The Legacy of Colonial Language Politics in the Actual Linguistic Situation of the Western Sahara

• Thematic framework: Endangered Languages/Politics of language
• Geographical outreach: International
• Types of project: Research and Analysis
  
  
• Beneficiary countries:
  - West Sahara
  - France
  - Marroco
  - Spain
  
  
• Main responsible:
  Laura Morgenthaler Garcia
  Faculty of Language Sciences
  University of Bremen
  Bremen
  Germany

Summary of the activities
The goal of this project is to investigate the differences between the colonial language politics of France and Spain in the Western Sahara according to the following issues:

a) The historical and actual consequences for the West Saharian and nomad populations and the disappearance of their linguistics habits and languages.

b) The actual expansion/deterioration of Spanish and French in the region.
The sociolinguistic situation of the nomad and the West Saharian people has received very little attention in political language and sociolinguistic studies (mostly because of the difficult political situation in the refugee camps). In order to understand the actual linguistic situation in this part of Africa, it is necessary to get a very clear picture of the colonial time – through archive work and historical research. In addition, it is
important to get an insight into the attitudes of the West Saharian and nomad populations towards their own languages and the colonial languages – through the collection, transcription and analysis of oral data.

Main partners
- University of Bremen
- École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales