Multilingualism is not a barrier to African economic development; bad economic policies are.

Since the dawn of Independence in the early1960s, African leaders have been advised, especially by economists, but also by some linguists that the multitude of languages is expensive and an obstacle to economic development. They have not realized that the current stratification of the languages with European languages at the apex and indigenous languages at the bottom for the ladder perpetuates the colonial socioeconomic structure of subordination and exploitation. Indigenous rulers are the new colonizers from within invested more in self-enrichment and the economic development of the Global North. They use the European languages both to marginalize those who do not speak them and exploit those who produce raw materials that the Global North has always coveted since the rise of the Industrial Revolution. The illusion to develop Africa in the model of its European former metropoles has engendered a socioeconomic class system in which the overwhelming majority of disenfranchised is getting increasingly dispossessed and poorer. While this regime of languages has worked well for the under-development of Africa, reversing it to where the current official languages are stipulated as foreign languages for the few who need them can help empower indigenous languages economically and politically, provided political corruption is eradicated and development plans become inclusive and altruistic.

Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in the Dept. of Linguistics; the Dept. of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity; and the College at the University of Chicago. His research area is evolutionary linguistics, focused on the phylogenetic emergence of languages and language speciation, and on language vitality. He has authored and (co-)edited dozens of books and has published hundreds of articles, book chapters, and book reviews. He is a fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, of the American Philosophical Society, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He assumed the Chaire Mondes francophones at the Clollège de France for the 2023-24 academic year.