Part 1 Global Africa: language an drace in the black experience - an African perspective; African languages in the African-American experience; linguistic Eurocentrism and African counterpenetration - Ali Mazuri and the global frontiers of language; language and the quest for liberation - the legacy of Fritz Fanon. Part 2 Continental Africa: language in a multicultural context - the African experience; language planning and gender planning; language policy and the foundations of democracy - an African perspective; language policy and the rule of law in "Anglophone Africa". Part 3 Regional case studies: dominant languages in a plural society - English and Kiswahili in post-colonial East Africa; a tale of two Englishes - the imperial language in post-colonial Kenya and Uganda; roots of Kiswahili - colonialism, nationalism, and the oral heritage; the secularization of an Afro-Islamic language. Concluson: the linguistic balance sheet - post-Cold War, post-apartheid and beyond structural adjustment.