Ghana was one of the first British colonies in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence in 1957 and as such has had strong ties to the English language as a modern country for over a hundred years. Most Ghanaians who\u2019ve been through some level of formal education learn to speak English alongside their regional language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But since coming to office in 2017, Ghana\u2019s president Nana Akufo-Addo has been pushing for Ghanaians to also learn French and one day make it the country\u2019s official second language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To outsiders, the president might seem like an unlikely champion for Gallic influences; after all he is known for his unplaceable English accent; he descends from a Ghanaian political aristocracy with long ties to Britain and was partly educated in England from a young age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Akufo-Addo also speaks French fluently, learned when he lived in Paris in the 1970s<\/a>, and is always happy to flaunt<\/a> his language skills given the chance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The president has announced plans to make French a compulsory subject<\/a> for high school students and in a 2018 speech (given entirely in French), he told colleagues<\/a> at La Francophonie Summit, \u201cour goal is to live, one day, in a bilingual Ghana, that is English and French, together with our own indigenous languages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe promotion of the French language is a major education priority,\u201d foreign affairs minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchway\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0last month. French is expected to feature prominently when details of Ghana\u2019s new basic school curriculum are announced in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Akufo-Addo\u2019s support for French comes as France\u2019s president Emmanuel Macron is also making a soft power push to raise the status of French across Africa, starting with former French colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs France represents only a fraction of the active French speakers, the country knows the fate of French language is not its burden alone to carry,\u201d Macron said in March 2018 as he launched a bold new ambition<\/a> to increase the number of speakers of the language of Moli\u00e8re. That speech in Paris predated an earlier one in Burkina Faso<\/a>where he pleaded with students not to ditch French for English and urged them to help make French \u201cthe number one language in Africa and maybe even the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to Africa\u2019s youth, French is now the fifth most-spoken language in the world<\/a> and by 2050, 80% of the projected 700 million<\/a>French speakers will be in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there is no denying the push for French in Ghana has a lot to do with the president\u2019s personal affinity for the language translating into national policy, there is a good case to be made for increasing the number of Ghanaians who can speak French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more on QUARTZ AFRICA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Send by Edouard Bustin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghana was one of the first British colonies in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence in 1957 and as such has had strong ties to the English language as a modern country for over a hundred years. Most Ghanaians who\u2019ve been … Continue reading