President: No English Please, We're Gambians
Gambia will drop English as its official language, President Yahya Jammeh said in his latest diatribe against former colonial power Britain.
"We're going to speak our own language," he said, without specifying which of the poor west African country's indigenous tongues would replace English.
The 48-year-old Gambian strongman is often pilloried for rights abuses and the muzzling of the press, and members of the diaspora have set up critical news outlets against Banjul.
A video of his latest broadside against Britain, delivered in English during the swearing-in of a new chief justice on Thursday, was uploaded on YouTube.
The country has several languages to choose from as a replacement for English.
Two in five Gambians speak Mandinka, while Fula or Wolof are used by another 34 percent. Jammeh himself is from the minority Jula tribe, which speaks a Manding language most closely related to Bambara, spoken in nearby Mali.
Gambia, a country of about 1.8 million, is a finger of territory flanking the Gambia River, with Senegal on either side and a narrow Atlantic coastline.
In 2008, Jammeh gave an ultimatum to gays and lesbians to leave his country, saying he would "cut off the head" of any homosexual found in Gambia.
Two years later the European Union cancelled 22 million euros ($30 million) of aid because of concerns over human rights and governance issues.
Gambia stunned the Commonwealth mainly grouping former British colonies by withdrawing from the 54-nation bloc in October, branding it "an extension of colonialism".
Jammeh said Britain had "no moral platform" to talk about human rights anywhere in the world.
"What brought the British in the first place to Gambia... was trade in ivory because Gambia had a lot of elephants," he said.
"They ended up wiping out the elephants and then turned around and started selling Africans. The British instituted slavery."
"The only thing they left us with is unfortunately the English language," he said.
13 March 2014, 03:48
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So declaring a national language as an official language (instead of some foreign language) is a sign of backwardness?
Let me remind you that the official language of France is French,of Germany is German, of Japan is Japanese, of China is Mandarin, of India is Hindi. These are all national languages in the respective countries.
At least, this Yahya Jammeh does not suffer from the inferiority complex of a son of Ashrafieh who believes his own language & culture to be inferior to that of Westerners.
13 March 2014, 06:03
01
So it is a sign of backwardness of a country if it seeks to establish a national language (instead of a foreign language) as an official language.
Let me remind your feeble mind that the official language of France is French, of Italy is Italian, of Japan is Japanese, of China is Mandarin and of Russia is Russian. In other words, the official language of these (developed, mind you) countries is their respective language.
At least this Yahya Jammeh does not suffer from the inferiority complex of a son of Ahsrafieh who spits on his own language & culture because he deems it to be inferior to that of a Western country.
14 March 2014, 02:10
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No it's not inferior. But when he delivers it in English what does that tell you?
And if you are referring to Arabic, speaking a language does not make part of that nation. Spanish is spoken by 10s of countries. They are not one nation. Others speak French and are not one nation. They do however join in song once a year and hold hands at the Francophone. Many countries speak English and are not one nation. So no speaking Arabic does not make you an Arab.
Iranians speak Arabic (you have to if you are Moslem). Try convincing them that they are Arabs!
