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Languages Of Benin
Benin is a diverse country linguistically. Of those, French is the official language, and most of the indigenous languages are considered national languages. Benin is a Francophone country, and in 2023, French was spoken by 4.6 million people out of 13.7 million (33.68%). Of the Beninese languages, Fon (a Gbe language) and Yoruba are the most important in the south of the country. In the north there are half a dozen regionally important languages, including Bariba (a Gur language) and Fulfulde. Education for the deaf in Benin uses American Sign Language, introduced by the deaf American missionary Andrew Foster. The multilingual character of Beninese society is characterized by the number of languages spoken, ethno-linguistic diversity, stratification of language use (whereby French is used officially and other languages used in other spheres of activity), and by the fact that many Beninese are polyglots. French The sole official language of Benin is French, according to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marche Ouando Porto-novo
Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the north, Tuscany to the west, Umbria to the southwest, Abruzzo and Lazio to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the east. Except for river valleys and the often very narrow coastal strip, the land is hilly. A railway from Bologna to Brindisi, built in the 19th century, runs along the coast of the entire territory. Inland, the mountainous nature of the region, even today, allows relatively little travel north and south, except by twisting roads over the passes. Urbino, one of the major cities of the region, was the birthplace of Raphael, as well as a major centre of Renaissance history. Toponymy The name of the region derives from the plural of the medieval word ''marca'', meaning "march" or "mark" in the sense of border zone, originally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitution Of Benin
The Constitution of Benin was adopted by referendum on 23 December 1956. The constitution is made up of a preamble, twelve titles, and 160 articles. Preamble (Preamble text comes from thEnglish translationof the Beninese Constitution via the Constitution Project Dahomey, proclaimed a Republic on December 4, 1958, acceded to international sovereignty August 1, 1960. Having become the People's Republic of Bénin on November 30, 1975, and then the Republic of Bénin on March 1, 1990, it has known a turbulent constitutional and political evolution since its accession to independence. Only the option in favor of the Republic has remained permanent. The successive changes of political regimes and of governments have not blunted the determination of the Béninese people to search for, in their own spirit, the cultural, philosophical and spiritual values of civilization which sustain the forms of their patriotism. Thus, the National Conference of Active Forces of the Nation, held in Coto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Multilingualism is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is usually acquired without formal education, by mechanisms about which scholars disagree. Children acquiring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Foster (educator)
Andrew Jackson Foster (1925–1987) was an American pioneer of deaf education in several countries in Africa. In 1969, he became the first Deaf African American to earn a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet University, the American university for the Deaf, and the first to earn a master's degree from Eastern Michigan University. He earned a second master's degree from Seattle Pacific Christian College (now Seattle Pacific University), also in education. He founded Christian Mission for the Deaf African in 1956 and set out for Accra, Ghana, where he established the first school for the deaf in West Africa. Early life and education Andrew Foster was born on June 27, 1925, in the small mining town of Ensley, Alabama. In 1936, when Andrew was about 11 years old, both he and his brother contracted spinal meningitis and subsequently became deaf. Following this, Foster was sent to the Alabama School for Colored Deaf in Talladega, where he received up to a sixth grade education. This was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutinative morphology. ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in West Hartford, Connecticut, from a situation of language contact. Since then, ASL use has been propagated widely by schools for the deaf and Deaf commu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gur Language
The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Ivory Coast, the northern halves of Ghana and Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger. A few Gur languages are spoken in Nigeria. Additionally, a single Gur language, Baatonum, is spoken in Benin and in the extreme northwest of Nigeria. Three other single Gur languages, the Tusya, Vyemo and Tiefo languages, are spoken in Burkina Faso. Another unclassified Gur language, Miyobe, is spoken in Benin and Togo. In addition, Kulango, Loma and Lorhon, are spoken in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. Additionally, a few Mossi speakers are in Senegal, and speakers of the Dagaare language are also found in Cameroon. The Samu languages of Burkina Faso are Gur languages. Typological features Like most Niger–Congo languages, the ances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gbe Language
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe (10.3 million speakers in Ghana and Togo), followed by Fon (5 million, mainly in Benin). The Gbe languages were traditionally placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages, but more recently have been classified as Volta–Niger languages. They include five major dialect clusters: Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen (Mina), and Phla–Pherá. Most of the Gbe peoples came from the east to their present dwelling-places in several migrations between the tenth and the fifteenth century. Some of the Phla–Pherá peoples however are thought to be the original inhabitants of the area who have intermingled with the Gbe immigrants, and the Gen people probably originate from the Ga-Adangbe people in Ghana. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francophone
French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the language of European diplomacy and international relations. According to the 2022 report of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), 409 million people speak French. The OIF states that despite a decline in the number of learners of French in Europe, the overall number of speakers is rising, largely because of its presence in African countries: of the 212 million who use French daily, 54.7% are living in Africa. The OIF figures have been contested as being inflated due to the methodology used and its overly broad definition of the word francophone. According to the authors of a 2017 book on the world distribution of the French language, a credible estimate of the number of "francophones réels" (real francophones), t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions. C.M.B. Brann, with particular reference to India, suggests that there are "four quite distinctive meanings" for national language in a polity: *"Territorial language" (''chthonolect'', sometimes known as ''chtonolect'') of a particular people *" Regional language" (''choralect'') *"Language-in-common or community language" (''demolect'') used throughout a country *"Central language" (''politolect'') used by government and perhaps having a symbolic value. The last is usually given the title of official language. In some cases (e.g., the Philippines), several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indigenous Languages
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is an official language of Bolivia. Also, national languages are not necessarily indigenous to the country. Many indigenous peoples worldwide have stopped passing on their ancestral languages to the next generation and have instead adopted the majority language as part of their acculturation into the majority culture. Furthermore, many indigenous languages have been subject to linguicide (language killing). Recognizing their vulnerability, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages "to draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages." Disappearan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
