Justification for adopting Arabic as a second official language in the Republic of South Sudan

Today's leading languages in Africa, whether they are official or lingua franca, are recent imports from Europe as a result of colonial rule: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The Afro-Asiatic group of languages is next in prominence, with Amharic dominant in Ethiopia and Eritrea and Arabic in North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and to some extent in Morocco and Algeria, where Berber is a mother tongue to a large majority of the populations), as well as languages spoken in Sudan. Outlying regions in the west, east, and extreme north, where indigenous African languages are spoken.

Today’s leading languages in Africa, whether they are official or lingua franca, are recent imports from Europe as a result of colonial rule: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The Afro-Asiatic group of languages is next in prominence, with Amharic dominant in Ethiopia and Eritrea and Arabic in North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and to some extent in Morocco and Algeria, where Berber is a mother tongue to a large majority of the populations), as well as languages spoken in Sudan.  Outlying regions in the west, east, and extreme north, where indigenous African languages are spoken.

The majority of languages in use in Africa today, whether official or lingua franca, are foreign to the continent and were adopted as a result of European colonisation. Except for Amharic (which belongs to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages and is dominant in Ethiopia and Eritrea), Arabic; Egypt, Sudan, North Arica, and Kiswahili, which are primarily Bantu in origin with Arabic and Persian influences (Tanzania and Kenya to some extent), these languages can be considered indigenous, despite their origins in European colonial rule, primarily British and French.

At the end of colonial rule in Africa, the European languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese (Lusitanian), remain prominent as government languages and vehicles of instruction in schools and higher education institutions. For example, Niger in West Africa adopted French as both the official language and the medium of teaching in schools and colleges. Gambia, a British colony, adopted English for identical purposes. Despite the fact that the majority of Niger and Gambia’s population are Muslims, they have adopted the languages of previous colonial powers, French and Englis. Since Arabic is the language of the Quran, one would expect a country with a Muslim majority to adopt Arabic as an official language, but this did not occur. The rulers of those independent African countries instead picked French and English.

South Sudan Experience

Southern Sudan, which was then part of Sudan, was administered jointly by the Anglo-Egyptians beginning in 1899. When Sudan gained independence in 1956, Arabic was adopted as the official language of the entire country, though English was briefly used in Southern Sudan as a working language and medium in schools that had previously used African vernaculars; primarily Bari, Dinka, Nuer, Zande, Shilluk (Chollo), Lotuho, and Moru among others during the early stages of education, as decided at the Rejaf Language Conference in 1928.

Sudan’s government declared in 1957, barely a year after gaining independence, that Arabic would be the medium of instruction throughout the country. Soon after the use of vernaculars in teaching in Southern Sudan was phased out, with Arabic being introduced into Elementary as the sole medium from elementary to intermediate levels, while the former “Southern Pattern” schools continued with English as the medium from elementary to secondary school level, while what was branded as “special Arabic” was taught, a policy that was not intended to imbue the students with competency and fluency in the “standard” Arabic. Southern students who did not fit into the “National Pattern” were therefore at a disadvantage. The policy’s objective was to transform the country into an Arab nation at the expense of Sudanese people of African descent; previously, the country had joined the Arab League of Nations.

During the 1980s, the Southern Sudan Regional Government made English the language of instruction in all secondary schools, including those previously under the “National Pattern” in which Arabic was the medium and English was taught as a subject. Students from the old Arabic-based system struggled because they lacked or had no grasp of English. However, the strategy had little effect on the students at Rumbek Secondary and Juba Commercial Secondary Schools, as English has been the medium of instruction since their establishment in the late 1940s and early 1950s, respectively.

Following independence on July 11, 2011, South Sudan immediately declared English as its official working language, but Arabic would continue to serve as a lingua franca. Colloquial Arabic, particularly the brand known as Juba Arabic, has been a popular language of communication among many citizens who lack literacy in English, Arabic, or even the vernacular languages spoken in South Sudan or neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By chance, colloquial Arabic has emerged as a unifying force among South Sudanese who speak mutually unintelligible mother tongues while also failing to understand English.

Justification for adoption of Arabic as a second official language

To justify the adoption of Arabic as the second official language in South Sudan, I propose that the proposal be tabled for discussion and endorsement by the proposed Permanent Constitution Conference. The following reasons support my proposal:

  • State institutions, such as the judiciary, security organs, and Christian churches, use Arabic, whether classical or colloquial, for the benefit of non-English speakers. Additionally, mass media programs should use both standard and colloquial Arabic for listeners who do not understand English.
  • Arabic is one of the United Nations’ six official languages, alongside English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic.
  • According to Article 11 of The Protocol on Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union States, the official languages of the Union and its institutions are Arabic, English, Spanish, Kiswahili, and other indigenous African languages. This would provide an opportunity for South Sudanese to be present in the African family of states.

Certainly, some South Sudanese are likely to reject and question this proposal. One of the possible reasons would be that the close ties between Arabic as a language and Islamic faith, are seen by some people as intimately linked to the extent that the two- the language and the faith whose basic creed in Arabic- are not easy to separate in the mind of some people. Arabic, the language spoken by Sudan’s ruling class, has the potential to invoke terrible memories of the armed conflict between the two portions of the former Sudan, North and South. Furthermore, there is an Arabic saying, “He who learns the language of people, will be safe from their evil.”

Despite these fears, or reservations, I still believe that adoption of Arabic as the second official language of South Sudan to operate alongside English, which we should know is more alien to Africans users than Arabic is, will do more good than harm. The argument for or against adoption of Arabic as a second official language in our country should dwell on utility rather on bitter memories of the past associated oppression, marginalisation, and exclusion, meted against the people of the country that is South Sudan today, by rulers notorious for holding in contempt cultures, creeds and languages that were not Arabic or Islamic.

I openly appreciate the Ministry of General Education and Instruction’s role in introducing Arabic as a subject in primary and secondary schools.

I would like to highlight the importance of teaching all of our indigenous mother tongues beginning in primary school in order to preserve the cultural variety that is central to our identity as African South Sudanese. There is nothing wrong with teaching Arabic alongside our indigenous languages, as is done in post-apartheid South Africa, which teaches all languages, including Afrikaans.

South Sudanese intellectuals, lawmakers, and the general public should persuade the National Constitution Review Commission (NCRC) to include Arabic as a second official language in the next permanent constitution.

If need be, I would like to make this proposal, which certainly is likely to be controversial, to be subjected to a democratic process, namely by means of a referendum for the people to decide.

 I am convinced that members of South Sudan’s intelligentsia as well as their emerging nation will benefit from the use of Arabic as the second official language as well as its colloquial variant, which already has established itself as a lingua franca of the country. It’s food for thought.

Amb. Dhano Obongo 

Head of Mission

Embassy of the Republic of South Sudan

Rome, Italy

Permanent Representative to UN/ Rome Based

Agencies: WFP, IFAD and the FAO)

He can be reached via email address: dhano01obongo@gmal.com

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