The linguistic world of field colonialism

ABSTRACT In the last decade of the nineteenth century, when pidginized Sango became the vehicular language of the Ubangi River basin, colonization by the French and Belgians was accomplished with little direct linguistic contact between the whites and the indigenous populations but with great rellance on the real or assumed linguistic skills of their foreign African personnel. The whites' use of African languages was limited with respect to the referentlal function but powerful with respect to the expressive or affective. (Colonization, Africa, Sango, pidginization, ethnography of communication)