Multilingual children’s language socialization in central Mali

This chapter deals with child language socialization in multilingual settings in central Mali. It is based on ethnographic observations illustrated through examples drawn from a large video database collected primarily to study child language acquisition. It describes qualitatively how children are socialized (through the use of languages) in a social milieu dominated by Fulɓe (Fula/Fulani/Peul) culture. Two case studies were conducted in two locations in central Mali: Nokara, a relatively homogeneous village in which most inhabitants are speakers of Fulfulde, and Douentza, a crossroads town with a multilingual population. In both contexts, children have a wide range of caregivers and a high range of mobility. Even if their nuclear family identifies as monolingual, children grow up multilingually because of the wider social context in which they grow up and because of their—and their caregivers’—great geographical mobility, which exposes them to different linguistic ecologies throughout their lives.