Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: John Edwards (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)
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Volume: 21 Number: 2 Page: 113–128
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Unilingual Past, Multilingual Present, Uncertain Future: The Case of Yaounde
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Gisele Tchoungui
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Using an African capital as a model, the paper analyses the enduring stumbling-blocks lying in the path of linguistic policies and in the setting of social,educational and political agendas acceptable to
all in changing multilingual multicultural societies. To highlight the overwhelming difficulty of such policy management,one of the most complex contemporary situations is studied: an officially bilingual
country carved out of an aggregate of independent communities by the superpowers in the 1880s. The paper takes in a century of rapidly evolving developments from unilingual ethnic communities immersed in
tradition to a modern state bilingualism imposed by the unique history of three successive colonial regimes. As shown by the paper, despite Cameroon's progressive official policy that seeks to stamp out
potentially divisive featuresat national level, ethnicity and language remain the defining moments of the citizen and the urban speaker. The article throws light on other contexts, like the Balkans past
and present, where western-style democracy becomes grossly inadequate. The study provides an insight into the limitations of terminology, and suggests why so many social, educational and political policies
have failed - not only in modern Africa but in several other multilingual and multicultural societies - delaying or endangering nation-building.
© Multilingual Matters 2000
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