Language in African Urban Contexts

This volume contains the results of the Bayreuth SFB research program ''Effects of globalization processes on the vitality of languages in West African cities". Two towns with different historical and colonial background, Maiduguri in Nigeria and Banfora in Burkina Faso, have been selected as research areas.
The contrast between language and social institutions is most obvious in the colonial and post-colonial world in Africa. Colonization was characterized by the importation of European institutions which were of a qualitatively new nature linked to the globalizing forces. To characterize this qualitative newness we used the term ''direct globalization".
A basic observation is that the globalizing forces led to a hierarchicalization of languages in Africa which is not obviously attested in the institutions of direct globalization. We introduced the term ''indirect globalization" to describe the alignment of local practices to the external forces and institutions introduced during a globalizing colonial and post-colonial experience.