Kriol, Multilingualism, and Education in Guinea-Bissau

by

Hildo Honório do Couto
Department of Linguistics
Universidade de Brasilia
70.910 Brasilia, DF BRAZIL

Guinea-Bissau covers an area of 36,135 square kilometres. Its population of less than one million inhabitants speak over 15 languages. Fula, Balanta, Mangingo and Pepel are some of the most important ones. Kriol is spoken by about 75% either as a vernacular or as a vehicular language. Portuguese is the official language, although it is spoken by less than 2%, and as a second language.

Kriol is the only language that unifies the country. Almost all children that grow up in towns learn it as their main language, even when they first learn one of the native languages with their parents at home. As soon as they begin to play with other children in the streets they pass to Kriol. In rural areas native languages predominate, but even there everybody has at least a passive knowledge of it. In spite of this linguistic situation, the whole educational process is done in Portuguese, a foreign language. Thus, as F. Schnoor said, ‘Guineans speak a language that they do not write (Kriol) and write a language that they do not speak (Portuguese)’.

Ever since the Liberation War (1960-1974) there has been a continuous discussion about the use/non-use of Kriol in schools. The founding father of the nation, Amilcar Cabral, was clearly favourable to the use of Portuguese. He used to say that languages are instruments like any other. It does not matter if one uses a tractor made in Russia, England or the USA. In the same way it does not matter if one uses the language of Portugal or that of France if it is the best one for the development of the country. But he was aware of the fact that nobody in his country spoke Portuguese as a mother tongue. Therefore he defended the use of Kriol as a bridge to reach it (Cabral 1990).

The subsequent discussion revolved around the same theme. In a round table in the INDE (National Institute for the
Development of Education) in Sept./90, whose aim was to evaluate what was going on in rural schools, more often than not the discussion turned to the use/non-use of Kriol. Most discussants defended its use at least in the first two years of schooling, seeing in it a bridge to Portuguese, exactly like Cabral more than 20 years before. In 1990 the Min. of Education suggested its use in the first 3 years for the “umpty-first” time (Quadé 1990). But, as usual, Guinean politicians discuss too much and act too little. The radical proposals of the pedagogue Paulo Freire were never taken into consideration. He was for the adoption of Kriol as the official language of the country and, consequently, as the language of education, from the first to the last grade, along with Portuguese as a privileged foreign language (Freire/Faundez 1985). Experience has shown that this is difficult to be implemented. There is no teaching material, and no teacher is prepared for that purpose, although Kriol has no problem with graphization: the use of a phonemic writing is almost unanimous in the country.

The consequences of the above picture for Guinean children are disastrous. According to the statistics of 1984-5, only one out of 5,000 goes from first to the last grade (11th) successfully. As a rule they repeat one or more years. At the elementary level, only one out of 400 follows from the first to the sixth grade with success. 41% of the children inscribed in the first grade are not admitted to the second. Besides all that, one must keep in mind that only 40% of Guineans go to school at all. Thus, it is no surprise that illiteracy amounts to above 80% of the whole population (for more statistical details, see Lepri 1986).

As regards adult education, Kriol, Balanta and Fula have been used since 1988. The previous use of Portuguese simply did not work. However, up to now there are no results available.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cabral, A. 1990. A questão da lingua. Papia 1(2), 59-61.

Couto, H. H. do. (to appear) Kriol as a bridge to Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau. In Language Reform: History and future, Vol. VI, ed. by I. Fodor and C. Hagége (Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag).

Freire, P. and Faundez, A. 1985. Por uma pedagogia da pergunta. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra.

Lepri, J.-P. 1986. Análise das estatisticas escolares do ano lectivo 84-85. Boletim de informação sócio-econômica II/3, 50-57 .

Cedo, F. 1978. A educação na Guiné-Bissau. Itinerarium XIII(96/97), 7-12 .

Quadé, P. 1990. 0 crioulo nas escolas. Nô Pintcha 17/2/90, p.8 (newspaper).