On the occasion of the Week of the French language and the Francophonie: from Villers-Cotterêts to Abidjan, French, a plural language! While French remains the official language in Côte d’Ivoire, it differs greatly from French in France. In contact with the sixty local languages that the country has, the language has been transformed into “nouchi”. Although so-called academic French remains the norm of the elites, part of the Ivorian youth has appropriated this slang.
Long despised and considered the language of the poor and delinquents, this mixture of French, Dioula, Baoulé, Bété is found today in all social strata How do French, Nouchi and local languages coexist today? Should the French language remain the academic language? How to teach it?
With :
Jean Martial KouameFull Professor in the Department of Language Sciences at theFelix Houphouët-Boigny University and director of the Institute of Applied Linguistics of Abidjan.
Valerie DjeDoctor of Language Sciences, specialist in sociolinguistics and language didactics, currently teacher-researcher at theAbidjan Higher Normal School in the Department of Modern Literature. She is also a French teacher at theFrench Institute of Ivory Coast.
Seraphin Kouakoulecturer at theFelix Houphouët-Boigny Universitygrammarian and linguist.
Program recorded on the occasion of the 2022 edition of the masa at the international school Jean Mermoz, in Abidjan.