‘Do
you
want
me
to
translate
this
in
English
or
in
a
better
Mandinka
language?’:
Unequal
literacy
regimes
and
grassroots
spelling
practices
in
peri-urban
Gambia
Kasper
Juffermans
*
DepartmentofCultureStudies&Babylon,TilburgUniversity,Warandelaan2,POBox90153,5000LETilburg,Netherlands
1. Introduction
AmajorparadoxstudentsoflanguageandeducationinAfrica areconfrontedwithisthegreatdiversityandcreativityinaudible formsofcommunicationandthevastconstraintsinvisibleforms of language. For example, thediversity presented in counts of spokenlanguages(suchasEthnologue’s2009statementthatthere are 2110 living languages in Africa) is barely reflected also in literacypracticesinthepublicspaceorintheeducationsystems.In muchofAfricaandthepostcolonialworldmoregenerally,local languagesarenotprimarilytaughtassubjectsorusedaslanguages of literacy instruction in schools beyond the initial grades (cf.
Bunyi,1999;Brock-UtneandSkattum,2009).Thisignoringoflocal languagesineducationcanbeexplainedasacolonialstatusquo(de Swaan,2001),astheresultofadeliberateneo-coloniallinguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992), or simplyas a barrier for good pedagogicalpracticethatpolicymakersneedtobridge(Williams, 2006).Itcanalsobeexplainedtohaveanimpactonvernacular language and literacy practices, and on the structure and infrastructureof‘locallanguaging’itself.1
Thispaperispartofalargerprojectonlanguageandliteracy practices in Africa’s smallest country The Gambia (Juffermans, 2010)anddealswithMandinka–Englishbilingualism and ‘peri-urban’ spelling practices. It is meant as a contribution to a sociolinguistics of orthography and spelling (Kress, 2000; Jaffe, 2000,2009;Sebba,2000,2009;Lu¨pke,2011)andofliteracyatthe grassrootslevel (Fabian,1990;Blommaert, 2008;Mbodj-Pouye, 2009). Spellingis definedhereasthecreativerepresentationof sound into writing, and orthography as the normative way of writing right. A useful distinction Kress (2000) makes in this respect is between the ‘look’ and the ‘sound’ of spelling, i.e., betweenthemorebottom-up‘transductionofsoundintographic form’ and the more top-down‘reproduction of a graphic form (letters as a kind of image) with a graphic form’. ‘Grassroots literacy’refersto‘aliteracywhichworksdespiteanamazinglyhigh degree of indeterminacy and freedom (visible in an erratic orthography, agreat disdainfor wordand sentenceboundaries and manyotherinstances ofseeminglyunmotivatedvariation)’ (Fabian,2001:65). Iwill come backtotheseterms in thefinal sectionofthispaper.
The single most striking feature of the (visual) linguistic landscapeofeitherurbanorruralGambiaisthevirtualabsenceof languagesotherthanEnglishasanythingmorethanpropernames oroccasionalslogansembeddedinotherwisemonolingualEnglish discourse(Juffermans,2010).Englishclearlyisthedefaultmedium of visual communication in thepublic space. This observation wouldlenditselfasevidencethatGambianlocallanguagesarenot writtenlanguages,butonlyspoken‘vernaculars’.Andindeed,this isbyandlargehowlocallanguagesaretreatedinthecountry’s educational systems (public and private, secular and Islamic, formalandnon-formal)whichprivilegenon-indigenouslanguages (English and/or Arabic) as media of instruction at all levels of education. Recent mission statements and policy objectives to ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Mandinka English Orthography Literacy Ideology Ethnography Text ABSTRACT
ThispaperpresentsacomparativeethnographicanalysisoftwoversionsofagrassrootstextinMandinka language,onewrittenbyanon-formallyeducatedman,theotherarespellingbyaformallyeducated urbanite.Theanalysispoints atacrucialdifferenceinspellingpracticesandinequality inliteracy regimes,i.e.,betweenestablishedorthographicEnglishliteracyandthemorecreative,heterographicand emergentlocallanguageliteracy.ItisshownhowEnglishorthographyaffectslocalideologiesofliteracy aswellasMandinkaspellingpracticesitself,ingreaterorlesserextent,dependingontheeducational historyofthespeller.
ß2011ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved.
*Correspondingauthor.
E-mailaddress:[email protected].
1
FieldworkforthispaperwasundertakeninJune–July2008andFebruary– March2009withsupportfromtheDepartmentofLanguageandCultureStudiesat TilburgUniversity.IamindebtedtoBurama,Almameh,AnsuandDembo,the Mandinka(re)spellersandtranslatorsmentionedinthispaper,withoutwhomthis papercouldneverhavebeenwritten,andtoMarkPeters.Versionsofthispaper werepresentedattheLiteracyInequalitiesConferenceattheUniversityofEast Anglia(September2009),theAmericanAnthropologicalAssociationmeetingin Philadelphia(December2009)andthePointSudworkshoponLanguageContactin WestAfricainBamako(February2010).IamgratefultoJanBlommaert,Caroline Juillard,SjaakKroon,BryanMaddox,Shahrzad Mahootian,SalikokoMufwene, DorinaVeldhuisandthreeanonymousreviewersforcarefulsuggestions,criticism andfeedback.Allremainingshortcomingsaremyownresponsibility.
ContentslistsavailableatScienceDirect
International
Journal
of
Educational
Development
j ou rna l h ome pa ge : w ww . e l se v i e r. co m/ l oc a te / i j e dude v
introducelocallanguagesintotheformalsecularschool curricu-lumnotwithstanding(e.g.,DoSE,2004),verylittleofthesepolicies have been implemented yet (Juffermans and McGlynn, 2009; McGlynnandMartin,2009;VanCampandJuffermans,2010).
Uptillnow,Gambianlocallanguagesarenotusedforliteracy learninginmain-streameducation,butonlyinthe(non-formal) adult literacy classes that target uneducated, illiterate adults. When it comes to literacy education, children and adults are subjectedtotworadicallydifferentregimesoflearning.Children aretaughttoreadandwriteinEnglish,whichisthelanguageofthe offices,themodernnation,andthewiderworld.Adultswhohave missedthisopportunityintheiryouthareofferedanalternative educationmodelconsistingof‘adultliteracyclasses’.‘Adult’hereis synonymouswith‘local’or‘indigenous’.Children’sliteracyisnot thatofadults,butisliteracyintheofficial,internationallanguage, English.
InBrandt’s(1997)terms,themostpowerful‘sponsorsofliteracy’ inTheGambia(i.e.,theDepartmentofStateforEducation,Islamic clergy, various educational stakeholders) are only marginally concerned with literacy acquisition and production in local languagesandinvestfewresourcesinthesystematicteachingof readingandwritinginlocallanguages.Literacyinlocallanguages remainsmoreorlessmarginal,andthisiswhatweseereflectedin thepublicspace:alotofEnglish,occasionalArabic(eitherinArabic orinromanscript)andonlyaverysmallamountoflocallanguages. Nonetheless, this paper isabout literacy productionin local languages(Mandinkainparticular).Foralongtime,readingand writing in local languages remained well-hidden for me as a researcher.Inmyfieldwork,untilrecently,Igotnofurtherthan justtalkaboutliteracyinlocallanguages(e.g.,withadultliteracy teachers) but never got to witness people actually practicing literacy in local languages. When I observed people practicing literacyintheirprivate lives,it wasalwayseitherinEnglishor occasionallyinArabic.ItwasonlyinmorerecentfieldworkthatI wasintroducedtoanindividualwhodidpracticelocallanguage literacyonaregularbasisandinwhoselifelocallanguageliteracy played(plays)animportantrole.
