(universally) Readable Language: Une méthodologie de la nouvelle-écriture Africaine "bété"
Frédéric Bruly Bouabr's 2003 Une méthodologie de la nouvelle-écriture Africaine "bété" , in the style of a children's school workbook, aims to create a new alphabet for a pictographic African language based on French--essentially thrusting the niche language into readability and recognition. His work contains a translation guide, several short stories, and workbook exercises. Although the facsimile lined paper bled through with felt-tipped pen presents the translation in an innocuous way, the reality of standardizing an African language with French holds deep colonial connotations. The universality of the new translation seems to promise a pathway to integration into an interconnected global system; however, this act seems to erase the beauty of the original language and forces its interpretation through a Eurocentric colonial framework.
Creating a universal language becomes a contradictory process of accessibility and oppression. The efficacy of communication would be enhanced, but would largely reflect power dynamics--those with power would control the development.
_thumb.jpeg){kind=link}
