Your report (Senegal’s troubled Casamance region hopes for peace with rise of local boy to PM, 28 August) referred to the Gambia as “the roughly rectangular, English-speaking country that bisects Senegal”. Why do western media continue to categorise African countries based on colonial languages, as if African languages don’t exist?
This overlooks the fact that Wolof is widely spoken in both Senegal and the Gambia. By choosing to emphasise a European language over Wolof, the article seems to disregard African languages. While it is true that many African countries have not fully decolonised and continue to use colonial languages imposed on them as their “official languages”, it is crucial to question why this remains the norm.
