The aim of this paper is to raise awareness on issues relating to the specific role currently played or which could be played by languages in the process of constructing, preserving and reinforcing peace in Africa. The study addresses this crucial issue, which requires collaborative and interdisciplinary research, pertaining to the different spots of tension and conflict which are spreading all over northern Africa and sub-Saharan African countries. The focus on the Cameroon experience is an attempt to stimulate global research on the issue.

In the following pages, we wish to show through the Cameroonian experience and that of some other African countries how a non-exclusive linguistic policy could help to avoid conflicts in spite of the prevailing African linguistic and cultural diversity. Here, we are not talking of armed conflicts, but of frustrations which could justify the initiation of an armed uprising. We shall thus briefly present and describe the multilingual context of Africa and Cameroon before proceeding to the history of language policy models discussed and then developed and implemented in Cameroon 30 years ago by researchers and scholars, and which are still in use today. This discussion will help us to establish the parameters for the management of languages as a guarantor of peace and as a conflict avoidance tool in multilingual contexts.

The multilingual context of Cameroon and the potential sources of conflicts

Multilingualism in Cameroon

The multilingual nature of Cameroon is characterised, on the one hand, by the presence of two official languages, English and French, languages inherited from colonial education at the beginning of the last century. These languages were respectively established in the Western and Eastern parts of Cameroon by the colonial and the post-colonial administrations as the languages of administration, communication and education. On the other hand, 239 living local languages are identified in Cameroon, according to the latest estimates of the authors of the Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun revised version (Ndongo Semengue & Sadembouo [forthcoming]).