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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Most Obedient Servants: The Politics of Language in German Colonial Togo
Author:Lawrance, Benjamin N.ISNI
Year:2000
Periodical:Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:40
Issue:159
Pages:489-524
Language:English
Geographic terms:German Togoland
Germany
Subjects:colonization
language policy
Ewe language
colonialism
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.27
Abstract:Educational policy was an integral component of Christian missionary activity in the Volta Basin and remained central to the German administration's Germanization of Togo. Differences arose, however, as to the choice of language for instruction. The three main languages that were taught were German, English and Ewe. In order to explain the language policy of the colonial authorities, the author uses the concept of linguistic colonialism (Johannes Fabian, 1986). In 1904 German administrators decided to eliminate English instruction in mission and State schools, and to this end pressed church leaders to ensure the spread of German language, customs and economic practices. But English remained more popular among African students and it reapidly spread as the preferred medium of communication. The struggle between German and English led colonial officials to become complacent about the role and spread of the Ewe language. Ewe in a standardized form was seen by missionnaries as a useful device to spread Christianity, and later on it was considered useful by the German administration, especially as the failure of German instruction became apparent. This resulted in a high proportion of Togolese, also non-Ewe people, learning to speak, read and write the new formalized Ewe language. In retrospect, the period 1900-1914 has been crucial for the birth of a Ewe national consciousness and the later Ewe hegemony in proto-nationalist movements. The irony of the German educational policy was that the language considered least threatening by colonials, performed an integral role in nationbuilding. App., bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
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