Legacy of a Linguistic Crisis in Sunu Gaal

This book explores the different types of language education policies during French colonialism in Senegal in the early 19th century. Until recently, there was no current available research in Senegal that exhumes France’s legacy of colonial language education policies and their lasting impacts on the current Senegalese education system. This book begins with a brief theoretical framework of Senegal’s history and discusses the country’s geography, economy, population and religious composition. It then analyzes France’s overall educational plan for Africa and the early resistance this “plan of education” encountered in West Africa particularly in Senegal. It discusses the major language policies undertaken by presidents Leopold Sedar Senghor, Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade, and demonstrates how some of these leaders failed to achieve a complete linguistic decolonization in Senegal after independence. It lastly provides Senegal with a series of solutions on how to emerge from the legacy of this linguistic crisis to a complete linguistic decolonization.