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The Linguistic Situation and Vernacular Literature in British West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

D. Westermann
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Extract

The beginnings of a vernacular literature in languages spoken in British West Africa go back for more than a century. As early as 1815 the gospel of St. Matthew was published in Bulom; in 1816 part of St. Matthew in Susu (Soso), 1829 Genesis and part of Matthew in Mampua, a dialect of Bulom. A translation of the whole Bible appeared in the Ga language in 1866, in Twi in 1871, in Efik in 1868, and in Yoruba in 1880. Since that time there has been a constant increase in the number of languages into which parts of the Bible or the whole Bible and other religious books such as catechisms, hymn-books and prayer-books have been translated. Other books for use in schools and for general reading have also been produced, but only to a very limited extent; the great majority are books written by missionaries for immediate missionary purposes. I know of only two cases in which a complete set of school-books in native languages for a curriculum of about eight or ten years has been published and is in use. These are produced by the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast (Twi and Ga) and the North German Mission in Togoland and on the Gold Coast (Ewe).

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , October 1929 , pp. 337 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1929

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References

page 339 note 1 Cf. Adams, R. F. G. and Ward, Ida C., ‘The Arochuku Dialect of Ibo’, Africa, 11. i.Google Scholar

page 340 note 1 The Ibo-speaking Peoples, iii, p. 183.

page 342 note 1 Johnson, S., The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate, London, 1921, 671 pp. The author is an African.Google Scholar

page 342 note 2 Marty, , Études sur l'Islam au Dahomey. Paris, 1926, p. 272.Google Scholar

page 342 note 3 Edo-speaking Peoples, i, p. 5 ff., and map facing p. 5.

page 343 note 1 The following details, also the population figures, are taken from Rowling and Wilson, , Bibliography of African Christian Literature, London, 1923Google Scholar; cf. also Struck, B., ‘Linguistic Bibliography of Northern Nigeria’, Journal of the African Society, 1911.Google Scholar

page 344 note 1 All figures are taken from Goddard, T. N., The Handbook of Sierra Leone, London, 1925.Google Scholar