Thediscussionofthispaperrevolvesaroundthisindividualand histexts.Thisperson,BuramaJanne,willbeintroducedinsection three,afterthemethodologicalandtheoreticalframeworkofthis paperhasbeenoutlined.In sectionfour,Iwillnarratetwokey incidentsIexperiencedwhileworkingwithhistextsandsection fiveoffersacomparativeethnographicanalysisoftwoversionsof thesametext(astoryaboutastolendonkey),theoriginalprepared by Burama and the respelling by a higher-educated, English-literateperson.The paperculminatesin a seriesofremarks on linguistic inequality and Mandinka spelling practices in the presenceofEnglish.
The ambition of this paper is to shed light on the actual resourcesofwritingpeopleinapostcolonial,ThirdWorldcontext haveaccesstothroughformal,non-formalandinformalchannels ofeducation(Rogers,2004),andontheimplicithierarchiesthere arebetweenthesechannelsofeducationinsociallife.Itisshown howintheabsenceofawell-establishedorthographyforGambian locallanguages,formaleducationandliteracyinEnglisharevalued higherthannon-formal(adult)educationandliteracyinthelocal languages.Itissuggestedthatthereareunequalliteracyregimes thataffectnotonlyhowdifferentlyeducatedpersonsthinkabout language,literacyandeducation(intermsofwhatis‘good’and ‘bad’ language, literacy or education), but also how differently educatedpersonspracticeliteracyonthegrassrootslevel. 2. Anethnographyoftext
Ethnography is a method-cum-theory of inquiryinto social realitythattakescomplexityasitsstarting pointandaims ata
comprehensive, holistic and critical description of big social processes in the world on the basis of small events. Hymes’ (1967)ethnographyasspeakingisanimportantprecursorforthe sort of language-centred ethnography practiced here (see also
Basso, 1974; Szwed, 1981; Fabian, 2001; Baynham, 2004; Blommaert,2008).Thesignificanceoftheethnographyofspeaking liesinparticularinthefactthatitavoidstheterm‘language’inits theoreticalapparatus,whichallowstheethnographiclinguistto moveitsfocusfrom‘languages’,‘cultures’,or‘tribes’to communi-cativeevents(orliteracyevents)thatarenotnecessarilylockedup inparticularlanguagesorculturesandtocommunitiesofpractice inwhichmorethanonemediumandmodeofcommunicationcan beusedatthesametime(Rampton,2000;Jørgensen,2008).
Lillis (2008) makes a distinction between three possible approaches to ethnography, as method, methodology, and as ‘deeptheorising’.Sheillustratesthesethreesensesof ethnogra-phy with her own research on academic writing, but the distinctionisa usefultheorisationforethnographic epistemol-ogiesingeneral.Shedescribesthatsomeauthorsusetheword ethnographyassoonastheirmethodinvolvestalkingwithpeople aboutwhattheydo.Inliteracystudies,‘talkabouttexts’maybe enoughforanethnographicprojectonlyinthefirstsenseofthe word.Ethnographyisthenusedinitsthinnestversion,asmethod. Iattempttoapplyethnographyinthisstudyalsointhesecondand third meanings of the term, methodologically as well as theoretically.
Ethnographyasmethodologyinvolvesatleastthreeelements, ‘thick description’, ‘thick participation’ and ‘deep hanging out’. ‘Thickdescription’,atermintroducedbyGeertz(1973),referstoa particular thorough way of describing cultural behaviour in a broadly contextualised way, such that the behaviour becomes meaningfulandunderstandabletooutsiders.‘Thickparticipation’ isatermintroducedbySarangi(2007:573)tocallattentiontothe degreeof socializationthat is neededin ethnographicwork‘in order to achieve a threshold for interpretive understanding’. Althoughinpartalreadycoveredby‘thickparticipation’,Iwould like to put forward a third element that is necessary for ethnographicprojects,‘deephanging out’.‘Deephangingout’is atermusedbyGeertz(1998)inanessayforTheNewYorkReviewof Booksinwhichhecomparestwoethnographicmonographs,oneby acelebratedscholarintherelativelynewfieldofculturalstudies (Clifford, 1997); the other by an old-fashioned and relatively unknownFrench anthropologist (Clastres, 1998 [1972]).Geertz accusesCliffordasproponentofpostmodern,multi-sited ethnog-raphy of ‘non-immersive hit-and-run ethnography’, ‘drifting, freestyleanthropology’and commendsClastres asproponentof an antiquated anthropology for his thorough commitment to ‘localized,long-term, close-in,vernacular field research– what Cliffordatonepointlightlycallsdeephangingout’(Geertz,1998; seealsoWogan,2004).‘Deephangingout’isturnedpositive by Geertz and proposed as ethnographic requirement for cultural understandingandinterpretativeadequacy.
Theresearchreported here is based on classicethnographic fieldworkor‘deephangingout’indifferentlocationsandsections ofGambiansociety,2butitalsosubscribestothepossibilityofan ‘ethnographyoftext’–theideathatanethnographicprojectcanbe builtaroundtheanalysisofaseriesoftexts,evenintheabsenceof observedliteracyevents(cf.Juffermans,2009).Tounderstandthe potentialofethnographiesoftext,weneedtodistinguishbetween ‘literacy events’, ‘literacy practices’ and ‘literacy products’. As
Street(2000:21f)explains,literacypracticesarethemorerobust, broader,structuralformsofindividualliteracyevents.Aliteracy eventrefersto‘aparticularsituationwherethings[thatinvolve reading and/or writing] are happening and you can see them happening’.Literacy practices on theother hand, ‘refer to this broaderculturalconceptionofparticularwaysofthinkingabout anddoingreadingandwritinginculturalcontexts’.Literacyevents and literacypractices thus relate toeach other ina somewhat comparablewayasutterancesandgrammardo.Literacyeventsare theempiricallyobservablesituationsthatallowliteracy research-ers tomake statementsabout literacyas situated in particular contexts.
Individualliteracyeventsusuallyleavemoreorlessdurable traces,i.e.,literacyproducts.Inanethnographyoftext,westudy thesetracesorproductsasawindowintoliteracypractices.The products people leave behind offer additional, more tangible evidenceofwhatpeoplearedoingwhentheyengageinliteracy events or practiceliteracy. The textspeople write may reveal moreabouthowtheypracticeliteracythantheywouldbeable to answer on questions regarding their literacy practices.
Mbodj-Pouye (2008) in her study of villageliteracies in Mali remarks that texts found in circulation in a particular community can be of the same use to ethnographers as historical documents and archival records are to historians. Mundane,everyday literacyproducts canserve toextrapolate, (re)constructandtheoriseonlivedsocial,cultural,historicalor linguisticrealities.
InthispaperIstudyoneindividual’stextsandthereactionsto oneofthesetextsbypersonsinhisenvironmentasawindowinto understandingthebroadersocialecologyofeducationandliteracy learning ina postcolonial and ThirdWorld countrythat isThe Gambia.
