Although French was imposed as the country’s only official language shortly after independence in 1960, there are more than 21 national languages. Wolof is the most widely spoken language, which is spoken in all the country’s communes. In Senegal, young people look up to role models other than the European-educated intellectuals. And yet this same youth is the vehicle for the vitality of a language, in its creativity, its recreation and its slang. The sociological changes that took place with the arrival in the early 1990s of private radio stations such as SUD FM, gave Wolof the status of a news language with the Wolof-language newspaper “Xibaar Yi”. French used to be the exclusive language of journalism. Animators were recruited from Dakar neighbourhoods, Arabic-speaking religious columnists gained prominence and political debates started to happen in Wolof – this sealed the fate of the French language. The media have contributed greatly to the valorisation of Wolof.
SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION