The historical determinants of language status in Sub-Saharan Africa

Languages are one of the most naturally evolving human institutions. Although the status of languages is closely associated with the well-being of their speakers in multilingual societies, this issue gains only a marginal attention in economics and development studies. This paper aims to reveal the long-term determinants of the status of languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most linguistically fragmented areas of the world. Based on economic, anthropological and historical studies, we identify the following factors that are likely to have long-term effect on the current status of African languages: geography, precolonial contact with Europeans and the Arabs (Islam), precolonial development of indigenous societies, Christian missions and colonial policies. The main data sources are the Ethnologue, the Joshua Project, Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas, Roome’s map on the location of missions, various sources on the first Bible translations in African languages, and geographical data available online in shapefile and raster format. Using OLS and IV estimation techniques, we find that indigenous groups with relatively high socio-economic development before the European dominance, early Bible translation and relatively large share within current country borders are less likely to have their language in an endangered state today. Geographical variables and the nature of colonial policy seem to affect current language status indirectly through their impact on socio-economic development and missionary activities. The counterfactual analysis suggests that the contact with Europeans contributed to higher polarization in terms of language status.