3. Burama’stextsonpaperandonthewall
IfirstmetwithBuramaJanne(hisrealname)inJuly2008.My visittohimwasarrangedbyhisyoungerbrotherAlmamehwith whomImovedaboutmuchinthecourseofmyfieldwork.Burama, Iwastold,keptnotesandstoriesinMandinkaandwrotethenames andphonenumbersoftheirrelativesin‘funny’spellings onthe wallsofhishouse.Hisownnameasusedhere,Buramainsteadof ‘Ebrima’or‘Ibrahima’,andJanneinsteadof‘Janneh’,isexemplaryof this.AlmamehhadalsoinformedBuramaaboutmyinterestinhis locallanguagewriting. Onmyfirst visit,littletime waswasted withexchangingcourtesiesbeforeIwaspresentedaseriesoftexts onpaperaswellasonthewallsofhishouse.
On paper,Buramapresentednine loosely kept texts,two of which were written especially for me, including one in my presence. Six of these texts were professional reports dated between‘7/4/1991’ and‘7/10/1995’ ofbusiness tripstovarious placeswithinandoutsideTheGambia(Basse,JaraSoma,Bissau,
Casamance),documentinginconsiderabledetailofthequantities and prices of purchased cow skins, repayment instalments of outstandingdebts,aswellasmiscellaneousfeesanddutiesthat had to be paid. Burama explained that he owed his job as a travellinghidemerchantprimarilytohisabilitytokeeprecordsof thesetransactionsinwriting.Thefirsttextshownandexplainedto mewasashortautobiographicalnoteonpaperthatisrepresented intranscriptionandtranslationinFragment1below.
ThefirstparagraphstatesBurama’spersonaldetailsaswellas thoseoftwoofhisrelativesthatIknew.Thesecondparagraph anticipatesmyinterestsinhislocallanguagewritingandoutlines his learning history with regard to literacy. It begins and concludes with thestatement that heis ‘pleased’, eitherwith hiscompetenceinMandinkawriting,and/orwithmyinterestin this.ThethirdparagraphexplainssomethingofBurama’ssocial andeconomicstatuswithreferencetotheoldwellinthecornerof hiscompound.Inthetalksurroundingthetext,heexplainedthat hesettledonthislandcomingfromamoreeasternandruralpart ofthecountryinatimewhenfewpeoplehadsettledhere.He explainedthathebuiltoneoffirstwellsintheareaandthatpeople camefromfartofetchwaterinhiscompound,whichclearlymade himproud.Thisisfollowed,however,bytheremarkthatthewell isbrokennow,andthat‘hispeople’(i.e.,hisfamilymembers)now havetogoouttofetchwater,whichisindicativeoftheircurrent situation of material hardship. The short text repetitively concludes withBurama’saddressandphone numberasa sort ofsignature.
Apartfromthetextsonpaper,Buramahadalsowrittenaseries of short noteswith charcoalon thewhite-paintedwalls of his house. These notes, three of which are reproduced below (see
Fragments2,3and4),elaborateontheautobiographicalnoteon paper.Theygiveparticularsoftheconstructionofhishouse(such astheexactdatewhenitwasbuilt,line23),aswellasofhismeans oflivelihoodandthecompositionofhisfamily(lines29–30).These notes were written especially for me as they were meant to illustratehiswritinginMandinka(seeFig.1forthetwoofusin action).Itshouldbenotedthatthesetextsarenotnaturalisticdata inthesenseoftextsthatexistedpriortoandindependentofthis research,butthattheyinsteademergedintheinteractivecontext ofethnographicdatacollection.
Inthefinalofthethreenotesreproducedbelow,Buramapoints totheimportantdivideinGambiansocietybetweenKombo(the west,theurbanareas)andtherestofthecountry(theprovinces, theruralareas).Movingwestwardsimpliesmovinguponthescale fromruraltourban,whichisatthesametimealsoa socialand linguistic scale (Blommaert, 2007). Socio-economically, urban dwellers have different access to educational and professional markets compared to those who reside in the rural areas. Sociolinguistically,movingwestwardsoftenalsoimpliesmoving awayfromareaswhereMandinkaisalinguafrancatoareaswhere Wolofisthedominantlanguage(e.g.,inSerrekunda,Banjul).In Burama’scase, thistrajectoryisa moderateoneashedoes not movefromthe‘fareast’tothe‘farwest’,butonlyfromFonitoone the first settlements west of Brikama.His move is also socio-economically and socio-linguistically moderate (yet significant enough),astheplaceofhisnewsettlementisnotentirelyurban yetandthedominantlanguagehereisstillMandinka.Todescribe thisintermediatezone,wemayborrowatermfromgeography, and characterise Burama’s town as a peri-urban place. In geographythetermperi-urbanstandsfortherural(agricultural) wastelandinthemarginsoftheurbancentres.Peoplelivinginthe peri-urbanareashelpsustainthecity(throughtheirlabour)and alsoreapitsbenefits(throughwork,education,manufacturedand tradedgoods).Thetermcarriesinittheassumptionthaturbanand ruralarenotabsolutecategories,butcategoriesofdegree,ofmore orless.
2
Fragment1
Burama’sself-introduction(onpaper).
Translation Transcription 1 5 10 15 20 NTe TooMu BuRAMAJAnne Le Ti FARATO
Tel _####### BuRAMAJAnneH NdooMAKARAMo JAnne TL ####### ALiMAMu JAnne NdooMA ####### KonTAAniTANMAnTa KARAn bungoTo
Fo NGALeTARo SAFe MAndinKA – KAngoLAKAATo. NTe Mu MAndinKo LeTi WoTo NFAn Si sarono, wo LALu WoTo KonTAniTABAKe BAKe
¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯
MNA nyin KoLongo Sing 4/6/1995 woTo Mo Moolu Menubu Jan MAAFAngla EbeKAnaaGiibiyoola NNa suwo le KoNo BARi kolongo TinyaaTAle sanyi nna Moolu KATAMola Le la Konongo Le To nyin KoLon ye. MnaFaa BAKe BAKe Tenbo Menna Aye Giyoo SoTo ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯¯ AdeReCi BuRAMAJAnne FARATO F
####
### My name is Burama Janne. Farato, Tel.: # Burama JannehMy younger brother Karamo Janneh. Tel.# Almameh Janneh my younger brother. # I am pleased. I did not go to school. But I can write letters in Mandinka language. I am a Mandinka.
Therefore I can be my own tutor in this. I am very very pleased.
I dug this well on 4/6/1995.
Then many people in this surrounding came to fetch water in my compound. But the well is broken now.
My people now go to other people’s well. This well
was very very important in that time to have water.
Address: Burama Janneh, Farato, Tel.#.
Fragment2
Noteonthewall(abouthishouse).
Translation Transcription
22
25
Be Mna nyin bungo loota
4/3/1993 molo le Joo KA BuRilooKooKoSi
Nyaa ModoJao KAn Bungo loo Fo APAReTA ASA WonTA nang
My this house was built on 4/3/1993. I paid people to lay blocks and I paid others to erect the house up to its completion now.
Fragment3
Noteonthewall(abouthisliteracyandhisfamily).
Translation Transcription
26
30
AdunMna nyin Keeba karango Nyi mnaFele KATu ndingolo nKeela- KAnbangoJooNyin KangoLelA Nga musu FulA le SoTo Din Kononto le Soto WoTo nyin KARAngo ye MnaFea BAKe BAKe
And my this adult education/literacy has benefit to me because I pay my children’s education through it. I have two wives
[and] have nine children. Then this education/literacy is of great great benefit to me.
Fragment4
Noteonthewall(abouthismigration).
Translation Transcription
35
39
Nyin FAnaaMu KeKende yAA bAAleTi ka koridaa soTo. KomboJAng niiE
bot
A BAnTAEyAAMoyi Ko Eye KoridaaSoTo KoMbAJAng ELA Moolo MenubeBAnTA La Eka,kontAn BAKe BAKeThis is also great goodness: to have a compound,
Thefragmentsdiscussedsofararemeanttogiveaflavourofthe sortofpersonthatBuramaisandtheliteraciesheisengagedin.In thefollowingparagraphIwillofferanethnographiccomparative analysisoftwoversionsofashortstoryinMandinka,theoriginal writtenbyBurama,andarespelling.
4. Thedonkeystory,in‘good’andin‘bad’Mandinka
One of thenine texts on paper Buramagave me is a story narratedinthefirstperson,ofadisputeovertheownershipofa donkey.Thistext,thatIshallcallthedonkeystory,isreproducedin
Fig.2(a) andtranscribed in Fragment5(a). Iphotographed and preparedelectronictranscriptionsofthetextsinthefield,butthe translation and annotation of the documents was something I worked on at home in interaction with Gambian ‘informants’ (friends)overtheInternet.
Here Iwould liketo narratetwo ‘keyincidents’ (Kroonand Sturm, 2000) that occurred in the process of translating and working with the texts, in particular the donkey story. Both incidentsare‘key’becausetheyrevealimportantformalandsocial characteristicsofthetextsandpointatveryfundamentallinguistic inequalitiesintheecologyofeducationandliteracyinGambian society. These incidents are key to understanding why ‘small languages’ are not equal to world languages, in ways that go beyondnotionsoflinguisticimperialismandlanguagerights(see thediscussionbetween Blommaert,2001and Skutnabb-Kangas etal.,2001).Bynarratingthesetwoevents,Iaimtodemonstrate thatthereisastructuralinequalitywithinsmalllanguagesthatis inherentintheinfrastructureofthelanguage,andthatthisisan inequalitythatisnoteasilyresolvedbyagendasofempowerment thattargetlearnersonly.
ThefirstincidentoccurredinthefieldinJuly2008.Igavethe firstpageofthetexttomyfriendAnsu,whoisawell-educated young professional and ‘family man’ living in Greater Serre-kunda. Igave him thepieceof paper (an enlarged black-and-whiteprint-outofthedigital photograph)withtherequest to helpmetranslatethistext,whichheaccepted.Hethenpassed thepageontoathird,mutualfriendofours–Dembo,asimilarly educated urbanite a couple of years older than both of us. DemboreturnedthephotographedtexttomeinAnsu’shousea fewdayslatertogetherwitharespellingofthatoriginalversion insteadofatranslation.TherespellingasreproducedinFig.2(b) and transcribed in Fragment 5(b) was accompanied with the commentthatthis wasthe‘correct writing’andthat‘thefirst
writing[i.e.,Burama’sversion]ha[d]somemistakes’,andishow youwrite‘ifyoudon’tknowthelanguageverywell’.Translation of the text, or rather a paraphrase, was only given to me orally.
Thesecondincidentisareplye-mailIreceivedfromBurama’s youngerbrotherAlmameh.Almameh,orAlex,isthepersonthatis perhapsmostcentralinmynetwork,andisalsothepersonIam mostintouchwithovere-mail(oroccasionallyovertelephone) whenIamnotinTheGambia.Ioftenaskhisopinionorconsulthim togetcertainfactsrightforthepiecesIwrite.Healsofeedsme withinformationofthemostimportanteventsinthelivesofthe peoplewebothknow(marriages,births,deaths,travelling,etc.). Inthecourseofourregulare-mailconversations,Iaskedhimon 23rdApril2009at15:20frommyofficeinTilburg‘foranother favour’andmadeasemi-seriousjokethat‘Ishouldalmoststart paying[him]for[his]help’.IexplainedthatIwas‘workingonthe texts[his]brotherBuramaha[d]givenmelastyear.’Iaskedhimif hecould‘pleasehelpmetranslatethetextbelowonelineafterthe other.’Hisreplyat02:36[00:36GambianTime]whileonnight duty at workwith freeinternet access rebukedmysemi-joke suggestingthatmyrequestwasformulatedtoopolite(‘cuzdont askedmetogiveyouafavourplsjusttellAlexdothisforme’)and that‘payment’isinappropriateamongfriendsandkins(‘cuzwe cannotpayforeachother,howmuchdoyouthinkyoucanpay me?we arnow Baading[relatives,lit.father’schildren]’).This was,however,followedbyasuggestiverequestforassistance(but not as payment for any services), and an explanation of his hardship at the time related to an involuntary professional postingtothefareastofthecountry.Thee-mailendedwithan appeal toclarify mytranslation request: ‘Do you wantme to translitre thismandinkatextsinEnglishforyouor ina better mandinka language?’.I repliedto himthat Ijustneeded itin English,whichIgotfromhimat12:53[10:53G.T.],lessthan24h aftermyinitialrequest.
Fig.2.(a)Burama’soriginal.(b)Dembo’srespelling.
Fragment5
Thedonkeystoryintwospellingsandtranslation.
(a) Transcript of Burama’s original (b) Transcript of Dembo’s respelling (c) Translation (based on both spellings)
40 45 50 55 60 65 dAnKı 1985 danKı KeSSı Nna FAloo FılıTAAga Ayını
nyını Fo MnATA AJe Modoo bulu
AyAA ASSıTı SARee ToobAlA
KAbıRın ngana FAloo Je dooRon
ngaaASuute KAATo nga suuTe-
Rengo le Ke. FAloo . BAlA . KARınne
SAlAMA le Kun AKo MAleKun SAlaMu
NKo Nna Foloo le Mu nyınTı,ATeKo
HAnıı. nyın MAnKe .E lAFAlooTı. nga
nyuu , SAbAn ,SAnbAng . Fo NTATA
PolıCe . Nganna KuMo .SAaTA . Ete.fana
YAAlAKuMo-SAatA . PolıColo. Ko
Mun TAMAn sere Juma le be . ElAFalo ba la
YAA Fo NTe FAnaa ngaa Fo
Polıso Ko Mo wo Mo Eye TAMAn seRo
MenTo ELA FalooBALA nın-wo-
MAn TARAJee Nbe soRonna
polıSolu Ko TAA FA loo -
KAMAnengEyA AKoroce NTe Men-
TA Mu FAlooTı ngaMen Fo Jee
Wole naaTa TARA Je. keedıngo
ko Abe dıyAAmulA doRon polıColu
YA ATule bun EYA FAYı Seli, woTo-
Wo mo Wo EnyAn ElAFengo
SuuTe lAAle
ngıne mu KiıTıyooTı
NAA– FALOO FEE LEE TAH FOR – NAA NYAA NYENE FOR NNATA ARJEH MODOU BULUU NY ARYAA SEETEH SARE-TOO BALAA KABERING NGANA FALOO JEH DORONG NGA ARSUTAY, KHA.TUNG NGA SUTAY-
RANGO LEKEH FALOO-BALA. KARIM.
KOO– SALAMU-ALAY-KUM NKO – MALAY-KUM-SALAM.
