6 351 language policy frank ashen focussed divisive effects promoting one several indigenous languages position official language used much quoted justification speakers notchosen languages may feel disadvantaged mention effect introduction foreign world language vernaculars introduction foreign official language africa led explicit negative attitudes amongst speakers towards languages alternative selection indigenous language official language seems disadvantage whole population african countries foreign official language generally low penetration elite know knowledge official language becomes new factor determines access power wellpaid jobs time vernaculars ignored stigmatised means little funds available development teaching means come back tove skutnabb kangas comments population exercise right learn mother tongue orally writing high level assumption frank ashen quotes based false departure point namely colonial language save african country torn internal divisions nt recall wars based language differences prior colonisation africa solved linguistic diversity developing lingua francas djit recently 1993 showed use socalled international languages english french solved communication problems african masses many cases contributed towards pathology linguistic bakwardness fact languages wolof swahili hausa lingala actually spreading without much official help seems indicate general willingness cooperation cultural linguistic tolerance ignores political boundaries inherited colonization djit 1993 162 spencer 1985 395 claims introduction european languages africa retarded spread calls african vehicular languages however adegbija 1994 2627 sceptical ability african lingua francas accepted outside present geographical domains also warns imposition languages would seem need threelanguage policy india one language communication outside world known relatively small section population one lingua franca national regional communication various vernaculars local business primary education many african countries de facto situation trilingualism common africa outside linguists seem realise suggestion might avoid subtractive language learning characterises many african communities tove skutnabb kangas finds violation minorities linguistic rights sources referred adegbija e 1994 language attitudes africa sociolinguistic overview clevedon multilingual matters djit p g 1993 language development africa international journal sociology language 100 101 149166 spencer j 1985 language development africa unequal equation wolfson n j manes eds 1985 language inequality berlin mouton 387397 august cluver department linguistics university south africa