LINGUA E DIRITTO IN AFRICA

The main theme of our doctoral research in Comparative Law is entitled " Language and Law in Africa." This research will analyze the relationship between African languages, customary law and modern law in Africa today. Obviously it is not an easy task. Because, Africa judged as a whole continent is a cross of races, cultures, languages and religions, which makes any attempt to inventory difficult and it puts the most important factor to be considered, the accuracy, on the top of the goals our work will necessarily require. Given the use of the stratigraphic method by anthropologists and other law theorists, which allows to analyze the components of the historical evolution of any country, African law has yet to be considered not only like an ancestral law. This theory led to the acceptance and kind of proved the existence of a non - writing society. Today we have already acknowledged that law existed into the traditional African societies through the archives and in its oral form (proverbs, legends, coded and encoded rites). The colonial power from Europe (in the name of some countries like France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy) set its roots in Africa during the nineteenth century, where indigenous people living in small communities had yet to be ruled under the national legal systems of these invaders - civil law and common law systems - ; as soon as the spread of knowledge was keen on the local authorities and native people who were willing to cooperate with the western assailants, regardless of their own tradition and local customs. Their settlement got rise to a rupture between the colonial administration and the structural patterns of the African traditional society in every aspect of their previous life (cultural, social, political and economic). But with time, African colonies had become more reluctant to cooperate with the colonial power and would have soon asked for the so- called "self - determination'" right for indigenous people. After their independence (in 1960), not only the pursuit for freedom but national identity (a concept emphasized in their constitutions) turned itself into the main priority of the grown-wise African nations. Language was - and still is - one the tool of disclosure which helped many European legal concepts and lifestyle set the dominance of colonial power. Today, customary law has become more flexible allowing in a certain way the diffusion of modern law; since there is some room for development of these new legal concepts which promptly requires the language to play its part, the life of indigenous people can only get better. Here also the national idioms have played an important role. A reason is not so far to seek, there is nothing more indispensable than language as a factor of integration, solidarity, respect for common values and peace. This is an ineluctable challenge for the African nations in a world more and more globalized, and we can just hope they are ready to gamble and carry on.