NKO – NAR FALOO-LEMU NYING-TEEH AR-THE-KOO HANEE NYING MANG-KEH ELA FALOO TEEH– NGA NYONG SABANG-SAABANG FOR AR NAT NTATA POLICO. NYANG-NA- KUMOO SAATA. ARTEH FANANG YAALA KUMOO SANTA. POLICO KO
MUNG-TAA MANG-SERR JUMAA LEH–BEH ELA FALOO BALA AYAA-FOO-. NTEH FANANG NGAA FOO.
(only first page given to Dembo)
Donkey 1985 Donkey Problem My donkey got lost. I searched and searched for it. I found it on Modou’s hand. He tied it on a [donkey] cart.
When I saw my donkey, always I recognised it, because I put a mark on the donkey. Then [I said]
salaam-maleikum, he said maleikum-salaam. I said this here is my donkey. He said no, this is not your donkey. We argued and argued until we went to the police. I told my story. He too told his story. The police asked: what mark, where is it on your donkey? He said [his] and I also said [mine]. The police asked both of us, your mark, where is it on your donkey? If it does not match, I will lock you up. The police said, go bring the donkey and let me observe that where
on the donkey I was described to see [the mark], is indeed what we see on it. The man
wanted to talk immediately. The police slapped him and put him in the cell. Therefore, everybody must recognize his property.
Dembo’s claim that his spelling is a more ‘correct’ way of writingMandinkathanBurama’s,isapeculiarlanguage ideologi-calappreciationofhisownandBurama’swritingthatis based moreonsocialthanontextualanalysis.Dembo’svaluejudgement oftheoriginalis notbasedonlinguistic,butonsociolinguistic analysis,ontherecognitionofBuramaasanon-formallyeducated writer.InspiteofDembo’sdisqualificationofBurama’swriting, however, Burama’s spelling remains relatively close to the ‘official’spellingemployedandprescribedinlanguagematerials preparedbytheGambiangovernmentandinternational (Chris-tian) NGOs concerned with (adult) literacy development in
Mandinka(FayeandSillah,1956;Sidibe,1979;WEC Internation-al, 2010 [undated]). If these standards are anything togo by, Burama’sspellingisindeed‘morecorrect’thanDembo’s.Butthe pointhereisthatthesestandardsarenotcommonly‘enregistered’ (i.e.,sociallyrecognisedandpracticallyacceptedasnorm,Agha, 2005;seealsoDong,2010),andthusnotknowntomostpeople, especially not to formally, English-only educated persons. Mandinkahas an‘official’ spellingonly in thesense that it is establishedbythecolonialandpostcolonialgovernmentsandby
NGOs,butthefactthatitisnotcommonlyknownorrecognisedas normmakesitofficialorstandardonlyintheory,notinpractice. Spelling Mandinka remains, for a large part, a creative and heterographicaffair.
Fig.2(a)showsareproductionofBurama’soriginalspellingof thedonkeystoryandFig.2(b)showsDembo’srespelling.Fragment 5(a)isatranscriptionoftheoriginalinFig.2(a)andFragment5(b)
corresponds withtherespelling in Fig. 2(b). The translation in
Fragment5(c)isbasedonthevarioustranslationsIreceived(first orally by Burama and Dembo, later in writing over e-mail by AlmamehandDembo)andcomplementedwithmyown compar-ativetextualanalysisandinterpretation.
5. Alinguisticcomparison
In comparing the two spelling systems as produced by BuramaandDembo,thereareanumberofgeneralremarkstobe made.First,thereareonlyninewordsthatarespelledthesame inthesetexts: faloo(twice),ngana,nko,ntata,saata,yaala,ela, ngaa.Second,wealsonoticeastrikingdifferencein capitalisa-tion.Burama’sversionusesloweranduppercaseletters inan unsystematic,somewhatmiscellaneousway(e.g.,NnaFAlooFılıTA) whileDembo’stextisentirelyincapitalletters(e.g.,NAA–FALOOFEE LEETAH).3Also,inBurama’sspellingthereisarathersparseuseof
punctuationmarking,whereasDembopunctuatesrather abun-dantly,withdashesontheword-levelanddotsandcommason thesentencelevel.Fourth,aninnovativefeaturethatisunique forDembo’sspellingistheuseofsuperscriptasspellingdevice. Thishappensforthedouble(geminated)ninnnata,theaspirated word-finalvowelsinseetehandteeh(twice)andthelengthened/ a:/vowelinarjeh,aryaa,arsutay,narandar-teh-koo.Finally,we alsonoticethatthewordboundariesareorganiseddifferentlyin eachversion.Excludingthetitle,andtreatinghyphensasword separators, the first page of Burama’s text has 83 words compared with 93 words (not including the five words that arestruckthrough)inDembo’sversion.Comparethefollowing sentencesmeaning‘he saidno,thisis notyourdonkey’: ateko hanıı.nyınmanke.elafalootı(sevenwords,Burama’sversion)and ar-the-koo hanee nying mang-keh ela faloo teeh (ten words, Dembo’sversion).
AccordingtotheMandinkalanguagematerialspreparedbythe AmericanPeaceCorps(Colley,1995b,1995a)andthemissionaries ofWECInternational(Lu¨ckand Henderson,1993; WEC
Interna-tional, 2002, 2010 [undated]), all consonants of the English alphabet areusedin theMandinkaalphabetexcept z, x, v, q and g andtherearetwospecialcharactersthatdonotoccurin English,namelyhEiforthevelarnasal/E/andhn˜ iwithatildeforthe palatalnasal/D/.Thesetwographemesareproposedinorderto adheretoathe‘phonemicprinciple’whichsupposesthat aone phoneme-one grapheme relation is ideal (see Lu¨pke, 2011). BuramaandDembohowever,departfromthisprincipleanduse other, double graphemes to represent these nasal consonants. Althoughtheirspellingsystemsdifferinmanyrespects,theyagree on representing/E/withhngi(e.g.,ngana,suute-rengovs.ngana, sutay-rango)and/D/withhnyi(nyini,nyinti,nyinvs.nyene,nying teeh,nying).In word-finalposition, Buramaalsouses
hnifor/E/ (e.g.,kabirin,dooron,nyinmanke).
The letter c is prescribed in the language materials as representingthe/tR/soundasintheverbkacaa‘tochat’,but in bothBurama’sandDembo’sspellingsystems, c isalsousedto represent /s/ (police, policolu, akoroce vs. polico). In Burama’s spelling we also find the loanword police with an s (poliso, polisolu).InDembo’sspellingitisconstantlywrittenwith c.In Dembo’s spelling we also find examples of post-aspirated consonants: kh (kha.tung) and th (ar-the-koo). Table 1 gives moredetailsandexamples.
ThevowelsinBurama’sandDembo’sspellingsystemspresent anevenmoreinterestingpointofcomparisonasthediversityof sound-lettercorrespondencesandthedivergenceofthephonemic principleisgreaterhere.The/i/soundforinstanceisrepresentedin threedifferentwaysinBurama’sspellingandinevenfourdifferent waysinDembo’sspelling.Phonologicallyonlytwodifferenttypes of/i/canbedistinguished,thelengthenedclosefrontunrounded vowel/i:/andthenear-closenear-frontunroundedvowel/ı/.The long/i:/isrepresentedby i (filita,nyini,kabirin), ii (hanii)and e (ela,ete)inBurama’ssystemandby ee (feeleeta), eeh (teeh)and
e (e la, nyene, kabering) in Dembo’s system. The short, more centralised/ı/isrepresentedinbothsystemswith i (kabirin,nyin vs.kabering,nying).
