THE NEW YORK TIMES: More than 60 percent of French speakers now live in Africa. Despite growing resentment at France, Africans are contributing to the evolution and spread of the French language.
French, by most estimates the world’s fifth most spoken language, is changing — perhaps not in the gilded hallways of the institution in Paris that publishes its official dictionary, but on a rooftop in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast.
There one afternoon, a 19-year-old rapper who goes by the stage name “Marla” rehearsed her upcoming show, surrounded by friends and empty soda bottles. Her words were mostly French, but the Ivorian slang and English words that she mixed in made a new language.
To speak only French, “c’est zogo” — “it’s uncool,” said Marla, whose real name is Mariam Dosso, combining a French word with Ivorian slang. But playing with words and languages, she said, is “choco,” an abbreviation for chocolate meaning “sweet” or “stylish.”
A growing number of words and expressions from Africa are now infusing the French language, spurred by booming populations of young people in West and Central Africa. » | Elian Peltier | Photographs by Arlette Bashizi and Hannah Reyes Morales | Reporting from Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Dakar, Senegal; and Paris | Tuesday, December 12, 2023
