Enfoques de solución

Cross-border languages are a common occurrence in Africa because, as noted in the previous chapter, Africa was divided up by the European powers during the land scramble, and this resulted in some ethnic groups being divided into two (Barnes and Funnell, 2005: 41). This in some cases left one section of the ethnic group on one side of the border and the other on another side (in two or more countries), thus resulting in cross-border languages (Mpuga, 2003: 2). This is the case with the two Samia communities under study. Were (1967) confirms

5 _{In the presence of many ethnic groups, like it is in many African states, there is fear by smaller} groups of being dominated by the larger groups. This makes it difficult to choose a national language from the indigenous languages.

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this when he talks about the Samia of Uganda and Samia and Kenya6 being formerly one people, only separated by a European imposed boundary. In addition to the arbitrarily drawn borders, the African language ecology also explains the existence of many languages across national borders of different countries (Ndhlovu, 2013; Prah, 2010). This makes most of the African languages trans-border. As the speakers of trans-border languages are found in different nations, they meet speakers of other languages and because of the need to communicate, they learn the languages of others, the result being multilingualism. Because of the speakers of these cross-border languages being in contact with speakers of languages other than their own; as they live and interact with them, they constantly negotiate different linguistic identities.

The other reason for the existence of cross-border languages in Africa is human population movement. According to Ndhlovu (2013: 23), human population movement in Southern Africa and Africa as a whole is both a historical and a new phenomenon; the phenomenon is pre-colonial, colonial and also post-colonial. In the pre-colonial era, pastoralists used to move from their areas of origin to other places, including across borders, in search of water and pasture for their animals. In this regard, it is important to remember that there were no national boundaries demarcating states from one another – in other words, there was free movement both within and outside of different states. Ndhlovu (2013) points out that in the pre-colonial era, most of Southern (and Eastern) Africa was divided into kingdoms which were mainly formed after the so-called Bantu migrations. The Bantu are believed to have migrated from parts of the Benue Cross region in south-eastern Nigeria. Were (1967) (and other anthropologists) state that the Luhya (the main language to which Lusamia belongs) were a part of the great Bantu movement out of Western Africa around 1000BC. Whether in the pre-colonial post-colonial era, it is important to note that as these people moved and settled in the different areas, they identified themselves with the members of the communities with which they came in contact.

In the colonial era, for instance, some Africans were forced off their land as there was demand for land to promote industrialisation by the Europeans who occupied different parts of Africa. This forced many Africans to move away from their homelands in search of unoccupied lands, and this intensified the human movements that started in the pre-colonial era. As these

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The Samia in Uganda are culturally and linguistically related to neighboring Bantu (like the Ganda – see Nannyombi & Rempel, 2011), just like the Samia in Kenya, although they are closer linguistically and culturally to the other Luhya dialects.

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people moved, some crossed into other nations while the others stayed, thus the existence of the same ethnic group in two different countries (Brambilla, 2007; Were, 1967). Lastly, today, we still experience a high rate of movement of people not only within nation states but also across national borders (in Africa and elsewhere, those that were imposed by the colonialists). These movements are brought about by the current era of globalization. This has resulted in the opening up of national borders by some states to encourage free movement so as to enhance regional integration and transnational cooperation (Heller, 2003; Moyer and Rojo, 2007; Prah, 2009b). All the above reasons for human movements have led to the existence of cross-border languages whose speakers have to constantly negotiate and construct linguistic identities.

The Samia is one example of one ethnic group that exists in two different countries, that is, Uganda and Kenya – this means that the language, Lusamia, is spoken in both Uganda and in Kenya. Another example of a cross-border language is Chisena7 spoken at the border of Malawi and Mozambique (Barnes and Funnell, 2005: 41). The Sena people, just like the Samia, are found on either side of the border and, despite speaking the same language they have (as a result of the division) developed separately in terms of culture, politics, world view, education, etc. Outside of Africa, Edwards (1994: 34) gives the example of the people found at the Mexican-American border who were originally from Quebec. As much as they had to learn English because of their American residency, they still retained their ties with their French-speaking country and therefore do not lose their French. Cross-border languages are affected differently by social, economic and political pressures from the different countries in which they are spoken (Barnes and Funnell, 2005: 42; Timpunza-Mvula, 1992: 39). This includes the different language policies in force in these countries. For instance, the Chisena on the Malawi side of the border is influenced by both English and the dominant Chichewa language whereas the Chisena on the Mozambiquan side arise influenced by Portuguese. These influences by different languages lead to a state of multilingualism and, as a result, two different varieties of Chisena have been documented. Prah (2010: 178) states that sometimes what has been classified as separate languages occurring on the two sides of the border are actually mutually intelligible variants of the same language. However, Mansour (1993: 2) discusses the difficulty in distinguishing between languages and dialects based purely on linguistic criteria. He gives the example of Catalan which is spoken at the border of Spain and France. Catalan could be considered a separate language in both Spain and France,

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or it can be viewed as a Spanish dialect on one side of the border and a French dialect on the other.

Based on the observations above, there is an indication that the cross-border communities that exist today had the same origin. In this regard, Brambilla (2007: 23) notes that the border should thus not be looked at as merely a line on the ground but, above all, a manifestation of social relations involving various practices that go beyond the boundary. This means that, as much as borders are political divisions separating one nation from another, they are also avenues for developing new social networks amongst the cross-border communities. The border is thus a medium of communication and construction of meanings and identities that are produced through it. What the above assertions mean is that, as much as the border is symbolised by a static line that separates two nations, it does not hinder daily interactions between the border communities.

In her study on the Kwanyama people on the Anglo-Namibia border, Brambilla (2007: 22) was interested in ascertaining ―what happens when a border is imposed on a population, how a new social cultural and territorial reality takes shape and what relationships develop between the people in the borderland‖ (for similar interests, see Nugent, 2002; Van Schendel, 2005). This study on the Kwanyama people was mainly concerned with examining the role that the border plays in the construction of the identities of cross-border communities – both the territorial and human consequences of the Anglo-Namibian border. Cross-border languages are envisaged as meeting points and bridges into interstate cooperation. The significance of cross-border languages resides in their ability to create cultural links and linguistic unity that transcend political national borders (Brambilla, 2007; Dereje & Hoehne, 2012; Ndhlovu, 2013). Although cross-border languages may be known by similar or slightly different names in each country, most cross-border languages have high degrees of mutual intelligibility, to the extent that speakers of related varieties can easily understand each other without resorting to interpretation. Makalela (2009) has demonstrated that the degree of mutual intelligibility among the varieties of the Sotho-Tswana group of languages (Sesotho of Lesotho; Southern Sotho (Sesotho) and Northern Sotho (Sepedi) of South Africa; and Setswana of Botswana) is such that their speakers ―feel at home‖ with each other‘s languages. The cross-border phenomenon provides a new theoretical perspective and empirically grounded lenses for looking at the prospects for regional integration based on the everyday multilingual identities and discursive practices of those involved in cross-border trade.

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