The/e/sound,whichiseitherrealisedaslengthenedclose-mid frontunroundedvowel(/e/)orasshortopen-midfrontunrounded vowel(/
e
/)inthephonologyofMandinka,hasthreerealisationsin eachspellingsystem.Thelong/e:/isrepresentedby e (suute,nte, je)orby ee (saree,jee)inBurama’sspellingandby eh (nteh,jeh) or ay (sutay)inDembo’sspelling.Theshort/e
/isrepresentedin Burama’s systemwith e (suute-rengo)and in Dembo’ssystem with a (sutay-rango).Theopen frontunrounded vowel/a/which mayhaveeither long(/a:/)orshort(/a/)vowelqualityisrepresentedintwowaysin Burama’sspellingandinasmanyasfourdifferentwaysinDembo’s spelling system. Burama uses a for the unlengthened variant (faloo,filita,bala)and aa forthelengthenedvariant(ayaa,ngaa). Dembo alsouses aa for thelengthened /a:/sound(aryaa, naa, jumaa),butthreedifferentgraphemesfortheshort/a/: a (faloo),
ah (feeleetah)and ar (arjeh,arsutay).
Theclosebackroundedvowel/u/andthemidbackrounded vowel /o/ present less variety in both spelling systems. Both BuramaandDembouse o and u fortheshortvariants/&/and/ I/ and oo and uu for thelengthenedvariants /o:/and /u:/. However, they do not always agree onwhether a vowel in a word should bea longor shortone (e.g., comparedooronand bulu in Burama’s spelling with dorong and buluu in Dembo’s spelling).
Table1summarisesthelinguisticcomparisonofBurama’sand Dembo’sspellingsystemsinamoresystematicanddetailedway andgivesadditionalcontrastiveexamples.Inthenextsection,this comparisonisinterpretedsociolinguistically.
Changesinmeaningasaresultoftherespellingarenoticedin only one or two occasions. The most striking difference in
3
meaningisthemisinterpretationofkarinneinline46asaperson’s name with a verb form (Karim koo‘Karim says’) insteadof a spellingof kabiring ‘when,since’withthe secondsyllable -bi-omitted.Subsequentlyinline47,theverbalformako‘hesays’is changedintonko‘Isay’tocoverupfortheprevious misunder-standingofka-bi-rinne.Thus,therespellingreadskarinnesalama lekun,akomalekunsalamu‘then[Isaid]salaam-aleikum,hesaid maleikum-salaam’,whereastheoriginalreadskarimkoo salamu-alay-kum, nko malay-kum-salam‘Karim saidsalaam-aleikum, I saidmaleikum-salaam’.Ontheotherhand,certainambiguitiesin Burama’sspellingarealsoclarifiedinDembo’sspelling.Thevisual imageofthewordnguuornyuuinthesequencenganguu/nyuu sabansanbanginline50suggeststhatthesecondletterofthis wordisa g,whichdoesnotleadtoadictionaryentry.Thisis
easily detected by Dembo as an awkward spelling of y and respelledasnganyongsabangsaabang,whichisrecoverableinthe dictionary (Colley, 1995a) as n˜oosaba meaning ‘to fight, pull, compete,argue’.
6. SpellingMandinkainthepresenceofEnglish
Themost strikingdifference perhapsbetween Burama’sand Dembo’s spelling is the difference in degree of English ortho-graphic influence on their spelling systems. Both Burama and Dembo spell in relative ‘freedom’ (Fabian, 1992), not being hinderedbystrictlyregimentedrulesgoverninghowtheyshould spell. Eventhough orthographiesfor Mandinkaand other local languages have been developed, their use is not promoted or
Table1
enforcedin formaleducation,and notpracticallyenregistered.4 BuramaandDembobothliveinanenvironmentthatispoorin termsofaccesstoandsupportforliteracyproductioninMandinka, orindeedanyotherlocallanguage.Asaresult,spellinginlocal languagesremainsanaffairofcreativityratherthanconvention (Kress, 2000). In other words, spellers are left in a normative vacuum, leaving them to spell without orthography. As Jaffe (2000:506) observes, ‘it is not only important for [minority languages]to‘‘have’’anorthographybutitisalsocriticalforthat orthographytohaveprescriptivepower–tobestandardisedand authoritative[i.e.,tobeenregistered],like theorthographiesof dominantlanguages’.
BothBuramaandDemboaresurroundedbyandexposedtoa fairamountofwrittenEnglishintheirprivateandpubliclives(e.g., throughtheirchildren’seducation,inthelinguisticlandscape,on television,innewspapers).AndEnglish,asweknow,isalanguage witha very strictorthographicregime, withvery clearideasof whatisrightandwhatiswrong.Whatwewitnesshereisthatthe normativevacuumforwritinginMandinkais filledwithnorms thatareavailableforwritinginEnglish,especiallyinthecaseof Dembo’srespelling.Wealsowitnessthatwritingnotreflectingthis English orthographic influence very much is qualified as ‘bad Mandinka’,aswritingwithanaccent,asaproductthatindexesa socialidentityofbeinguneducated.Non-formaleducationhereis disqualifiedasnotbeingeducationatall,bothbymytranslatorsas wellasbyBuramahimself(seeFragment1,line8).
The difference between Burama and Dembo lies in their different ‘learning histories’, their educational biographies, and theirdifferentlyvaluedroutestoliteracy.Buramahaslearnedto writeinMandinkainadulteducationandDembohaslearnedto writeinEnglishinprimaryandsecondaryschool.Buramahasnot receivedanyformaleducationandhasthusnotlearnedtowrite conventionalEnglish.Asaneducatedman,Demboneverattended adultliteracyclassesandthusdidnotlearntowrite‘conventional’ Mandinka. As a result of these different personal histories of learning, Burama’s spelling reflects a mild influence of English spellingruleswhile Dembo’sspellingdrawsextensively,almost exclusively,ontypicallyEnglishsound-lettercorrespondences.
Where Buramawritesnnafaloofilita‘mydonkeygot lost’in three words with careful detail for the geminated /n:/ in the possessivepronounnna(‘my’)andpresentstheverbal construc-tionfilita(verbstemfili-,pastaspectsuffix-ta)inasingleword,this isrespelledasnaafaloofeeleetahwithoutdoublingthe n ofnna/ naabutreinterpretingthevowelhereasalongvowel(aa instead of a)andrespellingfilitawithoutapparentmorphologicalreason inthreewordsasfeeleetah.Moreover,thetwo/i/soundsinfilita areinDembo’sversiongraphicallyrepresentedwith ee,feelee tah.Thesamereplacementofthe/i/= i ruleinto/i/= e isapplied inrespellingnyiniasnyene,andinchangingkabirinintokabering. Another changed sound-letter correspondence rule adopted in Dembo’sspellingistheintroductionoftwographicsigns, ay and eh,fortherepresentationof/e/.Inbothcasesitisclearwhere Dembo’sinspirationfor these‘innovations’ comesfrom,English orthography.5
4AlthoughthediscussioninthispaperappliestothesituationofTheGambiain
‘Anglographic’(ratherthanAnglophone)WestAfrica,itmaybepresumedthata comparablesituationexistswithregardtomandingueandFrenchinneighbouring countriessuchasSenegal,MaliandGuinea.However,thesituationthereisfurther complicated,especiallyinGuinea,bythepracticeofliteracyintheN’koscript (Wyrod,2008).
