Language shift in West Africa: an introduction

Abstract

West Africa is linguistically the most heterogeneous sub-region in Africa accounting for more than half of Africa’s 2000 languages. In spite of being one of the most linguistically diversified regions in the world with possibly the greatest occurrences of language shift and loss, studies focusing on language shift and maintenance in West Africa are almost absent in sociolinguistic literature. This special issue, which originates from thematic collection of papers on the subject matter, is in response to the need to fill this gap.