Language in Sudan: From Multilingualism to Monolingualism

• Autores: Abdelrahim Hamid Mugaddam
• Localización: The handbook of multilingualism, identity, and language endangerment in Africa / coord. por Alireza Korangy, Evgeniya Gutova, 2025, ISBN 9789819647293, págs. 345-364
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The republic of the Sudan has long been a country of unique linguistic and cultural diversity. Over 42 million people speaking more than 80 languages with their accompanying cultures coexist in the country. The languages of the Sudan belong to three of the African languages families, namely, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo Saharan, and Niger Kordofanian. These languages are distributed geographically in such a way that covers the different parts of the country: Northern Sudan, Eastern Sudan, The Blue Nile, The Nuba Mountains, and Darfur. While Arabic dominates all domains of communication playing the role of the only lingua franca in the Sudan, other Sudanese languages are used only within the home domain and/or between speakers of the same language in intergroup interaction. The hegemony of Arabic has been reinforced by the language policies adopted by the successive governments in the Sudan right from independence up to the ousted authoritative regime of Omar Al-Bashir. All language policies in the country stipulated Arabic as an official language while the remainder Sudanese languages have been granted a symbolic status as national languages with no viable role in context such as education, administration, and the media. As a result, language-related problems were at the very center of the armed conflicts in different parts of the Sudan. This chapter is going to give a comprehensive description of the present status and use of Sudanese languages and their implications to the future of multilingualism in the Sudan.