5Itshouldbenotedherethat eh is,strictlyspeaking,notagraphemeinEnglish
Buramaspellsthewayhedoes,primarilybecausehehaslearnt howletter-combinations‘sound’,whereasDembospellstheway hedoes,primarilybecausehehaslearnthowsound-combinations ‘look’(cf.Kress, 2000). TheimprovementsDembodeems neces-sary, are ironically not informed by his own experience with readingandwritingMandinka,butaredrawnfromhisknowledge ofEnglishliteracyconventions.DemborewritesBurama’stextsthe wayhedoes,notbecauseheknowstheconventionsofMandinka literacy,butbecauseheknowstheconventionsofEnglishliteracy. In theprocessof respelling the text,Demboinvents an ad hoc spellingforMandinkathatisfarfroma‘morecorrect’or‘better’ spelling.
The linguistic resources used for writing Mandinka in The Gambia are located outside a self-referent tradition, located insteadin the tradition of another language, English. Thisalso appliestoBurama’sspelling,witnesshisoccasionaluseof e for/i/ (ela,ete),hisneglectofthespecialMandinkacharacters E and n˜ andtheoccasionaluseof c for/s/(polico,akoroce).Hereinlaysa powerfulinequalitythatisinherenttosmalllanguages.Duetothe much more conspicuous visual presence of English in various domainsinGambiansociety,andtheabsenceofformaleducation inMandinkainparticular,ordinarypersonsspellinginMandinka oftenresorttoborrowingelementsofotherspellingsystemsthat aremorereadilyavailabletothem,i.e.,theconventionsofwritten English.
This inequality is only indirectly related to the social and economicconditionsofaliteracycommunity.Itisinherentinthe verynatureofsmalllanguages,andithastodowithwhatSpolsky (2009) calls the ‘state of literacy’, i.e., the infrastructure of linguistic,semiotic or symbolicresources there are for writing in ‘a language’ (e.g., a tradition of written text production, circulation and ‘consumption’, the currency of grammars and lexicons,acommonlyrecognisedstandardorthography).Thisisan inequalitythathastodowiththeverysizeofthelanguage.
Despite theinequality thatisinherenttothemediumofhis literacy(roman-scriptMandinka)and despitethenon-standard, heterographic,grassrootscharacterofhisliteracy(whichisdueto thatinequality)anddespitethereportednegativecommentsby higher-literatepersons,Burama’stextsarebynomeansdefunctin meaningorinthepersonalandprofessionalcontextsinwhichhe producedthem.Thisliteracy,inhisownwords,has(had)great benefittohimandhisfamily(seeFragment4).Ithasgivenhiman interestingjobwithacertainamountof(trans)nationalmobility, andhasindirectlyenabledhimtofeedhischildrenandpayfor theireducation.Asisobviousfromtheseriesoftextspresentedin section3above (inparticularFragments 4and 5), Buramais a proudandcontentman,notdespitehisliteracy,butingreatpart, becauseofhisliteracy.
The implications of this small-scale ethnographic case of Mandinkaspellingpracticesforpostcoloniallanguagepolicyand educationaldevelopmentshouldnotbeoverestimated.Ifthereis anything,however,thatthis casedoesnotcallfor,thenitisfor standardisingMandinkaspellingpracticesfromabove,orforthe developmentandrecognitionofoneorthography,i.e.,onesingle setofnormsforhowtowriteright.Inheterographicsituationssuch as we witness here, there is not one, but several prescriptive regimesonhowtowrite.Intheabsenceofasinglesetofnorms, individualandsituationalvariationlikeinspokenlanguageisnot abnormal, but normal. It is only abnormalised in evaluative encounters such as the ones described above. In view of the creativityingrassrootsspellingpracticesandthevaluethisliteracy hasinthe lifeof someone likeBurama, heterography does not appeartobeanexclusivelybadthing.IfMandinkaspellingisto standardise, then it would probably be most effective if it standardisesfrombelow.Standardisationin this contextwould best beleft for people like Burama and Dembo to sort out in
practice,inproducingthetextstheyproduce.Effortstoimposea particularspellingsystemongrassrootsspellerswouldprobably create more inequalities than it would empower spellers like Buramathatarealreadysubjectedtonegativepeer-evaluation.
Onelessondesignersofadultliteracycampaignsmaywantto drawfromthis study,is thatwe needtobecomeawareof the potential for further disadvantaging adult literacy learners by proposingspellingconventionsthatdeparttoomuchfromalready existing spelling regimes. African local languages exist in a multilingualecologyandincontactwithpowerfullanguagessuch asEnglish,French,PortugueseandArabic(seealsoStroud,2003). Although these languages may provide awkward models for writinginlocallanguages,theydoprovidereadilyavailablesetsof rules that serve as actual resources for writing, and should thereforenotbeignoredinprogrammesofliteracyandeducational development.
Spellinginthelocallanguage,toconclude,isneverjustspelling in thelocallanguage, but is spellingin a complexmultilingual ecology in which the postcolonial, world language assumes a powerful position. Spelling Mandinka in peri-urban Gambia is alwaysspellinginthepresenceofEnglish.
References
Agar,M.,1995.Ethnography.In:Verschueren,J., O¨ stman,J.-O., Blommaert,J. (Eds.),HandbookofPragmatics.JohnBenjamins,Amsterdam, pp.583–590. Agha,A.,2005.Voice,footing,enregisterment.JournalofLinguisticAnthropology15
(1),38–59.
Basso,K.H,1974.Theethnographyofwriting.In:Bauman,R.,Sherzer,J.(Eds.), Ex-plorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.425–432.
Baynham,M.,2004.Ethnographiesofliteracy:introduction.Languageand Educa-tion18(4),285–290.
Blommaert,J.,2001.TheAsmaraDeclarationasasociolinguisticproblem: reflec-tionsonscholarshipandlinguisticrights.JournalofSociolinguistics5(1),131– 142.
Blommaert,J.,2007.Sociolinguisticscales.InterculturalPragmatics4(1),1–19. Blommaert,J.,2008.GrassrootsLiteracy:Writing,IdentityandVoiceinCentral
Africa.Routledge,London.
Brandt,D.,1997.Thesponsorsofliteracy.CollegeCompositionandCommunication 49(2),165–185.
Brock-Utne,B.,Skattum,I.,2009.LanguagesandEducationinAfrica:AComparative andTransdisciplinaryAnalysis.SymposiumBooks,Oxford.
Bunyi,G.,1999.RethinkingtheplaceofAfricanindigenouslanguagesinAfrican education.InternationalJournalofEducationalDevelopment19(4–5),337– 350.
Clastres,P.,1998[1972].In:Auster,P.(Ed.),ChronicleoftheGuayakiIndians.Zone Books,NewYork.
Clifford,J.,1997.Routes:TravelandTranslationintheLateTwentiethCentury. HarvardUniversityPress,Cambridge.
Colley,E.S.Y.,1995a.Mandinka-EnglishDictionary.PeaceCorpsTheGambia,Banjul. Colley,E.S.Y.,1995b.MandinkaGrammarManual.PeaceCorpsTheGambia,Banjul. deSwaan,A.,2001.WordsoftheWorld:TheGlobalLanguageSystem.Polity,
Cambridge.
