Gambia is set to drop English as official language very soon, Yahya Jammeh, Gambia’s President said in an address last week. He explained, “We no longer believe that for you to be a government, you should speak a foreign language. We are going to speak our own language.”
The country’s 1.9 million people are known to speak several African languages which includes Mandingo, Fula and Wolof which is the most widely spoken language of Senegal – its only direct neigbour.
Although, English is the main language of education, Jammeh said there was no reason to keep it. Although it did not specify which language will replace English as the main language of Gambia and he did not pick a precise time frame for dropping the English language, he has said that it would happen real soon.
