English in West Africa

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Gut
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Current Role ◽  
British Colonization

This chapter describes the history, role, and structural properties of English in the West African countries the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, the anglophone part of Cameroon, and the island of Saint Helena. It provides an overview of the historical phases of trading contact, British colonization and missionary activities and describes the current role of English in these multilingual countries. Further, it outlines the commonalities and differences in the vocabulary, phonology, morphology, and syntax of the varieties of English spoken in anglophone West Africa. It shows that Liberian Settler English and Saint Helenian English have distinct phonological and morphosyntactic features compared to the other West African Englishes. While some phonological areal features shared by several West African Englishes can be identified, an areal profile does not seem to exist on the level of morphosyntax.

scholarly journals Building Capacity for Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in West Africa Sub-region: The Pivotal Role of RETRIDAL

Open Praxis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
Clifford Amini ◽  
Oluwaseun Oluyide
Keyword(s):  
Distance Learning ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Building Capacity ◽  
Training And Research ◽  
Open And Distance Learning

The paper posits the Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning (RETRIDAL) as an institution established for the purpose of enhancing Open and Distance Learning in the West African sub-region. The institute has pursued this mandate with an unparalleled vigour since its establishment in 2003 —a partnership of the Commonwealth of Learning and the National Open University of Nigeria. It is the opinion of this paper that enhancing the Open and Distance Learning mode of education in the West African subregion will require building capacity. Consequently, RETRIDAL has championed this cause through workshops and training sessions as well as commissioning research studies in Nigeria and other West African countries. The objective is to produce suitably qualified manpower that is able to utilise ODL to mitigate the exploding demand for access to education in the sub-region. The paper also foresees a future of ODL and RETRIDAL for West Africa, as many universities are keying into the distance education paradigm.

The West Africa Committee, London

1967 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Economic Advantage ◽  
West African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Mutual Economic ◽  
English Speaking

The chief purpose of the West Africa Committee, established in May 1956, is to aid and stimulate the economic development of the English-speaking West African countries—Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia—by firms, companies, and individuals from outside West Africa, to the mutual economic advantage of these countries and of the members of the Committee.

scholarly journals Promoting research to improve maternal, neonatal, infant and adolescent health in West Africa: the role of the West African Health Organisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Issiaka Sombie ◽  
Aissa Bouwayé ◽  
Yves Mongbo ◽  
Namoudou Keita ◽  
Virgil Lokossou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Adolescent Health ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Health

scholarly journals Macroeconomic convergence in the West African monetary zone: Evidence from rank tests

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Numapau Gyamfi ◽  
Anokye Mohammed Adam ◽  
Emily Frimpomaa Appiah
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rates ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Score Test ◽  
West African ◽  
Rank Tests ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Nominal Exchange Rates ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Non Parametric

This article examined convergence of inflation and exchange rates in six (6) West African countries that make up the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). A non-parametric rank and score test was employed in the analysis. The results show that inflation and nominal exchange rates of Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone are converging. The findings have practical implications.

West African Languages Congress

1963 ◽  
Vol 6 (03) ◽  
pp. 30-31
Author(s):  
Joseph Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
The United States ◽  
West African ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
The West ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Third ◽  
First Time

The Third West African Languages Congress took place in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from March 26 to April 1, 1963. This was the third of the annual meetings of those interested in West African languages sponsored by the West African Languages Survey, previous meetings having been held in Accra (1961) and Dakar (1962). The West African Languages Survey is a Ford Foundation project. Additional financial assistance from UNESCO and other sources contributed materially to the scope and success of the meeting. This meeting was larger than previous ones both in attendance and in number of papers presented and, it may be said, in regard to the scientific level of the papers presented. The official participants, seventy-two in number, came from virtually every country in West Africa, from Western European countries and from the United States. The linguistic theme of the meeting was the syntax of West African languages, and a substantial portion of the papers presented were on this topic. In addition, there was for the first time at these meetings a symposium on the teaching of English, French and African languages in Africa. The papers of this symposium will be published in the forthcoming series of monographs planned as a supplement to the new Journal of West African Languages. The other papers are to appear in the Journal of African Languages edited by Jack Berry of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Bureaucrats and the Senegalese Political Process

1971 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
'Ladipo Adamolekun
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Political Process ◽  
West African ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The Military