Dong,J.,2010.TheenregistermentofPutonghuainpractice.Language& Commu-nication30(4),265–275.
DoSE,2004. Education Policy 2004–2015.Department of Statefor Education, Banjul.
Ethnologue,2009.In:Lewis,M.P.(Ed.),Ethnologue:LanguagesoftheWorld,16th edition.SILInternational,onlineversion:www.ethnologue.com,Dallas. Fabian, J., 1990. History from Below: The ‘Vocabulary of Elisabethville’ by
Andre´ Yav:Text,TranslationsandInterpretiveEssay.JohnBenjamins, Amster-dam.
Fabian,J.,1992.Keeplistening:ethnographyandreading.In:Boyarin,J.(Ed.),The EthnographyofReading.UniversityofCaliforniaPress,Berkeley, pp.80–97. Fabian,J.,2001.AnthropologywithanAttitude:CriticalEssays.StanfordUniversity
Press,Stanford.
Faye,J.C.,Sillah,M.A.,1956.TheOrthographyofGambianLanguages:Mandinkaand Wolof.GovernmentPrinter,Bathurst.
Geertz,C.,1973.Thickdescription:towardaninterpretivetheoryofculture.In:The InterpretationofCultures:SelectedEssays,BasicBooks,NewYork,pp.3–30. Geertz,C.,1998.Deephangingout.TheNewYorkReviewofBooks45(16),22
October.
Hymes,D.H.,1967.Modelsoftheinteractionoflanguageandsocialsetting.Journal ofSocialIssues2,8–28.
Jaffe,A.,2000.Introduction:non-standardorthographyandnon-standardspeech. JournalofSociolinguistics4(4),497–513.
Jørgensen,J.N., 2008. Polylingual languagingaroundandamong childrenand adolescents.InternationalJournalofMultilingualism5(3),161–176. Juffermans,K.,2009.Howtowriteifyoucannotwrite:collaborativeliteracyina
Gambianvillage.In:vandeCraats,I.,Kurvers,J.(Eds.),Low-EducatedAdult SecondLanguageandLiteracyAcquisition.LOTNetherlandsGraduateSchoolof Linguistics,Utrecht, pp.223–234.
Juffermans,K.,2010.LocalLanguaging:LiteracyProductsandPracticesinGambian Society,LanguageandCultureStudies.TilburgUniversity.
Juffermans,K.,McGlynn,C.,2009.AsociolinguisticprofileofTheGambia. Sociolin-guisticStudies3(3),129–155.
Kress,G.,2000.Early Spelling:BetweenConvention andCreativity.Routledge, London.
Kroon,S.,Sturm,J.,2000.Comparativecasestudyresearchineducation: methodo-logicalissuesinanempirical-interpretiveperspective.Zeitschriftfu¨r Erzie-hungswissenschaft3(4),559–576.
Lillis,T.,2008.Ethnographyasmethod,methodology,and‘deeptheorizing’:closing thegap betweentext andcontext in academicwriting research.Written Communication25(3),353–388.
Lu¨ck,M.,Henderson,L.,1993.GambianMandinka:LearningManualfor English-Speakers.WECInternational,Banjul.
Lu¨pke,F.,2011.Orthographydevelopment.In:Austin,P.,Sallabank,J.(Eds.),The CambridgeHandbookofEndangeredLanguages.CambridgeUniversityPress, Cambridge.
Mbodj-Pouye,A.,2008.Pageschoisies:Ethnographieducahierpersonneld’un agriculteurmalien.SociologieetSocie´te´s40(2),87–108.
Mbodj-Pouye,A.,2009.Teniruncahierdanslare´gioncotonnie`reduMali.Support d’e´critureetrapporta` soi.Annales.Histoire,Sciencessociales64(4),855–886. McGlynn,C.,Martin,P.,2009.‘Novernacular’:tensionsinlanguagechoiceina sexualhealthlessoninTheGambia.InternationalJournalofBilingualEducation andBilingualism12(2),137–155.
Phillipson,R.,1992.LinguisticImperialism.OxfordUniversityPress,Oxford. Rampton,B.,2000.Speechcommunity,WorkingPapersinUrbanLanguageand
Literacies,London.
Rogers,A.,2004.Lookingagainatnon-formalandinformaleducation:towardsa newparadigm,TheEncyclopaediaofInformalEducation.www.infed.org, Lon-don.
Sarangi,S.,2007.Editorial:Theanatomyofinterpretation:comingtotermswiththe analyst’sparadoxinprofessionaldiscoursestudies.Text&Talk27(5–6),567– 584.
Sebba,M.,2000.Orthographyandideology:issuesinSrananspelling.Linguistics38 (5),925–948.
Sebba,M.,2009.Sociolinguisticapproachestowritingsystemsresearch.Writing SystemsResearch1(1),35–49.
Sidibe,B.K.,1979.ANewOrthographyofGambianMandinka.NationalLiteracy AdvisoryCommittee,Banjul.
Skutnabb-Kangas,T.,Phillipson,R.,Kontra,M.,2001.Reflectionsonscholarshipand linguisticrights:arejoindertoJanBlommaert.JournalofSociolinguistics5(1), 143–154.
Spolsky,B.,2009.Prolegomenatoasociolinguistictheoryofpublicsignage.In: Shohamy,E.,Gorter,D.(Eds.),LinguisticLandscape:ExpandingtheScenery. Routledge,London, pp.25–39.
Street,B.V.,2000.Literacyeventsandliteracypractices:theoryandpracticeinnew literacystudies.In:Martin-Jones,M.,Jones,K.E.(Eds.),MultilingualLiteracies: ReadingandWritinginDifferentWorlds.JohnBenjamins,Amsterdam,pp.17– 29.
Stroud,C.,2003.Postmodernistperspectivesonlocallanguages:African mother-tongueeducationintimesofglobalisation.InternationalJournalofBilingual EducationandBilingualism6(1),17–36.
Szwed,J.F.,1981.Theethnographyofliteracy.In:FarrWhiteman,M.(Ed.),Writing: TheNature,Development,andTeachingofWrittenCommunication,vol.1: VariationinWriting:FunctionalandLinguistics-CulturalDifferences.Lawrence Erlbaum,Hillsdale, pp.13–23.
VanCamp,K.,Juffermans,K.,2010.Postcolonialideologiesoflanguageineducation: voicesfrombelowonEnglishandlocallanguage(s)inTheGambia.In:Cuvelier, P.,duPlessis,T.,Meeuwis,M.,Vandekerckhove,R.,Webb,V.(Eds.), Multilin-gualismfromBelow.VanSchaik,Pretoria.
International,W.E.C.,2002.MandinkaLearningManual:ShortVersion.WEC Inter-national,Banjul.
WECInternational,2010[undated].HowtowriteMandinka:InstructionsforThose Whoare Usedto Writein English.WECInternational,MandinkaLiteracy Department,www.mandinka.org,Banjul.
Williams,E.,2006.BridgesandBarriers:LanguageinAfricanEducationand Devel-opment.StJerome,Manchester.
Wogan,P.,2004.Deephangingout:reflectionsonfieldworkandmultisitedAndean ethnography.Identities:GlobalStudiesinCultureandPower11,129–139. Wyrod,C.,2008.Asocialorthographyofidentity:theN’koliteracymovementin
