The sociolinguistic situation in Senegal

Communication sur invitation au Seminar of Postcolonial Language Studies / Forschungskolloquium Romanische Sprachwissenschaft. Université de Brème en Allemagne.Senegal is a multilingual country where fifty languages from different language families are spoken (Robert 2009). These language families consist mainly of Atlantic languages, Mande languages, Afro-Portuguese creole languages, Indo-European languages and Semitic languages (Nunez 2015).The dynamic of Senegalese multilingualism is different from one town to another, as can be seen in two great iconic cities: Dakar, the capital, and Ziguinchor, the main city in the south of the country. In Dakar, multilingualism seems to be sustained by people from rural origin who usually live in the outskirts and speak Wolof, French and the languages of migrants' origin while in Ziguinchor, the most multilingual town of the country, it is more diversified (Juillard 2007 ; Juillard et Wald 1994 ; Dreyfus et Juillard 2004).This Senegalese linguistic diversity is managed by the Senegalese institutions (like the state) through a language policy characterized by several stages since the independence of the country in 1960 (Cissé 2005, Ndao 2011, Kebé 2011).In this paper, I'll introduce on one hand the language policy of Senegal during the colonial and postcolonial periods and, on the other hand, I'll show, in the light of a critical view, if this language policy has an impact in the language practices of the local people which live in this superdiversity situation (Vertovec 2007)