Diachronic View of the Language Policy in Togo

Togo, a multilingual country in West Africa, has experienced a plurality of linguistic policies since the colonial period. As a former German colony, Togo was managed according to the goodwill of Great Britain and France after the First World War. After its independence, French became the official language but the question of the promotion of national languages has come up in various debates since then. What were the colonial language policies? What is the current situation of the language policy in Togo? What impact have these different linguistic policies had on national life? What solutions or perspectives can we foresee for the future? These are the fundamental questions on which this chapter attempts to shed light. The data for this study were collected in Lome and Kara, two cities in Togo.