Introduction to the Special Issue ‘African Languages in the Digital Age’

Abstract

The rapid pace of digital expansion across Africa has sparked important questions about the future of African indigenous languages. These questions serve as an entry point for deeper reflection, critical inquiry, and strategic thinking about the role these languages should play in public life, education, knowledge production, and technological innovation. Despite being central to the cultural identities and everyday practices of millions of speakers across the continent, African indigenous languages remain at a margin in the digital epoch. Nonetheless, viewed positively, this epoch has a strong potential of gradually opening new spaces in which these languages can be used, developed, refined, revitilised, and preserved. This special issue titled, “African Languages in the Digital Age”, is an attempt to discuss how digital technologies are transforming indigenous African languages ecologies, and how these languages provide platform for the digital landscape to be challenged and reshaped. It brings together interdisciplinary scholarship that critically investigates the link between language, technology, and issues of participation, transformation, use, and access. The issue covers peer-reviewed articles that touch on the following themes: