Togo

Abstract

This chapter presents French as it is spoken in Togo. Taking the form of a survey, we first attempt to situate the French language within the Togolese sociolinguistic space. We recall the endogenous (indigenous)-exogenous characterization of the various languages, their geographical spread, and social distribution. We highlight the fact that the French language is an exogenous language; and that it is placed within a rich linguistic ecology. Consequently, functionally, it participates in a multidimensional multilingual arrangement. In this arrangement, two major endogenous languages, Ewe and Kabiye, due to the rather turbulent linguistic history of the country, play major stratal vehicular roles. This has influences not only on the language ideology and policies of the country but also on the linguistic features of the most ubiquitous exogenous language, French. The linguistic influences are observable on all levels of linguistic analysis, with a seeming ongoing process of nativization. The suggestion then is that this should be the right time for full-scale projects to document the grammar of this nativized variety.