Talk:Languages of Mali

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The lead sentence of this article says that French is "fairly widely understood." I'm not sure that that is accurate, unless perhaps it is conditioned ("... in urban areas" or "one can usually find at least one person who speaks at least some French," or some such precision).

A source I'm looking at for something else cites a figure of 15% of the population that speaks French (as a second language). Dutcher, Nadine. 2004. Expanding Educational Opportunity in Linguistically Diverse Societies, 2nd. ed. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. http://www.cal.org/resources/pubs/expand.html (open the PDF and it's on p. 79).

Beyond all that, a phrase like "fairly widely understood" while harmless, gives a wide range to impressions or misimpressions by the reader. Not trying to nitpick here, but a rewrite would help - I'll try to get to it unless someone else gets to it first. --A12n 01:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

By all means go ahead! I agree with you that the phrasing is too vague and probably misleading (btw, that's quite a funny description you give there, "one can usually find at least one person who speaks at least some French"). — mark ✎ 07:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Restructuring and edits 1.1 New table 1.2 Another new table 2 Verifying actual wording on "national languages" of Mali

[edit] Restructuring and edits

I just rearranged some information and added a bit more. The intro is changed to more of an overview. I highlighted the de facto position of Bambara as the most widely used language. The term "national language" needs to be used with care since this is a legal category in Mali (and various other African countries; unfortunately the Wikipedia article on the subject does not yet cover this adequately). There still needs to be more info in several categories.--A12n 13:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New table

Just noticed the new table on languages of Mali in this article. Nice idea with potential for other pages, but I would suggest instead of "Minor indigenous languages" using "Other indigenous languages" (minor can be taken negatively), and instead of "Inter-ethnic languages" using "Languages of wider communication." If this table is generalized, "Regional languages" might also be used, either in the category "National languages" (i.e., "National or Regional languages") or with "Languages of wider communication." --A12n 05:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"Main foreign languages" could be replaced by "Other important languages." Arabic, currently in this category, has been used in what is now Mali for a lot longer than French, which is not listed. Which is more foreign? Arabic for that matter has some indigenous speakers. --A12n 05:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and made some of these changes.--A12n 05:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another new table

I just added a table with all spoken languages listed for Mali in Ethnologue. This permits re-ordering the list by different headings, much like the smaller table on the Languages of Niger page. There is a problem with the sorting for the numbers in this table (not sure how to make it put order in numerical order, rather than alphabetizing by digit). Also need to put more links in the table. Comments & improvements welcome. --A12n 05:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I created the first table but this one is better. Thanks for the improvements! Aaker 23:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. The info on where in the country the languages are spoken could be more pecise (referring to Malian administrative regions for example). Unfortunately it is hard to get good figures on second language speakership of most languages. ... There are several advantages, I think, to using the dynamic table, and it can be adapted to other countries as well (though some like Nigeria with many languages would be a challenge). --A12n 02:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verifying actual wording on "national languages" of Mali

I am wondering, belatedly, about exactly how the statute in Mali defining the 13 "national languages" is worded. Is it ust the way Ethnologue reports it or something different as indicated in L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde. Quotes from the two sources are listed on the PanAfriL10n page on Mali (1.1.b). --A12n 08:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)