Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Contents:-Introduction : frontiers and boundaries, African languages as political environment / Richard Fardon and Graham Furniss -- Pride and prejudice in multilingualism and development / Ayo Bamgbose -- Official and unofficial attitudes and policy towards Krio as the main lingua franca in Sierra Leone / C. Magbaily Fyle -- The politics of language in Bénin / Mamoud A. Igué and Raphael W. N'Ouéni -- Minority language development in Nigeria : a situation report on Rivers and Bendel States / Ben O. Elugbe -- Using existing structures : three phases of mother tongue literacy among Chumburung speakers of Ghana / Gillian F. Hansford -- The language situation and language use in Mozambique / J.M.M. Katupha -- Language and the struggle for racial equality in the development of a non-racial Southern African nation / Jean Benjamin -- Dismantling the Tower of Babel : in search of a new language policy for a post-apartheid South Africa / Nhlanhla P. Maake -- Healthy production and reproduction : agricultural, medical and linguistic pluralism in a Bwisha community, eastern Zaire / James Fairhead -- Minority language, ethnicity and the state in two African situations : the Nkoya of Zambia and the Kalanga of Botswana / Wim van Binsbergen -- Loanwords in Oromo and Rendille as a mirror of past inter-ethnic relations / Günther Schlee -- The metaphors of development and modernization in Tanzanian language policy and research / Jan Blommaert -- Language, government and the play on purity and impurity : Arabic, Swahili and the vernaculars in Kenya / David Parkin.