their father, Japanese due to their mother, and English from school. This shows there’s no tangible excuse for Africans on the continent not to cultivate their mother tongues, even in cross-cultural marriages.

  
  

From Home to Institutions

Beyond home and school, we need fully funded language institutions, not merely for translation, but to document and sustain our languages. Countries like France, Japan, and South Korea maintain entire institutions that teach and continually update archives. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, French language scholars grappled with what gender prefix to affix to covid, illustrating language as a living, evolving system. Annually, English dictionaries also update with new words such as vuvuzela, boda boda, and the like, further proof that language is a living thing.

Be Ambassadors for Our Mother-tongues

We must be ambassadors for our mother tongues, proudly sharing them with as many people as possible. Two years ago, Katrina Esau, a 90-year-old South African grandmother, gained media attention for fearlessly advocating for her native language N|uu. She is the last fluent speaker and even built a school to pass it on. If a grandmother can pave the way to preserve a dying language, surely, we can find ways to pass on ours. As the saying goes, “A person without culture is like a zebra without stripes.”

Your thoughts

• What are some reasons Africans are not embracing their mother tongues?

• What strategies are you using to pass on language to your children, especially in the diaspora or multicultural households?

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