While independence in West Africa focused academic attention on political parties, the proliferation of military régimes in the late 1960s– by 1970, seven West African countries had experienced military rule — brought two other institutions into prominence: the military and civil bureaucracies. This article seeks to throw some light on the place of the civil bureaucracy in Senegal through a study of the role of bureaucrats in the country's political process.

scholarly journals Health Diplomacy and Regional Integration in West Africa: The West African Health Organization’s Experience

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Uchenna Anaemene
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Health Agency ◽  
West African ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Regional Health ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
African Health ◽  
The Social

From the outset the founding fathers of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) recognized the relevance of integration in the social sector based on the conviction that intense cooperation in the economic and political sectors alone will not bring about lasting regional integration. For instance, the ECOWAS treaty of 1975 and revised treaty of 1993 had the promotion of social progress and collaboration in the social field as one of the objectives of the community. Yet scholars have not given it the deserved attention. This paper therefore represents an attempt to assess the extent to which the West African Health Organization (WAHO), a specialized health agency of ECOWAS, has contributed to regional health integration in West Africa. It argues that regional integration and cooperation should not be geared solely towards economic and political purposes. It also examines the achievements as well as the major challenges confronting WAHO. It concludes that regional health integration is no longer an option but an imperative for West African countries to meet their common health challenges.  

The Slave Trade and Coastal West Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth G. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Archaeological Work

The Atlantic slave trade has been the focus of archaeological work in a number of West African countries. Much of the work has emphasized the impressive trade castles of the Ghana coast, where extensive European constructions demonstrate the importance of the slave trade in the regions’ history. Work has also been conducted on other settings, including in Bénin, where African agency manifested itself differently than on the Gold Coast of modern Ghana; Sierra Leone and Gambia, where European trading establishments were typically smaller; and Guinea, where the ‘illegal’ slave trade of the nineteenth century blossomed. Many of these sites of enslavement have become important parts of local heritage, as well as a global heritage of African-descended people and the heritage tourism associated with the African Diaspora.

“Walahé!”; “You should have seen it”: Validating the Truth of Wartime Absurdities in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged

Gragoatá ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (45) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Cecilia Addei
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
West African ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Ahmadou Kourouma ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
Wartime Experience

Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged is a fiction based on the civil wars in the West African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone as a result of the breakdown of democracy. It employs the point of view of a child narrator, Birahima, a literalist picaro, to narrate wartime atrocities. The novel, mainly a satire, employs the devices of irony and humour that allow Birahima to present his world, which is turned upside down, and morality, reversed, in a way that makes the reader laugh in spite of the horror. The reality of Birahima’s wartime experience, which has left him in a kind of developmental “limbo”, is difficult to believe to be true. However, he makes every effort in his use of language to prove the truthfulness of the absurdity he narrates. This paper considers how the protagonist/narrator Birahima’s entry into war leaves him in an absurd, cyclical limbo while he resorts in frustration to validate his absurd experience through appealing to God, folk wisdom and dictionaries.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“WALAHÉ!”; “VOCÊ TINHA QUE TER VISTO”: VALIDANDO A VERDADE DOS ABSURDOS DA GUERRA EM ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED, DE AHMADOU KOUROUMAAllah is Not Obliged, de Ahmadou Kourouma, é uma obra de ficção baseada nas guerras civis nos países da África Ocidental Libéria e Serra Leoa resultantes do colapso da democracia. Através do ponto de vista de um narrador infantil, Birahima, um pícaro literalista, a obra narra as atrocidades da guerra. O romance, essencialmente uma sátira, emprega os recursos da ironia e do humor para permitir que Birahima apresente seu mundo deturpado e sua moralidade invertida de uma maneira que faz o leitor rir apesar do horror. É difícil aceitar como verdade a realidade que Birahima vivenciou na guerra, que deixou o seu desenvolvimento em uma espécie de limbo. No entanto, ele se utiliza da linguagem ao máximo para provar a veracidade do absurdo que ele narra. Este artigo considera como a entrada do protagonista / narrador Birahima na guerra o deixa em um limbo cíclico e absurdo, enquanto ele se frustra para validar sua experiência absurda apelando a Deus, à sabedoria popular e aos dicionários.---Artigo em inglês.

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