Expansive Languages in Nineteenth-Century Central Africa

Missionary Dictionaries between Command and Dialogue

Bibliographic Data

ID23592417
AuthorsH Englund (0000-0001-6063-4986, corresponding author)
Year2025
Pages59-76
Publication date2025-11-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAfrican Literature in Transition : Volume 3 (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781009622318.004
OpenAlexW4415448681
ISBN9781009622318
LanguageEN
References cited18

In many parts of Africa, the mass production of printed texts began with Christian missions. Missionaries’ descriptions of African languages and their compilation of dictionaries were essential for the emergence of print cultures. However, missionary linguistics mirrored missionary politics. Two Protestant missionaries in Central Africa, one in Congo and the other in Malawi, differed in their views on both African languages and the European presence in Africa. Where Walter Henry Stapleton’s dictionary took an interest in colonial rule, David Clement Scott advanced dialogue in a radical vision for race relations. Both worked with widely spoken language forms, but the missionaries were driven by disparate motivations. Between them, the two dictionaries indicate considerable variation in the nineteenth-century missionary contributions to African print cultures. They, and the missionaries who compiled them, convey sharply divergent visions for African languages as contributions to human knowledge and imagination.

Agency (philosophy) · Expansive · Government (linguistics) · Work (physics) · African history and culture studies · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy

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