Journals

A Czech proverb says  “ Learn a new language and get a new soul ” . Languages do not make a person wealthy, but they help people fall on their feet, survive in a foreign country, and most especially bring people together: if you speak someone's language, especially if it is not a language commonly spoken, they will most often welcome you, even if you are from another ethnic group, another country, another skin color. In a way, you enter another person's soul by speaking their language. In Africa, local languages are rarely a national language, as Africa was partitioned by European governments i n 1884-1885 . Thus, ethnic groups were split up, some in one country, others in a bordering country. By 1902, as per Wikipedia, 90% of African territory was under a European country's rule. On the other hand, a given country may include over 100 groups speaking different languages. Another issue: the colonial powers did not encourage local languages; it was in their interest to have as many people as possible speaking the ruling power's language (in Africa, mainly French or English. The Germans lost most of their colonies after World War I, so the German language is not spoken in those areas anymore). I never attended Rutgers but it has been on my short list of "Respected Universities" for many years. It is the eighth oldest university in the United States and lives up to its long history of academic excellence. It comes as no surprise that Rutgers took the brave step of creating a new department for the study of African, Middle-Eastern and Asian languages, acronym: AMESALL. Professor Alamin Mazrui provided me with information about this new department.   What does AMESALL stand for? AMESALL is the established acronym for (the Department of) African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures. Is the Department housed in a specific building? The unit is temporarily housed in Lucy Stone Hall at the Livingston Campus ( New Brunswick ) in Piscataway . Why was AMESALL created? What was the impetus behind Rutgers ’ decision? Rutgers has taken a radical step in the American academy by giving full departmental status to the study of languages and cultures of non-Western societies.  The reasons for AMESALL’s creation include the following: - Many of the students enrolled in African, Middle Eastern and South Asian language courses are in fact “heritage language learners.” As a result, they offer special challenges and opportunities and have special linguistic and pedagogic needs. These American citizens are the children of the growing population of immigrants who grow up with some knowledge of, but are not fluent and literate in, the heritage language of their study. Their growing presence in the USA is already challenging our understanding of the notion of “foreign languages.” With the right kind of instructional approaches, heritage learners are likely to succeed in developing a command of the heritage language at a level essential for professional transactions, international trade, and national security—invaluable skills for an increasingly global world. AMESALL has created this opportunity for faculty and instructors engaged with heritage language learners to work collectively towards shared pedagogical, technological as well as theoretical concerns. - African, Middle Eastern and South Asian languages are not only connected to their respective regional identities; they have also been part of the wider network of human interaction for many centuries. The peoples of Africa , the Middle East and South Asia have had historical exchanges that stretch back to antiquity, long before the encounter between Africa and the West. As a result, AMESALL allows African languages and literatures, for example, to continue to give expression to their own Black heritage; but these linguistic and cultural traditions are now also in conversation with other civilizations with which they have cross-fertilized over the centuries, and which are now being reconstituted and reconfigured in immigrant spaces in the USA, Europe and other parts of our global village. The linguistic, literary and cultural intersections within this larger Afro-Asian region constitute an academic area of special focus for AMESALL. - Finally, the languages and literatures offered in the department all belong to what have come to be referred to as Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) in the American academy.  Unlike students of French or Spanish, for example, most students of Arabic, Yoruba, Hindi, etc usually encounter these languages for the first time at the university level. It is now recognized that these less commonly taught languages have special material and pedagogic needs. And it is partly in an attempt to address these needs that the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (in the USA ) has been formed. By bringing together faculty and instructors of several less commonly taught languages from various parts of the world, the department provides a ready forum for rigorous intellectual exchanges on important pedagogic and theoretical issues related to LCTLs. What study majors will be overseen by AMESALL? The proposed Major in African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures has three options: - a Language option, that allows students to engage in an in-depth study of at least one of the languages of one of the three areas to a level at which they can read the literature composed in that language - an Area Literature Option, that allows the extensive study of the literatures of one of the regions. This option too has a language requirement - the Comparative Option, requiring knowledge of at least two languages (from different regions), and which provides a comparative understanding of the Afro-Asian literatures involved. The department is also in the process of establishing an undergraduate Certificate in Translation, intended to provide theoretical and practical training in translation from AMESA languages to English and vice-versa. Which professors were instrumental in the creation of AMESALL? AMESALL was essentially an initiative of the deans of the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) at Rutgers ( New Brunswick ). Once they had consulted several colleagues in different departments they formed a committee of faculty and students, drawn from various departments, to work out the modalities of the proposed department. The proposal was eventually presented and approved at the meetings of the Faculty of SAS and the Board of Governors. When the department was finally launched at the beginning of last academic year it started with two tenured faculty who had been involved all along in the conceptualization of the department and advocacy for its establishment. These are: Professor Ousseina Alidou (who is also the Director of the Center for African Studies), and myself. Does AMESALL collaborate with other universities, whether in the US or overseas? At the moment, AMESALL works closely with three Rutgers centers: The Center for African Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for South Asian Studies. Independently, and in collaboration with these centers, it hopes to forge programmatic links with specific institutions internationally. But all these are plans for the future. Which languages are currently taught at AMESALL? Currently, the languages are: Arabic Bengali Hindi Persian Sanskrit Swahili Twi Turkish Yoruba There is the possibility that next academic year we shall add Armenian and Malayalam. In addition, we have a course entitled African Language Tutorial: This allows students to study any African language of their choice--usually on a one-to-one basis--for which we can find a tutor. This option is particularly popular with graduate students planning to carry out research in Africa . I also asked Dr. Mazrui whether any other universities had created a non-Western language department similar to AMESALL. He answered that the University of Florida used to have a Department of African and Asian Languages and Literatures, however, it had been merged into other departments for financial reasons. In most universities, a department may focus on one non-Western region ( Africa or the Middle East or Asia ). Currently the program that AMESALL possibly resembles the most is the University of London 's School of Oriental and Africa Studies (SOAS).  As this SoSauce journal is about Africa , the focus is on the African languages: Swahili, Twi, and Yoruba. As per Wikipedia: - Swahili, also called Kiswahili, is spoken as a native tongue by 5 to 10 million people, but is also the Lingua Franca in many parts of East Africa . - Twi is spoken in Ghana , mainly by the Akan people, and is used by about 8.3 million people. - Yoruba is a language from the area now known as Nigeria , and is spoken by over 28 million people, as far away as Brazil. * It is to be noted that all of these African languages are based in mainly English-speaking countries.** I assume that the reason for these choices is that most of the (20th Century) African immigrants in the United States are from English-speaking countries; there is no language barrier, unlike for French-, Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking Africans. As Professor Mazrui noted in the reasons for the creation of AMESALL, the department aims for “heritage language learners.” It is to be hoped that in the future, additional African languages, also spoken by millions of people, can be included, such as Bambara (spoken by about 6 million people, mainly in Mali), or Wolof, spoken by about 3.2 million people as their mother tongue in Senegal.   * Wikipedia sources:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_language   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambara_language   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_languages    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_language  ** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_United_States#Demographics   Of note: Article about endangered languages: BBC Today, Oct. 17, 2009:  The death of language? http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8311000/8311069.stm