TY - JOUR AU - Eke, Hilary Anayochukwu PY - 2018/07/02 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY: AN ENIGMA JF - The Melting Pot JA - TMP VL - 2 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://journals.aphriapub.com/index.php/TMP/article/view/13 SP - AB - <p>African philosophers who argue for a unique African identityare also greeted with the practice of&nbsp; communicating African&nbsp;philosophy largely in foreign languages. Some of these African&nbsp;scholars opine that there is need to redefine African philosophy&nbsp;in terms of the language with which it is communicated. In<br>Nigeria, as well as other parts of Africa, the problem of<br>language in African philosophy is raising a real&nbsp; concern. African philosophy is overly prided as unique by some of its&nbsp;proponents. Language which mirrors the culture of a people has&nbsp;a special role to play for African philosophy to maintain its&nbsp;uniqueness. Nigeria has more than two hundred distinct&nbsp;indigenous languages plus the use of English as a lingua franca.&nbsp;This paper investigates what determines the language in which&nbsp;African philosophy in Nigeria should be articulated. It&nbsp;concludes that the African scholar faces an enigmatic dilemma&nbsp;since the replacement of English as lingua franca by indigenous<br>languages suffers several developmental setbacks. The paper&nbsp;recommends that further research and funding for research on&nbsp;indigenous languages and lingua franca can improve the&nbsp;situation.</p> ER -