Paper short abstract:

This paper develops the concept of 'language demotion' in opposition to 'language promotion' as contribution to linguistic ecology of urban Africa. The focus is the relationship between African lingua francas and minority languages.

Paper long abstract:

This paper suggests a usage-based approach to understanding the linguistic ecology of urban Africa under the lens of the relationship between African lingua francas and minority languages. The approach is based on the fact that natural languages are like social objects in motion, which can be formally or informally and/or socially subjected to promotion or demotion. The study is based on the situation in Maroua, a multilingual city in Northern Cameroon. There, the spread of Fula as lingua franca has caused linguistic demotion of minority languages which are pushed down to restricted social functions. On the basis of data collected via ethnographic observations and questionnaire, we demonstrate the linguistic promotion of Fula boosted by its function as medium of inter-ethnic communication in work place, reduces the linguistic domains of minority languages that are subjected to demotion due to language shift experienced by the younger generation. Thus, we argue that the pathetic ecolinguistic discourse on linguistic diversity and language endangerment is empirically nothing else than pure ideology. In place of the concept of 'endangered language', we suggest the terms 'language in demotion' or 'demoted language' borrowed from the economy of human resources to respectively describe the situation of languages which are losing or have partially or totally lost the main domains of usage (family, education, work place, religious, social network etc) to the advantage of socio-economically and/or institutionally promoted languages.